'In the Kursaal is the ball or concert-room, at either end of which is a gallery, supported by pillars of composition marble. The floors are inlaid, and immense mirrors in sumptuous frames hang on the walls. Vice can see her own image all over the establishment. The ceiling is superbly decorated with bas-reliefs in _carton-pierre_, like those in Mr Barry's new Covent Garden Theatre; and fresco paintings, executed by Viotti, of Milan, and Conti, of Munich; whilst the whole is lighted up by enormous and gorgeous chandeliers. The apartment to the right is called the _Salle Japanese_, and is used as a dining-room for a monster _table d'hote_, held twice a day, and served by the famous Chevet of Paris. 'There is a huge Cafe Olympique, for smoking and imbibing purposes, private cabinets for parties, the monster saloon, and two smaller ones, where _FROM ELEVEN IN THE FORENOON TO ELEVEN AT NIGHT, SUNDAYS NOT EXCEPTED, ALL THE YEAR ROUND_, and year after year--(the "administration" have yet a "_jouissance_" of eighty-five years to run out, guaranteed by the incoming dynasty of Hesse Darmstadt), knaves and fools, from almost every corner of the world, gamble at the ingenious and amusing games of _Roulette_, and _Rouge et Noir_, otherwise _Trente et Quarante_. 'There is one table covered with green baize, tightly stretched as on a billiard-field. In the midst of the table there is a circular pit, coved inwards, but not bottomless, and containing the Roulette wheel, a revolving disc, turning with an accurate momentum on a brass pillar, and divided at its outer edge into thirty-seven narrow and shallow pigeon-hole compartments, coloured alternately red and black, and numbered--not consecutively--up to thirty-six. The last is a blank, and stands for _Zero_, number _Nothing_. Round the upper edge, too, run a series of little brass hoops, or bridges, to cause the ball to hop and skip, and not at once into the nearest compartment. This is the regimen of Roulette. The banker sits before the wheel,--a croupier, or payer-out of winnings to and raker in of losses from the players, on either side. Crying in a voice calmly sonorous, "_Faites le Jeu, Messieurs_,"--"Make your game, gentlemen!" the banker gives the wheel a dexterous twirl, and ere it has made one revolution, casts into its Maelstrom of black and red an ivory ball. The interval between this and the ball finding a home is one of breathless anxiety. Stakes are eagerly laid; but at a certain period of the revolution the banker calls out--"_Le Jeu est fait. Rien ne va plus_,"--and after that intimation it is useless to lay down money. Then the banker, in the same calm and impassable voice, declares the result. It may run thus:--"_Vingt-neuf, Noir, Impair, et Passe," "Twenty-nine, Black, Odd, and Pass the Rubicon_" (No. 18); or, "_Huit, Rouge, Pair, et Manque_," "Eight, Red, Even, and _NOT_ Pass the Rubicon."