before they give
credit to a member of these clubs; but if a reform succeeds they will
be placed in a state of security. At present they must make _REGULAR_
families pay an enormous price for their goods, to enable them to
run the risk of never receiving a single shilling from their gambling
customers.'

Such is the picture of the times in question, drawn by a contemporary;
and it may be said that private reckless and unscrupulous political
machinations were the springs and fountains of all the calamities that
subsequently overflowed, as it were, the 'opening of the seals' of doom
upon the nation.

Notwithstanding the purity of morals enjoined by the court of George
III., the early part of his reign presents a picture of dissolute
manners as well as of furious party spirit. The most fashionable of our
ladies of rank were immersed in play, or devoted to politics: the same
spirit carried them into both. The Sabbath was disregarded, spent often
in cards, or desecrated by the meetings of partisans of both factions;
moral duties were neglected and decorum outraged. The fact was, that
a minor court had become the centre of all the bad passions and
reprehensible pursuits in vogue. Carlton House, in Pall Mall, which even
the oldest of us can barely remember, with its elegant open screen,
the pillars in front, its low exterior, its many small rooms, its
decorations in vulgar taste, and, to crown the whole, its associations
of a corrupting revelry,--Carlton House was, in the days of good King
George, almost as great a scandal to the country as Whitehall in the
time of improper King Charles II.(66) The influence which the example
of a young prince, of manners eminently popular, produced upon the young
nobility of the realm was most disastrous in every way and ruinous to
public morality.

(66) Wharton, 'The Queens of Society.' Mem. of _Georgiana, Duchess of
Devonshire._

After that period, the vast license given to those abominable engines of
fraud, the E.O. tables,(67) and the great length of time which elapsed
before they met with any check from the police, afforded a number of
dissolute and abandoned characters an opportunity of acquiring property.
This they afterwards increased in the low gaming houses, and by
following up the same system at Newmarket and the other fashionable
places of resort, and finally by means of the lottery, that mode of
insensate gambling; till at length they acquired a sum of money nothing
sh