The company to be seen round the table consists usually of Russians and French, both male and female, with a sprinkling of Germans, who escape from their own police in order to satisfy their itching for play. Thus, for instance, we have Nassau and Darmstadt people at Baden-Baden, while the Badese and Suabese rush to Homburg and Wisbaden. There is a very salutary law in every land where gambling is permitted, that no inhabitant of that land be allowed to play at the public table, and if any one is caught red-handed, he is usually imprisoned, and his winnings, if any, confiscated. We can call to mind a laughable instance of this at Wisbaden. Two old peasants, who had probably come for a day's pleasure and to see the sights, managed to find their way into the Kursaal, and stood all entranced before the roulette-table. One of them, imagining it a right royal way of making money, and much better fun than ploughing, lugged out his leathern purse, and began by staking a modest florin on the rouge. In the course of about half an hour he had contrived to win a very decent sum, and was walking away in great glee, when a gendarme, who had been watching him all the while, quietly collared him and dragged him off to the Polizei, where, as we afterwards learned, he was incarcerated for three weeks, and his "addlings" employed for the good of the state.
It may naturally be supposed that the presence of so much circulating medium in one place, and the _prestige_ attaching to the banquier's coffers, which are currently supposed to contain a sum
More precious far Than that accumulated store of wealth And orient gems, which, for a day of need, The sultan hides in his ancestral tombs,
would induce many depredators to make an attempt on them, but we generally find that cunning is much more in favor than any open attack. Thus, for instance, Monsieur le Blanc, who, we may add, has been more assailed than any other banquier, was nearly made the victim of a stratagem, which might have entailed serious results. A fellow contrived to get into the "Conversation Haus" by night, and blocked up all the low numbers in the roulette machine in such a manner that the ball, on falling in, must inevitably leap out again. On the next day he and his accomplices played, and netted a large sum by backing the high numbers. They carried on the game for two or three days, but were fortunately overheard by a detective while quarrelling about the division of their plunder, in the gardens behind the establishment. They were arrested, and the money recovered. A very dangerous design was also formed against him by one of his croupiers, who, being discontented with his lot, determined to make his fortune at one _coup_: and the plan he contrived was this. He procured a pack of pre-arranged cards, which he concealed in his hat, and when it came to his turn to deal, he intended to drop the bank cards into his _chapeau_ and cleverly substitute the others; but this artfully-concocted scheme was disconcerted, by one of his confederates considering he might make a better and safer thing of it by telling Le Blanc beforehand. His most imminent peril, and the occasion when his very existence as a banquier was at stake, was the affair with the Belgian company, of which Thackeray has given us a detailed account in his "Kickleburys up the Rhine."