Nassau was a gem among the states of Germany. There was an alliterative saying about the sources of the country’s wealth: from _water_, in the first place, for besides the Rhine flowing through it, there were all the magnificent mineral and medicinal springs; then its _wine_, the very best in Germany, and in the whole world! Next, the _woods_, of such splendid and luxuriant growth, and the home of innumerable _wild_ creatures,--feathered and four-footed game of all sorts! As for _wheat_, there were corn-fields in abundance, enclosed by fruit trees, whose branches were drooping with their load; and last, though not least, the _ways_, those roads for which the land was famous,--the so-called vicinal ways,--were as good as the finest highways elsewhere. With all this, rates and taxes were things unknown, in that fortunate country, in those halcyon days. The state was prosperous, the reigning family wealthy, and any deficit in the revenue was supplied by the gaming-tables at Wiesbaden. As these were only open to foreigners, neither the townspeople nor the innocent countryfolk around were ever exposed to the temptations and dangers so eloquently set forth in certain pamphlets. There, the misery of the peasantry is depicted in moving terms,--honest families reduced to the direst poverty after losing their little all in the gambling-saloons! But it so happened that no peasant was ever admitted inside the doors, or had he succeeded in gaining entrance, he would very speedily have been turned out, before he had time even to watch the play, much less stake his own money! An officer in the army seen there would have been immediately cashiered, nor was access to the tables granted to any magistrate or functionary, or to anyone belonging to the territory. It is not that I wish to undertake the defence of gambling, but, apart from the question of its intrinsic immorality, so much that is erroneous has been written on the subject and has come to my own notice, that I cannot refrain from stating here the facts of the case, as they are known to me. For Nassau it may emphatically be said, that the institution only benefited the country, very materially adding to its prosperity, without doing it any harm at all.