'The great mass of visitors at Wiesbaden this season, as at Hombourg, belong to the middle and lower middle classes, leavened by a very few celebrities and persons of genuine distinction. There are a dozen or two eminent men here, not to be seen in the play-rooms, who are taking the waters--Lord Clarendon, Baron Rothschild, Prince Souvarof, and a few more--but the general run of guests is by no means remarkable for birth, wealth, or respectability; and we are shockingly off for ladies. As a set-off against this deficiency, it would seem that all the aged, broken-down courtesans of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin have agreed to make Wiesbaden their autumn rendezvous. Arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow, painted up to the roots of their dyed hair, shamelessly _decolletees_, prodigal of "free" talk and unseemly gesture, these ghastly creatures, hideous caricatures of youth and beauty, flaunt about the play-rooms and gardens, levying black-mail upon those who are imprudent enough to engage them in "chaff" or badinage, and desperately endeavouring to hook themselves on to the wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, _bon Dieu!_ how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roue allows himself to be bullied or wheedled into paying their scot! Their name is legion; and they constitute the very worst feature of a place which, naturally a Paradise, is turned into a seventh hell by the uncontrolled rioting of human passions. They have no friends--no "protectors;" they are dependent upon accident for a meal or a piece of gold to throw away at the tables; they are plague-spots upon the face of society; they are, as a rule, crassly ignorant and horribly cynical; and yet there are many men here who are proud of their acquaintance, always ready to entertain them in the most expensive manner, and who speak of them as if they were the only desirable companions in the world!