about eight miles square, and lies on a "barren, rocky ridge between
the sea and lofty, almost inaccessible rocks." The soil is barren,
except in small tracts which are used for fruit-gardens. For centuries
the inhabitants, the Monagasques, lived by marauding expeditions,
both by sea and land, and by slight commerce with Genoa, Marseilles,
and Nice. But in the last century the people have converted their
country and city into a world-wide resort. In 1860, M. Blanc, a famous
gambler and saloon proprietor of two German cities, went to Monaco,
and for an immense sum of money received sole privilege to convert
their province into a gambler's paradise. Soon immense marble
buildings arose in the midst of such beauty as to make it a modern
rival of the gardens of ancient Babylon. Costly statues, gorgeous vases,
graceful fountains, elegant basins, and beautiful terraces, all of which
are made alluring by blooming plants, by light illuminations, and by
free concerts of music day and night,--these are the attractions in this
gambler's paradise. Here fortunes are won and lost in a night. For, as
has been sung,

"Dice will run the contrary way,
As well is known to all who play,
And cards will conspire as in treason."
--HOOD.

Then we have the speculator in commerce. He is the denizen of
the Board of Trade hall. He speculates on the prices of next week's,
of next month's meat and breadstuffs. And still this sort of gambler
may be a book-keeper in a bank, a farm hand, or a clerk in a
grocery store. It ha become so simple and so common a practice
for persons to speculate on the markets that any person with ten
dollars, or twenty-five dollars, or a hundred dollars may take his