HOMBURG TO-DAY.
GAMBLING is generally considered by modern Europe to be a vice. But as to what gambling is, probably scarcely two people's opinions entirely coincide. No definition of it is indeed possible. Sixpenny whist or a "round game," with counters at a shilling a dozen, is as much gambling as playing a martingale at trente - et - quarante, or backing the favourite for a thousand pounds ; and although most people might consider the latter a somewhat reprehensible form of amuse- ment, few would be found to condemn the former, except 'those somewhat singularly constituted people who object to the use of cards even in the juvenile game of beggar- my-neighbour, and who abstain on principle from entering the walls of a theatre. Stock-Exchange transactions, too, of almost endless variety are a species of gambling, more ruinous and often scarcely more reputable than the "Ecarte" in the Palais Royal at -the beginning of the century; and even in more legitimate busi- mess adventures, the turn of the market is frequently as uncertain as the turn of a card. But in all games of chance played for money for mere amusement, which is perhaps a fair enough description of what is generally meant by Gambling, the proportion borne by the amount of the stake to the means of the stakes is a very important element in the question of the reprehensible or innocent character of the play. If some of our wealthier noblemen, who have really more money than they -know what to do with, can derive any pleasure from risking a few thousands upon a horse-race, we may regret that the money -should not be put to a better use, but we cannot see anything very immoral in the act ; while the man who in a "quiet rubber" at his club loses the few pounds which would make all the differ- ence between ease and difficulty in Ids wife's weekly budget, or -perhaps imperils the payment of his tailor's bill, is clearly wicked, As well as contemptible. The question of Gambling is not unlike that of the observance of the Sunday, is. that it is one which, within certain limits, every one must judge and act for himself. But inasmuch as the tendency of every form of gambling is more or less demoralising, society has a right to place such restrictions upon its public exercise as may be compatible with the liberty of the subject. 'Taking somewhat this view of its duties, as a guardian of public interests as well as of public morality, the German Government, upon a memorable occasion which will be in the recollection of .almost every one of our readers, determined to shut up the well-known public gambling establishments which had attracted so many thousands of pleasure-seekers to the world-renowned Baths of Homburg, Baden, Ems, and the rest. The inhabitants and the owners of property at these favourite places of resort were in dismay. Compensation was, of course, out of the ques- tion, and yet what was to be done with the palatial hotels and the long streets of handsome apartments which it was feared no visitors would be found to come and inhabit, when the voice of the croupier should no longer be beard in the deserted Kursaai? 'The mineral waters could not, of course, be taken away, but the prizes that had attracted the greater number of visitors had been of gold rather than of iron, sulphur, or magnesia, and the " waters " had been a recognised and respectable excuse for the appearance of those visitors who did not like to own either to their friends or to themselves that they had come merely to play. So in due course of time it came to pass that at eleven o'clock one night the croupier said, " Rien ne ye plus 1" at one after another of the Ger- man gambling establishments, and the players had to migrate to Monaco or Saxon-les-Bains, or lose their money leas publicly, but more exclusively, at their clubs in Paris or London. Of course, the little towns suffered severely. As places of pleasant resort, they were spoiled even for those who did not play, but they were not quite ruined. The waters still continued to attract a certain number of visitors, and though they did not spend their money as freely as of old, they paid their way, and at least kept the inhabitants alive. Those wha suffered most by the change, next to the inhabitants of the towns, were those visitors wh.) used to frequent them either for the waters or simply as agreeable places of resort, and who did not play. They contributed nothing towards the gilded saloons, the shaven lawns, the gay parterres, and neatly-kept walks, the admirable band, the reading-room, the concerts, and the agreeable dances, but they enjoyed them all the more, in thinking that they were, to a certain extent, reaping the fruits of their self-control and superior wisdom. Now the wise as well as the foolish are taxed alike by the municipalities who have taken over the now virtuous Kurhaus, but the lawns are unshaven, the parterres no longer bloom, and even the music is indifferent. Bat perhaps, after all, the greatest change is in the company, and this, it must be allowed, has changed for the better. The dissipated-looking men, and even more dissipated-looking women, with whose faces every visitor to Ems or Wiesbaden was so well acquainted, are no more to be seen, and the boulevardiers, the club and regimental loungers, the Russian princes, and the gilded youth of all countries are equally conspicuous by their absence. With regard to the people by whom they have been replaced, a general look of "quietness," in some cases almost amounting to "seediness," has been up to the present the general characteristic, but at one place this year has brought so great a change in this respect that it merits a special notice. In the old wicked days of "high play and low dresses," Homburg was said to consist of "all Paris and half Dublin," but since the close of the play neither of these Celtic capitals has been represented in its society, which has consisted chiefly of English and Anglo-Indian valetudinarians who had come bond fide to drink the waters. The season of 1877, however, although short in duration, has been not only the fullest, but the " smartest " that has been known at Homburg since the shutting-up of the tables ; and the whole of fashionable London seemed with one con- sent to have selected the neighbourhood of the Taunus mountains as the place to spend at least some part of the month of August. Dukes, Royal, Serene, Grand, and simply Most Noble, Peers of every degree, M.P.'s innumerable, no less than eight Judges of the High Court, a dozen Life Guardsmen, half a dozen London beauties, Popular actors, and Popular masters of hounds, Cabinet Ministers, Editors, and Generals were to be seen at the early promenade, and met with throughout the day, until it became somewhat embarrass- ing to distinguish out of the multitude of familiar faces that of a "bowing acquaintance" from that which we had no right to recognise. Boys from Eton and Harrow, young men from Oxford and Cambridge, girls "out" and not out, of every age, with English maids, and footmen, combined to give a, peculiar flavour of " home " to this strange and misnamed foreign society. But the strangest fact of all was not so much the number and charac- ter of the English visitors at Homburg, but the fact that they seemed to have taken possession of the place, to the exclusion of all other societies and nationalities. There were no French, no Russians, no Austrians, the solitary family which represented Prussian nobility had no compatriots or companions, and the few Americans wore not only English-speaking people, but as a rule, were well known in Londou society. Indeed, no language was to be heard in the streets and promenades but that which is vernacular in Belgravia, and although the limited number of Hes- sians who seemed, as it were, to be permitted by the English invaders to remain for the purpose of ministering to their comfort, wore presumably able to speak German, they rarely gave any sign of this power in the presence of the all-pervading stranger. The air of Homburg may be very pure, its waters may be highly efficacious in certain derangements of the system, and the lawn- tennis played under exceptionally favourable conditions, both social and climatic, may increase the beneficial effects of both air and water, but it is absurd to talk of or think of life at Homburg in a season like the present as "living abroad." Of course there
is no reason why people should live abroad, but they may as well know what to expect wherever they do go, and those who appre- ciate foreign society or enjoy foreign life, as well as those who prefer taking their holiday unaccompanied by half their London acquaintances, should choose some other place of summer resort than Homburg-on-the-Hill. But the value of its water is un- deniable, and though we do not think it is as pleasant a place as it was ten years ago, it is certainly much gayer than it
was, say, four years ago. The change in the social con- stitution of the place has been in some ways almost as great in the shorter as in the longer period, and Homburg may almost be considered socially unique among the health - resorts, either summer or winter, of Europe ; and it is in some ways more like Simla or Ootacamund, or EOM of the Indian hill stations, minus the officialism, Oat anything that people are accustomed to on this side of the Suez Canal. But this compari- son leads one to remark, even if one did not do so before, the want of purpose in the lives of so large a portion of our English higher classes, which is so painfully apparent when any considerable number of them are gathered together upon occasions like that under consideration. The level of ordinary conversation at a place like Homburg, where people have nothing to do but to con- verse, is positively lamentable, and society is only endurable on the assumption that any exertion of the intellectual faculties may in- terfere with the duo action of the water upon the system. After all, London-Homburg is a fashion, like rinking, or the particular hundredyards in Hyde Park which "the world "chooses each season for its Sunday and week-day promenades ; and when, a few years hence, some more fashionable doctor in Mayfair or Belgravia has adopted some more fashionable waters, the Kurhaus of Homburg may again be filled with Germans, fashionable or unfashionable, who will regret the gradual decay of Monsieur Blanc's splendid legacy, without caring to pay for its maintenance in the old or even perhaps the present style. And they will perhaps also de- plore the stern morality and the paternal conduct of the new German Empire, and look back with unavailing regret to the luxurious old era of Red and Black and Gold.
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