f gaining a livelihood; the court, therefore, adjudged them to be
rogues and vagabonds, and committed them, in execution, to the gaol at
Lewes, there to remain till the next Quarter Sessions, and then to be
further dealt with according to law. A short private conference followed
between the magistrates and Mr Adolphus, the result of which was that Mr
Walker was not proceeded against, but entered into a recognizance not to
permit any kind of gaming to be carried on in his house.

CHAPTER VIII. GAMBLING AT THE GERMAN BATHING-PLACES.----

BADEN AND ITS CONVERSATION HOUSE.

Baden-Baden in the season is full of the most exciting contrasts--gay
restaurants and brilliant saloons, gaming-tables, promenades, and
theatres crammed with beauty and rank, in the midst of lovely natural
scenery, and under the shade of the pine-clad heights of the Hercynian
or Black Forest--the scene of so many weird tales of old Germany--as for
instance of the charming _Undine_ of De la Mothe Fouque.

But among the seducing attractions of Baden-Baden, and of all German
bathing-places, the Rouge-et-noir and Roulette-table hold a melancholy
pre-eminence,--being at once a shameful source of revenue to the
prince,--a rallying point for the gay, the beautiful, the professional
blackleg, the incognito duke or king,--and a vortex in which the
student, the merchant, and the subaltern officer are, in the course of
the season, often hopelessly and irrevocably ingulfed. Remembering the
gaming excitement of the primitive Germans, we can scarcely be surprised
to find that the descendants of these northern races poison the pure
stream of pleasure by the introduction of this hateful occupation. It
is, however, rather remarkable that all foreign visitors, whether Dutch,
Flemish, Swede, Italian, or even English, of whatever age or disposition
or sex, 'catch the frenzy' during the (falsely so-called) _Kurzeit_,
that is, _Cure-season_, at Baden, Ems, and Ais.

Princes and their subjects, fathers and sons, and even, horrible to say,
mothers and daughters, are hanging, side by side, for half the night
over the green table; and, with trembling hands and anxious eyes,
watching their chance-cards, or thrusting francs and Napoleons with
their rakes to the red or the black cloth.

No spot in the whole world draws together a more distinguished society
than may be met at Baden; its attractions are felt and acknowledged by
every country in Europe. Many of the _elite_ of