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Nelson Evening Mail, 29 May 1916, Page 8

There is no gold to beseen'in. tnese Aav= on the gamin.r tables at Monte Carlo Eighty per cent of the playars are women, unlike the old clientele: plain bourgeois and peasant types of faco* abound. The Joss of a few francs matters g> ?atlv in then- Jives, and some - the tables-in much distress a iter losing a guinea. In the sumptuou- re-freshment-rooms -many of those whohad come earlv are drinking a glass of ' beer and munching a' sandwich, often brought with them wrapped in a newspaper ■ The slitter and- '"brilliance of the rmltitud'e who gathered here in former days have disappeared. The gold coin that- -shone so lustrously against, the "Teen' baize of the earning tables ha= vanished. . The atmosphere of bacchic beauty of -this enchanted landscape, of these "hanging gardens which rise tier in»u tier"above the sea. of this, en- " vironment of sen»nous splendour which made of Monte -Carlo a pagan sanctuary unique in the-world, has faded away. Can it be otherwise when the temple of Janus 'stards open? '-■ Mr G A. Pearson, describing some incidents "in the historv of the recently deceased Standard, said: —"When the paper passed under my control it- was conducted on curiously old-fashioned lines. There was an extraordinary sys- '- tern of beer tickets in force. n ff e tickets were given away by a hurhly conscientious gentleman, who received & salary of- 30s a week. He stood at the portals of the Standard office intent upon seeing that no deserving' person went awav without a foeer ticket. The dravman in charge of a load of paper. the" boy who kept the coat of a visitor from brushing against the wheel of a hansom-cab,.the messenger who brought » letter, would all receive a mysterious looking' bine ticket which entitled it? possessor to half a pint of beer at any public-house in the neighbourhood. These - beer-tickets were on Saturday mornings, and cost the "Standard a&but year." " -"I do not want you to think that our - young men are 'bad or especially liable to dmnkenness," said Dean Carat a" public meeting at 'Christfhurch, says the Press, regarding the early "closing of hotel hars. "They are only young men. I know what this . shouting it, for I have been a layman, and I know it comes from good-hearted-ness, good comradeship, more than any thing else,'and- it is meant well. But when' it leads too what a. previous speaker has described —men im drinking far too much —is it not mme - w 'pnta check on ourselves? I do not -blame"our boys—(l have three sons among them —(applause)— ! but the civilians are to blame for treating them. ' Germany's threat that her tourists will not visit England after the war is not—quite the supreme effort of frightfulness. We mav be -pardoned for thinking that -the loss will fce as much theirs as°ours. ' For German visitors have commonly found England agreeable. The historic incident of young Bismarck's visit in 1842 is his disgusted fiight from Hull When he found "that he must not 'whistle in the street on Sunday. But he wrote to his father: —"I cannot praise too highly the extraordinary eonrtesy and kindness of English people, -which faT surpass what I had expected : even the poor people are pleasant, very unassuming, and easy to get on with when one talks to them." And the officers at- York" "asked me to dinner, .and - showed me everything."