ous British youth. The Demon of Play has him for his
own, and he may go on playing and playing until he has lost every florin
of his own, or as many of those belonging to other people as he can beg
or borrow. Far more fortunate for him would it be in the long run, if
he met in the outset with a good swinging loss. The burnt child
_DOES_ dread the fire as a rule; but there is this capricious, almost
preternatural, feature of the physiology of gaming, that the young and
inexperienced generally win in the first instance. They are drawn on and
on, and in and in. They begin to lose, and continue to lose, and by the
time they have cut their wise teeth they have neither sou nor silver to
make their dearly-bought wisdom available.

'At least one-half of the company may be assumed to be arrant
rascals--rascals male and rascals female--_chevaliers d'industrie_, the
offscourings of all the shut-up gambling-houses in Europe, demireps and
_lorettes_, single and married women innumerable.'

In the course of the three visits he has paid to Hombourg, Mr Sala
has observed that 'nine-tenths of the English visitors to the Kursaal,
play;' and he does not hesitate to say that the moths who flutter round
the garish lamps at the Kursaal Van der Hohe, and its kindred Hades,
almost invariably singe their wings; and that the chaseer at _Roulette_
and _Rouge_, generally turn out edged tools, with which those incautious
enough to play with them are apt to cut their fingers, sometimes very
dangerously.

The season of 1869 in Hombourg is thus depicted in a high class
newspaper.

'Never within the memory of the oldest inhabitant (who in this instance
must undoubtedly be that veteran player Countess Kisselef) has the town
witnessed such an influx of tourists of every class and description.
Hotels and lodging-houses are filled to overflowing. Every day imprudent
travellers who have neglected the precaution of securing rooms before
their arrival return disconsolately to Frankfort to await the vacation
of some apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after
much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a
wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety
of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill
twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could
be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would
assuredly find here abundant food for