The Court which tried the officers in Berlin for professional
gambling has acquitted them, much against its will. It was proved that two hundred officers were attracted to the baccarat clnb, that 215,000 was won from them, and that a notorious professional gambler already once convicted and sentenced to penal servitude was a member of the club. The Judges, therefore, admitted that there was strong ground for suspect- ing the accused who set it up, but held that, according to a decision passed by the Supreme Court, the essence of the crime was the intention to live by constant gambling, and that this intention had not been proved. "The accused," they continued, "will have already discovered the verdict of public opinion upon the moral side of the ease," but the Court has nothing to do with that side. How much has it to do with public opinion ? As the accused had no money when they began, and lived extravagantly on the profits of their play, as heavy drinking was going on all through the meetings of the club, and as the two principal witnesses absconded before the trial, the verdict is considered highly unsatisfactory. It remains for the Emperor to express his opinion, which will not be a lenient one. Apart from the Hohenzollern dislike of all laxity in the Army, the practice of gambling creates a distinction between rich and poor officers which it is one object of the Regulations to prevent.
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