Alluring Monte Carlo.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXI, Issue 8961, 9 December 1905, Page 6 (Supplement)

Alluring Monte Carlo.

Mr F. Berkeley Smith, in his latest work, "Parisians Out of Doors," writes of "the season" at the various places to which tiie pleasure-loving French Tosort, describing the Grand Prix at Longchamps ; Trouviile, the French Manluittan Beach; some quiet villages in Normandy to which tho true Bohemians, found in France only, flocn. in their leisure season, and ends with an animated description of the gaieties afc Nice and the gambling at- Monte Carlo. Mr Smith provides a particularly livid and colorful picture of the great gaming resort and the cosmopolitan crowd frequenting it. It is by a great glass enclosed elevator that one ascends from the level o? tlie town to that of the Casino and its beautiful gaTdeiis. He says :—"The very beauty of the place took one's breath away. The silence was uncanny. . . Along the spotless little paths winding in and out among the flowers and shrubbery, each leaf of which shone a 6 if it kid been washed by hand, and along the broad, gravellecl esplanade skirted by a parapet overlooking the sea, were hundreds promenading and vet there was no babble of voices, people spoke in lowered tones, as they would within church. Crowning the garden, rose majestically the pure white casino, like a carved pearl among a setting of green and white Alps. It, was strikingly like a scene upon tho stage. . . . Monte Carlo impressed ma that afternoon as some ethereal and uncanny fairyland, not part of this earth, but like some mirage poised over a br&athless blue sea. It was sunset when "I left the gardens and found the 1110?.;n entrance to tlie casino, fronting a huge square circled by lights from the brilliant cafes. . . Tlie interior casino reminded me of some great bank or clearing house ; it liad the air of vast capital and solidity. To the right of the vestibule was a spacious coat Toom, with a perfect system for storing away by means of dumb waiters, one's belongings and restoring them as promptly as a librarian finds a popular book in the publio library. The air in the palatial senes of gaming rooms is vitiated and stiflingly hot, no attempt being made in the winter to ventilate them. About each roulette and t rente et quarante table the crowd is densely packed. The silence is oppressive, only relieved by tlie dull muTmurings of thousands, the terse voices of the croupiers and the incessant chink of silver and gold. Hour after hour, without a minute's, cessation, from morning until midnight, within these ornate yet dignified rooms yom will see whole fortunes change hands until gold and bank notes appear to you as having as little value as two fists full of sand. At no hour during tho day does the magnet cease to attract. A cluster of lights with green fringed shades shed a soft steady light- over the rabies. P,jgh up on the walls, panelloa with the "Works of some of the best French painters, are flamboyant ■brackets bearing other Oil lamps; and above these a mellov ser j e3 0 f electria bufbs. It- is a wise 'nought. Were it all electricity a well organised band might I s " a P the wires, and in the darkness rob the tables. I.tiere is never any evidence of I slightest feeling of remorse or Tepentance °p 'he. part of the croupiers, even when that sensational thing known as 'Breaking V l ® bank,' or more exactly, breaking one table, is not such a rarity as many imagine. Ail that happens is that the play is delayed at that table foT about ten minutes, until the banker can send his statement upstairs and a request for another fat packet of notes, after which play is immediately resumed. In respect to the fairness of the game at Monte Carlo, Mr Smith says one might as well doubt the honesty of the Banlt of England. Although the chance is in favor of the bank, everything is done to spin the wheel fairly, ita delicate mechanism being tested daily, and; the croupiers being under strict orders and surveillance in Tegard to its spinning. Tho establishment is not obliged to be unfair, their reputation being at stake they can afford to continue a fair game; for their profits aTe enormous, over eight millions of people having gambled' at Monte Carlo in the past fifteen years.