ever, Christian and Jew, all mingle together, so far as personal proximity is concerned. But what are all the people doing, or thinking of?"" I feel as if Mr. Talfourd had too lightly skimmed the busy, morbid, and suicidal company, or their more than fiend-like occupation and infatuated pursuits. Yet we may learn something, by looking at the whole by the aid of his vision. He followed "all the Baden world to that world within it, where," he writes, "I cannot say that 'hope never comes,' but where 'torture unconsumed still urges.' In plain English, to the great, legalised, legitimate hell! Ours was but a glimpse of Erebus-transient as that of Ulysses, and almost as spectral. We were mere 'barren spectators;' we toiled not at whist, neither did we spin at roulette; but our English respectability unruffled in English silence: so that it is hardly fair to give our stolen impressions of the great pleasure-house. 'Through what varieties of untried being' we might have passed, if we, who came to stare, had remained to play, it is as idle to cogitate as 'what lay the syrens sang,' or any other of Sir Thomas Brown's questionings." It was thus "at sober eve" he entered "the enchanted palace of passion, and gazed on the figures of winners and losers, as at the chimeras of a dream." But not so have hundreds, who ventured merely as curious spectators, and retired as bankrupt and disordered maniacs. I will give the details of one game. "It is the old affair -roulette-a gaming-table, of a longish shape, covered with green cloth, marked and numbered in compartments, and sustaining a dish, with its revolving centre and rapidly circling ball. The ball slackens in its course; jerk it goes into a hollow in the moving centre: two or three thalers are pitched to the fortunate winners by the croupier; and, with a small wooden rake, he sweeps up everything else which has been perilled on the throw. Other stakes are planted, some on one number, and some on another. The MADNESS OF PLAY. 355 old gentleman on the left chooses to stake a Napoleon on the compartment No. 31; while the lady beside him, whose kid-gloved fingers are spasmodically playing with a green net purse, tries two open pieces on an open patch near the corner: to make sure, she has pushed them into their place by means of one of the rakes. What anxiety, what intense interest follows! Whirl-the marble flies round its course-rat, tat, tat-it is trying to make a lodgment in the contrary moving centre ;-there-it has sunk into one of the hollow compartments! "Trenteune!' cries the croupier. Thirty-six Napoleons are counted, and shoved by the ever-ready rake to the fortunate old gentleman. The lady and all the rest of them have lost. Does the old gentleman pocket his prize? No. Without moving a muscle of his countenance, he consults a card before him, (for he is one of that infatuated class of persons who believe in the doctrine of chances,) and he keeps a record of throws, by pricking his card with a pin. That card is his vade mecum. Having gravely consulted it, he lays the whole thirty-seven pieces on the patch last occupied by the lady, and which wins or loses according to colour, not according to number. This change is dangerous however, the words, le jeu est fait (the game is made) have been uttered; the ball again whirls. Wonderful! the old man's colour is the colour of the hollow into which the ball has sunk. He receives a duplication of his venture, or thirty-seven gold pieces. One Napoleon has, in three minutes, been increased to seventyfour Napoleons! This is too much, as he thinks, to stake; so he selects a number, and places upon it five pieces. In a twinkling they are gone: his card has been a deceiver." Look at another. "A card-table engaging a group of busy votaries. Rolls of thalers; heaps of fivefranc pieces, Napoleons, sovereigns, and Frederick-d'ors, in front of the croupier, shortened and lengthened, and ever without satisfying the desires, or curing the folly of the adventurous gamesters. Nothing like boisterous passion is anywhere observable;" though one half of the guests have come to try and win money by gambling. But look again to this intensely eager group. There, there are men, whose age would bespeak their near approach to death, with all the ardent intensity of the most greedy covetousness, watching the throw of the ball, or the character of the card. There are here rooms or tables for every kind of gaming-écarte; rouge et noir; roulette; and other games which, happily, I am ignorant of. Every provision is made for them; and the clutches of gold that are gathered. One says, "I choose such and such a Louis-d'or;" puts it on such a place, and, upon the throw, stakes 16 of these; another doubles it--32; another doubles it-64; another doubles it-128: and they are all staked, and brought in at once. Peasants that have come from the country to sell their milk; dairy-women that have come to sell their butter; resort to these scenes of infernal ruin; and ruined they are, as men and women. Indeed, I know no infatuation equal to that of gambling. Drinking is bad and debasing; but gambling is worse. Gambling is the perfection of intoxication. It is something like the ether of madness; and the man that begins to play or bet for a sixpence, whether it be at a wateringplace in Germany, or in a lyceum, in a singing-gallery, or in a Manchester Tattersal, is opening the gates of his own damnation, if God does not arrest him. There is nothing that is so ruinous. You may combine drinking and gambling; and then you have a railroad seat and an express train for the destruction of the sinner. I trust that where my voice can reach, and where my influence can extend, whether it be for pence or pleasure, gambling will be shunned, as you would shun the fire and brimstone of eternal perdition. The reputation of Baden is identified with the springs; which date their celebrity as far back as the youth of Rome, and before she bowed her neck to imperial domination. There are thirteen fountains of mineral water; PROPERTIES OF THE SPA. 357 the heat of some rising to 140 degrees of Fahrenheit, or 54 degrees of Reaumur; and some of them less by 17 degrees. These springs burst from the rock at the foot of the castle, and flow in profuse abundance. The inhabitants scald their slaughtered pigs and their poultry, preparatory for culinary processes, in the flowing waters of the hot spring. It is therefore evident the water is too fervid either for bathing or drinking before it has cooled. Ursprung, the original spring, has, like the Kochbrunnen, never ceased for thousands of years to afford a plentiful supply, night and day, summer and winter, of the same fever heat, the same taste and qualities. Three millions of cubic inches of water every twenty-four hours, almost leads to the conclusion, that along this whole track there rages some most gigantic and fearful volcano, whose calcined embers are preparing for the final conflagration. Dr. Koelrutter analysed a pint of water at 7392 grains, which he found to contain 23ths grains of solid matter; of which the principal ingredient (16 grains) is common sea-salt; while the sulphate, muriate, and carbonate of lime, were 6 grains; and the remainder magnesia, traces of iron, and carbonic acid gas. The place where the water principally issues is, for one reason, designated Schneckengarten. Here snails were once bred for the table. The same part of the town is also locally named Hell. In the coldest weather snow never rests upon it, nor does the heat ever abate. This may remind us of the prophet's inquiry, "Who can dwell with devouring fire? who can dwell with everlasting burnings?" The fire that never shall be quenched, and the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, are powerful expressions; but not stronger than these natural phenomena would warrant the student of God's providence to expect in the word of God's truth, employed to set forth the invisible things of His government, and the demonstrations of His might. CHAPTER VII. Switzerland-Interest in visiting this country-Contiguous provinces-The capital of Alsatia-Mountains and rivers-BaselConstance-Early reform- Protestantism and liberty-Swiss scenery and history-Zurich and Berne-Minor cantons and patriotic struggles. THE Course which I have sketched for myself to traverse this evening, and on which I invite your company, includes, for our prospective journey, a line of country the most celebrated for natural and romantic scenery, and the habitations of a people whose history is the most renowned in the annals of national freedom. The first and most distinguished of all the cities in the country contiguous, is Strasburg; the provincial capital of what anciently was called Alsatia. The territory of Baden extends as far up the right side of the river (the left as you ascend) as Basel. But I crossed the Rhine at Khel; once a fortress, often the victim of warlike devastation; but now, in appearance, nothing more than a scattered village. The route from Strasburg by railway proceeds along the base of the Vosges mountains; which reach up to, and may be reckoned a continuation of the mountains of the Jura. The highest of the Vosges is the Bolch, about 4320 feet; and the whole, stretching along as a natural rampart, battlemented by towers and castles, in ruins mostly, forms a picturesque contrast with the plain from Strasburg to St. Louis, in the valley of the Upper Rhine. The Ban de la Roche, rendered classic ground to the Christian philanthropist, by the ministerial labours of the pastor Oberlin, lies among these |