Baden-Baden is the third, and certainly
most beautiful of these German gambling-
towns. The town nestles, as it were, in a
sheltered valley, opening amongst the hills of
the Black Forest. In summer its aspect is
very picturesque and pleasant; but it looks
as if in winter it must be very damp and
liable to the atmosphere which provokes the
growth of goître. At Baden there is said to
be more play than at the other two places
put together. From May till the end of
September, roulette and rouge et noir—the
mutter of the man who deals the cards, and
the rattle of the marble—are never still. The
profits of the table at this place are very large.
The man who had them some years ago
retired with an immense fortune; and one of his
successors came from the Palais Royal when
public gaming was forbidden in Paris, and
was little less successful than his predecessor.
The permanent residents at Baden could
alone form any idea of the sums netted, and
only such of those as were living near the
bankers. They could scarcely avoid seeing
the bags of silver, five franc pieces chiefly,
that passed between the gaming-tables and
the bank. A profit of one thousand pounds a
fortnight was thought a sign of a bad season;
and so it must have been, when it is calculated
that the gambling-table keeper paid the Duke
a clear four thousand pounds a year as the
regal share of the plunder, and agreed to
spend two thousand a year in decorating the
town of Baden. The play goes on in a noble
hall called the Conversations House, decorated
with frescoes and fitted up most handsomely.
This building stands in a fine ornamental
garden, with green lawns and fine avenues of
tall trees; and all this has been paid for by the
profits of roulette and rouge et noir. Seeing
this, it may cause surprise that people play at
all; yet the fascination is so great that, once
within its influence, good resolutions and
common sense seem alike unequal to resistance.
All seems fair enough, and some appear to
win, and then self-love suggests, "Oh, my
luck will surely carry me through!" The
game is so arranged that some win and some
lose every game, the table having, it is said,
only a small percentage of chance in its favour.
These chances are avowedly greater at roulette
than at rouge et noir, but at both it is
practically shown that the player, in the long run,
always loses. It is whispered that, contrary
to the schoolboy maxim, cheating does thrive
at German baths; and those who have watched
the matter closely, say a Dutch banker won
every season by following a certain plan. He
waited till he saw a heavy stake upon the
table, and then backed the other side. He
always won.

Go into one of the rooms at any of these
places, and whom do you see? The off-scourings
of European cities—professional gamblers,
ex-officers of all sorts of armies; portionless
younger brothers; pensioners; old men and
old women who have outlived all other
excitements; a multitude of silly gulls, attracted
by the waters, or the music, or the fascination
of play; and a sprinkling of passing tourists,
who come—"just look in on their way,"
generally to be disappointed—often to be
fleeced. Young and handsome women are not
very often seen playing. Gaming is a vice
reserved for middle age. Whilst hearts are
to be won, dollars are not worth playing for.
Cards and rouge, and dyspepsy seem to be
nearly allied, if we may judge by the specimens
of humanity seen at the baths of Wiesbaden,
Homburg, and Baden. The players—and
player and loser are almost synonymous terms
—are generally thin and anxious; the bankers,
fat and stolid. As the brass whirls round,
the table-keeper has the look of a quiet
bloated spider, seemingly passionless, but with
an eye that glances over every chance on the
board. At his side see an elderly man, pale
and thin, the muscles of whose lower jaw are
twitching spasmodically, yet with jaded,
forced resignation, he loses his last five
pounds. Next him is a woman highly
dressed, with false hair and teeth, and a
great deal of paint. She has a card in her
hand, on which she pricks the numbers
played, and thus flatters herself she learns
the best chances to take. Next to her see one
of the most painful sights these places display.
A father, mother, and young girl are all trying
their fortune; the parents giving money to
the child that they "may have her good luck,"
reckless of the fatal taste they are implanting
in her mind. Next is a Jew, looking all sorts
of agonies, and one may fancy he knows he is
losing in an hour, what it has cost him years
of cunning and self-denial to amass. And so
on, round the table, we find ill-dressed and
well-dressed Germans, French, Russians,
English, Yankees, Irish, mixed up together
in one eager crowd; thirsting to gain gold
without giving value in return; risking what
they have in an insane contest which they
know has destroyed thousands before them;
losing their money, and winning disgust,
despondency, and often despair and premature
death. Never a year is said to go by
without its complement of ruined fools and
hasty suicides. The neighbouring woods
afford a convenient shelter; and a trigger,
or a handkerchief and a bough, complete the
tragedy.

Let us say no more of our civilisation having
banished Schinderhannes, and his predecessors,
the half-soldiers, half-thieves, who built the
stone towers now crumbling up above the
vineyards of the noble German river. Their booty
in a year could not have equalled the plunder
of a single month at Wiesbaden, Homburg, or
Baden-Baden. The real freebooters of the
place are still extant, and carry on their
trade under the banner of chieftains who
share the spoil—the reigning Dukes of
Nassau, Homburg, and Baden—who are
the veritable grand modern robbers of the
Rhine.