no means certain that the town itself will not be a
gainer by it. Holiday seekers must go somewhere. The air of Hombourg is
excellent; the waters are invigorating; the town is well situated and
easy of access by rail; living is comparatively cheap--a room may be had
for about 18_s_. a week, an excellent dinner for 2_s_.; breakfast
costs less than a shilling. Hombourg is now a fixed fact, and if the
townspeople take heart and grapple with the new state of things--if they
buy up the Kursaal, and throw open its salons to visitors; if they keep
up the opera, the cricket club, and the shooting; if they have good
music, and balls and concerts for those who like them, there is no
reason why they should not attract as many visitors to their town as
they do now.'(81)

(81) Correspondent of _Daily News._

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

The gaming at Aix-la-Chapelle is equally desperate and destructive.
'A Russian officer of my acquaintance,' says a writer in the Annual
Register for 1818, 'was subject, like many of his countrymen whom I
have known, to the infatuation of play to a most ridiculous excess.
His distrust of himself under the assailments which he anticipated at
a place like Aix-la-Chapelle, had induced him to take the prudent
precaution of paying in advance at his hotel for his board and lodging,
and at the bathing-house for his baths, for the time he intended to
stay. The remaining contents of his purse he thought fairly his own;
and he went of course to the table all the gayer for the license he had
taken of his conscience. On fortune showing him a few favours, he came
to me in high spirits, with a purse full of Napoleons, and a resolute
determination to keep them by venturing no more; but a gamester can no
more be stationary than the tide of a river, and on the evening he
was put out of suspense by having not a Napoleon left, and nothing to
console but congratulation on his foresight, and the excellent supper
which was the fruit of it.'

Towards the end of the last century Aix-la-Chapelle was a great
rendezvous of gamblers. The chief banker there paid a thousand louis
per annum for his license. A little Italian adventurer once went to the
place with only a few louis in his pocket, and played crown stakes at
Hazard. Fortune smiled on him; he increased his stakes progressively; in
twenty-four hours won about L4000. On the following day he stripped the
bank entirely, pocketing nearly L10,000. He continued to play for some