'Of course the town swarms with well-known English faces; indeed, the Peers and M.P.s here at present would form a very respectable party in the two Houses. We are especially well off for dukes; the _Fremdenliste_ notifies the presence of no fewer than five of those exalted personages. A far less respectable class of London society is also, I am sorry to say, strongly represented: I allude to those gentlemen of the light-fingered persuasion whom the outer world rudely designate as pickpockets. This morning two gorgeously arrayed members of the fraternity were marched down to the station by the police, each being decorated with a pair of bright steel handcuffs; seventeen of them were arrested last week in Frankfort at one fell swoop, and at the tables the row of lookers-on who always surround the players consists in about equal proportions of these gentry and their natural enemies--the detectives. Their booty since the beginning of the season must be reckoned by thousands. Mustapha Fazyl Pasha had his pocket picked of a purse containing L600, and a Russian lady was lately robbed of a splendid diamond brooch valued at 75,000 francs.(79) (79) Pall Mall Gazette, Aug. 1869. But the days of the Kursaal are numbered, and the glories or infamies of Hombourg are doomed. 'The fiat has gone forth. In five years(80) from this time the "game will be made" no longer--the great gambling establishment of Hombourg will be a thing of the past. The town will be obliged to contend on equal terms with other watering-places for its share of the wool on the backs of summer excursionists. (80) In 1872. 'As most of the townspeople are shareholders in this thriving concern, and as all of them gain either directly or indirectly by the play, it was amusing to watch the anxiety of these worthies during the war between Austria and Prussia. Patriotism they had none; they cared neither for Austrian nor Prussian, for a great Germany nor for a small Germany. The "company" was their god and their country. All that concerned them was to know whether the play was likely to be suppressed. When they were annexed to Prussia, at first they could not believe that Count Bismarck, whatever he might do with kings, would venture to interfere with the "bank." It was to them a divine institution--something far superior to dynasties and kingdoms....