ppiness to allow
the smallest place for the desire of vengeance.'

A very proper speech, unquestionably, and rendered still more edifying
by M. Houdin's assurance that Raymond, at his death three years after,
bequeathed the whole of his fortune to various charitable institutions
at Paris.

With regard to the man's gaming theories, however, it may be just
as well to consider the fact, that very many clever people, after
contriving fine systems and schemes for ruining gaming banks, have, as
M. Houdin reminds us, only succeeded in ruining themselves and those who
conformed to their precepts.

Et s'il est un joueur qui vive de son pain, On en voit tous les
jours mille mourir de faim.

'If ONE player there be that can live by his gain, There are
thousands that starve and strive ever in vain!'

CHAPTER IX. THE HISTORY OF DICE AND CARDS.

The knights of hazard and devotees of chance, who live in and by the
rattle of the box, little know, or care, perhaps, to whom they are
indebted for the invention of their favourite cube. They will solace
themselves, no doubt, on being told that they are pursuing a diversion
of the highest antiquity, and which has been handed down through all
civilized as well as barbarous nations to our own times.

The term 'cube,' which is the figure of a die, comes originally from the
Arabic word 'ca'b,' or 'ca'be,' whence the Greeks derived their cubos,
and cubeia, which is used to signify any solid figure perfectly square
every way--such as the geometrical cube, the die used in play, and the
temple at Mecca, which is of the same figure. The Persic name for
'die' is 'dad,' and from this word is derived the name of the thing in
Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, namely, dado. In the old French it is
det, in the plural dets; in modern French de and dez, whence our English
name 'die,' and its plural 'dies,' or 'dice.'

Plato tells us that dice and gaming originated with a certain demon,
whom he calls Theuth, which seems very much like the original patronymic
of our Teutonic races, always famous for their gambling propensity.
The Greeks generally, however, ascribed the invention of dice to one of
their race, named Palamedes, a sort of universal genius, who hit upon
many other contrivances, among the rest, weights and measures. But this
worthy lived in the times of the Trojan war, and yet Homer makes
no mention of dice--the astragaloi named by the poet being merely
knuckle-bones. Dice, however