MONTE CARLO.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6507, 4 January 1882, Page 6

MONTE CARLO.

(Tftttk.) There ia a great and increasing tendency amongst people whose avocation* do not lie them to any one particular spot, to eschew tho cases and annoyances of keeping house, and the monotonous round of visiting, dinner giving, dinner-eating, and party-frequenting, which ie tho weary businese of tho martyr* to tho social conventionalities. English people, when at home, hesitate to hob-nob with chance acquaintance* at watering-place hotels. Abroad they have no such reticence. They are ready to shako np with all nationalities, oven, indeed, with their own, consoling themielre* in tho latter cseo with the reflection that they will be able to ent their passing acquaintances if ever they meet them on tho sacred shore* of their native land. This tendency to gregarianiem ie nowhere more manifest than along Hie Biview- There anyone who has not been actually in prison may hope to find himself in relatione with hie fellow human beings, provided that he has a decent cost and reasonably good manner*. Those who knew the Biviera ten Jeers ago would hardly recognise it now. _ It as become tho headquarters of Bohemianiim, and every nook and cranny of it* principal towns have been utilised for a hotel or a villa. Its Bohomianism, however, is relative. Cannes still remains the most prim and demure of ite town*. It is mainly the retort of English people, with a certain toupqon of domesticity. Bespeotable in a certain way it may be, but most unquestionably it is dull. Hotel life Is subordinated to vilu* life. Solemn visits are made, and dismal dinner* are given. Mentone is the warmest town on the Biviera, and more then any other it is protected from winds, consequently it. is selected by those whose longs are affected. In comparison with its rivals, it is ugly. The hotels are usually full during the winter months, but the bad health of the guests creates a pervading gloom. Nice is not what it once was. The incongruous atoms that collect there every winter have deteriorated. They are a varied asiorte ment of all nationalities. The great people are mostly Foies and Bnsiians; the English and tho Americans are not precisely of the cream, but rather of the social skim milk. 'Jhe greater portion of the time of visitors to Nice is spent going backwards and forwards by train to Monte Carlo. They do not, they say, go over there to play, but to listen to the band, and if they do play it is only an accident, and they hold to the opinion that Nice is more respectable ae an address than Monte Carlo, although who on earth cares what their address is, I fail to discover. In the winter there are a considerable, number of balls given, and the gambling at the rival clubs is rather higher than it is at Monte Carlo. Over the Italian frontier is Ban Bemo. It has made extraordinary proGets of late. In summer there are always a rge number of Italian families who come tor the bathing, and in winter, although perhaps Italians predominate, there is the usual cosmopolitan crowd that is found at most Biviera watering places. Between Nice and Monaco a new road along the sea is to be finished In a week or two. This will open up a number of villages, well protected from the wind by the mountains,, and already the price of land at them has gone up five or six hundred per cent. The most ancient dynasty in Europe is that of Grimaldi. For many centuries it has reigned over Monaco. The direct line became extinct in the days of Napoleon 1., and this important throne passed to the French family, the chief of which now occupies it.' Monaco consists of two rocky promontories. Between them is a harbour and a small level plain. On the one promontory, that is now termed Monaco, the palace of the Prince and a small town with narrow streets, built after the Italian faahion, are situated. Twenty Sears ago the other promontory, that has sen dubbed Monte Carlo, as well as the plain behind the harbour, were covered with orange and olive groves. For many years the prince had received a trifle from a speculator to be allowed to keep a rowlette-tafile in one of the houses of the town. Its existence, however, was known to few. In 1862, the eminent M. Blanc bought out this speculator, and then obtained a lease of fifty years from tffie prince, entitling him to keep a gambling establishment open during that period. U. Blanc’s ideas were grandiose. He built a karsaal and a hotel at Monte Carlo, and formed gardens and terraces around them. In order to meet the expenditure, he formed a joint-stock company with a capital of 15,000,000 francs; few, however, took shares in it, and he retained almost; all of them. When gambling was suppressed at Hombnrg, M. Blanc fell book on us Monte Carlo establishment. Before, however, he eould do much there, death laid hold of him. He hod married a lady who had, if I remember rightly, been his cook —a fat, good-natured, harmless German frau. To her he left his money and his hell. The old lady was a woman of business and of energy. She greatly enlarged the hell, and made arrangements by which Monte Carlo itself was covered with villas, and a new town was built on the plain near the harbour. Her son she established in Paris, where he became one of the pillars of French " sport.” One of her daughters she married to Prince EadzeviUe, the other to Prince Pierre Bonaparte. Having some vague notion that keeping a hell in this world was not precisely the way to qualify her for Paradise in the next, she distributed large sums in charity, and provided the Jesuits and various societies of nuns with the means to found large educational establishments in Monaco. Then she went to rejoin her lamented husband. The hell now belongs to h«r son and her sons-in-law, in consideration of their paying to the Prince of Monaco an annual sum, and keeping up his army, the roads in the principality, and pretty well every administrative department in it. As it is not a little curious that the three principal owners of the only public gambling establishment that now exists should be a representative of the oldest dynasty ia Europe, a representative of the old Polish aristocracy, and a representative of Imperial Franco, the policy of lavish 'expenditure, as a means to attract, is continued. The latest addition to the karsaal is a lofty room, the exact copy of the most gorgeous salon in the Pitti Palace; and there u a bond of eighty picked performers, that play every afternoon and evening. Each year fresh terraces and fresh gardens are laid out. As hell-keepers, it must be admitted that the Princes know their business. Nature, with the blue Mediterranean bathing the Promontory, with a climate where winter is unknown, with oranges, olives, and palms growing in profusion, with the abrupt mountains rising behind, did much for the place, but nature has been treated artistically, and small ai the Principality of Monaco is, no kingdom can surpass or rival it in beauty. In the gardens attached to the kursaal two hundred gardeners are employed, and It might perhaps be better were there fewer, for tho garden is a little too prim, rad there are far too many carpet-beds. On the opposite Promontory at Monaco there ie a public garden, which to my mind is far more beautiful. The trees are pines, rad below them there is a dense vegetation of aloe*, cactuses, and red geraniums. Tho wood reaches the edge of the rooks that lead straight down to the sea, a view of which is caught every moment between the trees. Behind this garden are two vast educational establishments—one for boys, under the superintendence of the Jesuits, the other for girls, under that of nuns, for the Prince of Monaco is as etrongly opposed a* was the late Madame Blano to secular education, rad the youth of the Principality are brought up to regard the Church and the roulette .at twin inetitutione, equally divine in their origin, and a Jesuit as the next thing in godliness to a croupier. The two garden*, with their surroundings, present a strange contract. In the Monaco garden you might suppose yourself In some retreat far removed from toe noise and turmoil, the passions and the greed of modem existence. Its only tenants are children playing under the eye of some kindly nun, or Jesuit fathers wandering about in pairs, rad demurely perusing them breviaries. All invites to a dreamy repose; whereas, in the other garden, you hear nothing but discussions as to the best mod* to win money, and you see nothing but men and women, who walk sadly abont because chance ]»• sol been

kind to them, and they bn nothing nor* with which to tempt fortune. I am told that the hell-keeper* divided loet jeer fourteen million franca among** them, end this, I sospeot, ie about the figure, for it taliiee with a calculation of the profit* of the bank on the money that ie atakod upon the table*. In rammer there are three roulette-table*, in winter confidently mote. The bank’* profit on the etake* i* 2| per cent., that i« to *ay 276 frano* on eaeh 10.000 franc* played. There are On an avenge 40 coups at roulette each hour, and the play it earned on for twelve hour* each day. On every coup, about 1000 franc* U the average •take. Thi* would give an average pofit of 13.000 franc* per diem for each table. The number of roulette table* tbroughoot the year, one *ea*on with another, may betaken at four. The groe* profit, therefore, from the roulette i* 18,272 000 franc* per annum. i n rammer there i» one trent et quaranle table, in winter there are tvo. Here the profit of the bank on all »Uke* i» 1 per cent. The average staked is about 1500 franc* each coup and there are 70 coup* each hour. Allow one and a-half table* for every day of the year, and the annual profit would be 6.912.000 franc*. The average total grow profit of roulette and innle el quaranle table* ought, conrequently, to be 26,184,000 fr«,nc*. Making every allowance, therefore, for the amount paid to the Prince of Monaco, for the vast current expenditure, and for tha building* and improvement* that are going on, 14,000,000 franc*, or £660,000, i« »otnewhafc a low estimate of tho annual net Sofit that accrue* to tho heli-kr»p«r*. ost -of the player* are cither French or Italian. They are mainly young men, and none of them present the outward appearance of millionaires. When one see# one of them produce a packet of thousand frane notof, one expects in a day or two to hear that come one has been murdered by hie servant in the neighbourhood. Snob, however, does not turn out to be the case. Most of the player* are, therefore, I fancy, clerka and persons engaged in small commercial enterprises, who, having carefully saved for months, or perhaps year*, are indulging ia the sanguine expectation that tha tables arc to convert these B&rings into a mine of gold. It is amusing to watch the characteristic* of the two nationalities. Both are vain, but the Italian doe* not carry off his vanity so calmly a* the Frenchman. He arrays himself in vestments as many-coloured a* was Jojcph’s garment. So far as I can make it out he regards a shirt as a useless superfluity. Around hi* neck ho affixes a huge collar, cot so low that bis manly breast is exposed to view, and to thi* collar is appended a vast bow. Then he docs a pair of cuff* nearly a* large a* his collar, which are kept together by an enormous link, and which slip down every moment over hi* hands. Thu* arrayed, with a pair of glove* on his hands, with his hair well pomaded and brushed, and with s ponderous gold chain attached to his waistcoat, he takes his place at the table. He feels that he is attractive, but he is not absolutely certain that this opinion will be (hared by all who gaze upon him, and so ho is always casting uneasy and anxious glances around to see whether many are looking at Tiim. The French second-rate dandy, on the Other hand, although by no means quiet in his garb, is less loud than the Italian. The worthy fellow never double for one second that wherever he appears, men envy him and women adore him, and this feeling is, it seems to me, strong in proportion to the absence of comeliness. FoDy satisfied with himself, he does not divide his attention, but when at the table* ie absorbed in the schema that is to lead him to fortune. Perhaps the most excitable player is the Ttwgtinhman. He slides into a chair, and then empties bis pockets on the table before him. As he loses, he rub* up his heir until it is dishevelled, and be looks generally hot and uncomfortable. When he has loet all that he has with him he sits staring im blank dismay for a few moments at tha ceiling, then looks at his watch, as though he had an appointment, and sneaks off in a guilty sort of way, as if he imagined that everyone were laying that he is rained. At present there Kre three Miociationj playing the same system at the roulette. Its deviser la an eminent Oriental diplomatist, and it consists in marking down all the numbers as they come out during tho day; then the next day the annotations play on the six numbers that have come out the fewest times during the previous day. The diplomatist plays e» grand tignenr, Two secretaries sit at tbs table staking his money, and he strolls about, occasionally dropping in to see how the gams is going. Another of these associations consists of a lady, her daughter and her nephew. Two are always at the tables with a vast array of ledgers before them, whilst the third rests. The third association is mode up of on Italian gentleman and a French lady, and they have a couple of clerks to keep their accounts. Each association plays six Napoleons every comp, and I neve vainly endeavoured to convince the Oriental diplomatist that if he is in a room where there are two tables, at one of which he can play with a percentage of one against him. and ait the other with a percentage of two and threequarters, be ought, as an unquestionable fact based upon the most elementary knowledge of Cocker, to play on the farmer and not on the latter. ** Sou pLy," I said to him, “six Napoleons each coup, you play ten hours each, day, and you have now played for thirty days. Tou have, therefore, during this period, staked 1,440,000 francs, or, in other words, yon hare paid to the bank, for the privilege of playing, a percentage of 98,600 (ranee. Continue this amusement for a year, and, according to the doctrine of probabilities, you will bare lost the modest sum of £15,400.” - Gambling is a passion that 1 understand. There is a certain plea*arable excitement for the moment in submitting oneself absolutely, like a waif or stray, to blind fortune. Every one would like to convert each pound that ho has got into twe, no matter how many pounds he may already possess. But to play at Monaco is to risk a pound against nineteen shillings, and one would imagine that the meanest understanding would realise that this must, putting luck or ill-luck aside, be a losing game in the long run. That some do win is, no doubt, true, but they are invariably either those who play so short a time that there is no tune for the percentage of the bank to prodace its inevitable result, or else the ladies, more frail than even powder can make them fair, who conduct their gambling upon the sound financial basis that, as regards women, le Jen, cfest Vargent del hommes.

000 of the most amusing feet urea of the place is the army. It constats of thirty privates, with a considerable staff of .officers. But never were seen such privates. They at* arrayed in tight jackets and broad trousers of bine, bound with red. They wear rings on their fingers, hut no swords at their sides, andjthey walk about with little caps on the sides of their heads, the most exquisite of dandies—soldiers such as one might suppose would be kept up by States when wars are thing* of the past. X am told that most of them are rained gamblers, who have taken service to defend, if needs be, the establish* ment that has absorbed all their money. The Prince himself is an old blind man. Yean ago, I onoe bad the honor to dine with him. The etiquette of the Court of St. Petersburg is a joke to that which environs the monarch of Monaco. The other guests and I were shown into a drawing-room. The doom were thrown open, and there was a shout of “ Son Alteese." Then, leaning on the arm of one aide-de-camp, and preceded by another, the Potentate entered with iris family behind him. By this time we had all ranged ourselves round the room, and the Prince was led rougd the circle, when we were all introduced to him. Again a door was thrown open, and we followed the Boyal Family into the dining-room. I found that it was not etiquette to address any of the Boyal Family unless they spoke first, and as they said hardly anything, the dinner was more solemn than lively. After dinner we all went back into another room. The Monarch and hi* family bowed to us, and then wo went away. An aide-de-camp was good enough to show me over the Palace. Hi* knowledge was not on a par with his good intention*. “Of tho fifteenth century, in the time of Louis XT.,** he said, pointing to one room. “Of tho fourteenth century, in tbs time ,of Lous* ' XIV,," bo oontinnad, pointing to another.