ting, in one
single night--as was certainly no very uncommon 'event' in those palmy
days of gaming; and that we could not--as was done in 1820--produce a
list of _FIVE HUNDRED_ names (in London alone) of noblemen, gentlemen,
officers of the Army and Navy, and clergymen, who were veteran or
indefatigable gamesters, besides 'clerks, grocers, horse-dealers,
linen-drapers, silk-mercers, masons, builders, timber-merchants,
booksellers, &c., &c., and men of the very lowest walks of life,' who
frequented the numerous gaming houses throughout the metropolis--to
their ruin and that of their families more or less (as deploringly
lamented by Captain Gronow), and not a few of them, no doubt, finding
themselves in that position in which they could exclaim, at _OUR_
remonstrance, as feelingly as did King Richard--

'Slave! I have set my life upon a _CAST_, And I will stand the _HAZARD
OF THE DIE!_'

Nor is gaming as yet extinct among us. Every now and then a batch
of youngsters is brought before the magistrates charged with vulgar
'tossing' in the streets; and every now and then we hear of some victim
of genteel gambling, as recently--in the month of February, 1868--when
'a young member of the aristocracy lost L10,000 at Whist.'

Nay, at the commencement of the present year there appeared in a daily
paper the following startling announcement to the editor:--

'Sir,--Allow me, through the columns of your paper, to call the
attention of the parents and friends of the young officers in the
Channel-fleet to the great extent gambling is carried on at Lisbon.
Since the fleet has been there another gambling house has been opened,
and is filled every evening with young officers, many of whom are under
18 years of age. On the 1st of January it is computed that upwards of
L800 was lost by officers of the fleet in the gambling houses, and
if the fleet is to stay there three months there will soon be a great
number of the officers involved in debt. I will relate one incident that
came under my personal notice. A young midshipman, who had lately joined
the Channel fleet from the Bristol, drew a half-year's pay in December,
besides his quarterly allowance, and I met him on shore the next evening
without money enough to pay a boat to go off to his ship, having lost
all at a gambling house.

Hoping that this may be of some use in stopping the gambling among the
younger officers, I remain, yours respectfully, AN OFFICER.'(1)

(1) Standar