vy clouds that cast shadows of purple
and reddish-brown on the sea have descended in a thunderstorm, lasting
continuously for eight hours. Sky and sea vie in the production of
larger expanse of undimmed blue. The well-ordered garden by the Casino
is sweet with the breath of roses and heliotrope. The lawns have the
fresh green look that we islanders associate with earliest summer. The
palm-trees are at their best, and along the road leading down to the
bathing place one walks under the shadow of oleanders in full and
fragrant blossom. The warmth of the summer day is tempered by a
delicious breeze, which falls at night, lest peradventure visitors
should be incommoded by undue measure of cold.

If there is an easily accessible Paradise on earth, it seems to be
fixed at Monaco. Yet all these things are as nothing in the eyes of
the people who have created and now maintain the place. It seems at
first sight a marvel that the Administration should go to the expense
of providing the costly appointments which crown its natural advantages.
But the Administration know very well what they are about. When man or
woman has been drawn into the feverish vortex that sweeps around the
gaming tables, the fair scene outside the walls is not of the slightest
consequence. It would be all the same to them if the gaming tables,
instead of being set in a handsome apartment in a palace surrounded by
one of the most beautiful scenes in Europe, were made of deal and
spread in a hovel. But gamesters are, literally, soon played out at
Monaco, and it is necessary to attract fresh moths to the gaudily
glittering candle. Moreover, the tenure of the place is held by slender
threads. What is thought of Monaco and its doings by those who have the
fullest opportunity of studying them is shown by the fact that the
Administration are pledged to refuse admission to the tables to any
subject of the Prince of Monaco, or to any French subject of Nice or
the department of the Maritime Alps. The proclamation of this fact
cynically stares in the face all who enter the Casino. The local
authorities will not have any of their own neighbours ruined. Let
foreigners, or even Frenchmen of other departments, care for themselves.

In face of this sentiment the Administration find it politic to
propitiate the local authorities and the people, who, if they were
aroused to a feeling of honest indignation at what daily passes beneath
their notice, might sweep the pestilence