FRANCE: FRANCE $12,000 Nights?

$12,000 Nights?

Nice police changed their minds last week about the fire which gutted Europe's largest gambling haven, Frank J. Gould's $6,200,000 Palais de la Méditerranée (TIME, Dec. 4). Though two Palais employes were originally charged with arson, the fire, police decided after all, was due to "carelessness." Not without brisk haggling the French syndicate which leased the casino from Mr. Gould and had insured itself against loss of profit resulting from such events as an act of God, settled with the 20 French and 20 British companies which wrote the insurance. "We are getting," boasted the syndicate's imaginative publicity man, "$12,000 for every night that the casino is obliged to remain closed this season. We expect that it will be rebuilt and reopened by Feb. 15."