seals, diamond and other rings, costly snuff-boxes, &c.-property, with but little exception, originally belonging to unfortunates who had been fleeced out of every thing, and who, in a moment of distress, parted with them for a mere trifle. Some have got into large private mansions and keep first-rate establishments. Persons, with a very superficial knowledge of the world, can easily discern through the thin disguise of gentlemen they assume. They are awkward and vulgar in their gait, nearly all without education and manners, and when they discourse, low slang, which bespeaks their calling, escapes them in spite of their teeth. These are the sort of characters who concert together in open hells, for the plunder of mankind. There is not a single constant player who can say that he is a winner by them."-Life in the West, vol. ii. p. 93.

For an account of several other modes of cheating, as they involve the technicalities of the game (rouge et noir) which to many may be uninteresting, reference may be made to the book itself. The following are some further particulars illustrative of the character of these places:

'A gambler's mind becomes impaired, step by step, with his circumstances, till they are lost in one common ruin; his best energies are blasted for ever, and he is cast upon the world a worthless and starving object.

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The

'When a gentleman first appears at these hells, the hellites and the players are curious to learn who and what he is, especially the former, who calculate the rich or poor harvest to be reaped by him, and they regulate their conduct accordingly. Should he be introduced by a broken player, and lose a good sum, his introducer-the pimp-knows the opportunity when he can borrow a few pounds of the hellites. But should the gentleman be successful, of course few pounds to give his kind friend a chance," will not be refused hellites venture, after he has lost hundreds, to lend him twenty or thirty pounds, for which his check is demanded and given. Thus they not only know his name, but soon ascertain, by underhand inquiries at his bankers, the extent of his account, his connections, and resources. Upon this knowledge, if his account is good, they will cash him checks on another occasion to within a hundred pounds of the balance. Instances have been known, after checks have been cashed and paid in this way, to large amounts, and the balance draw◄ ing to a close, that when a check for a small amount has been wanted cashed by the very same parties, it has been refused, the hellite actually telling the party, within a few pounds, the amount he had left at his banker's. One gentleman was once told to five pounds what he had there.'-vol. ii. p. 120, et seq.

A long and horrible list of suicides, frauds, forgeries, and calamities, all arising from the same cause-are recorded in these volumes. Some we had marked for quotation-but we turn from them in utter disgust. To prove their authenticity, the

names are generally given. Why should we hurt the feelings, or keep up the memory of the faults of the unfortunate, by transferring them to these pages; the lesson is obvious enough without the frightful details.

Here is an abundant mass of evil, it is true; yet we cannot clearly see how it is to be altogether removed. The prohibition of gaming-houses under heavy penalties it would seem is not sufficient to effect the purpose. The sanction of them will, we think, be readily conceded to be still farther from that desirable end. To leave them altogether free we shall presently endeavour to shew to be not much less so. And is it to arrive at this conclusion, the reader may ask, that you have inflicted upon us this tedious dissertation? Is it for this that you have collected and arranged your evidence and called up your witnesses and elaborated your arguments? Have you braved the storms and surges-and marked the shallows-and sounded the depths-and explored the dreary coasts of the gamester's hell— only that you might

"Waft us home the message of despair?"

No! The case may be-it is-a bad one-but not quite so bad as that. Of the three ways of treating this legislative question, that which we have mentioned as the second, appears to us to be the best-and indeed to have the power of effecting the end in view as far as it is capable of being effected. For of the complete fulfilment of that most desirable end there is no prospect for any legislator until he has made all those for whom he legislates wise and honest, or at least made them approximate much more than they do at present to that devoutly-to-bewished-for consummation.

The second method, therefore, that is, the prohibition of gambling, as that prohibition exists in England, is the best, because it is a sufficiently effective preventive against gambling to all the useful part of society. There is no reason why that part of society who do game, particularly “those gentlemen whose habits and circumstances entitle them to an uncontrolled but proper indulgence in the current amusements of the day," there is no reason why those persons should not be useful to their fellows. On the contrary there are many reasons why they should be useful. And the same cause that would make them useful members of society, namely, a proper education and the consequence of that, a well-regulated and informed mind, would make them turn with contempt as well as aversion from the paltry and unprofitable occupation of a gamester, so paltry and so unprofitable that, did we not consider 2 A

VOL. XI. W. R.

ourselves as performing a task that might have effects extensively beneficial, we should deeply regret the time and the thought bestowed upon details which to ourselves appear so uninteresting unsatisfactory, and contemptible. Here then is the secret. It is not poverty-it is not the desire of becoming rich-or making a fortune-(for they are already rich, they have already fortunes) that drives those men to the gaming-table. It is Ennui, the demon Ennui-the devil, who, as the old proverb goes, when he finds a man unemployed, never fails to find him work. And is it to be wondered at if a devil (if the reader will forgive what looks somewhat like a sorry pun) having the possession and direction of a man should carry him to his native place-a hell. Those, then, who deplore and deprecate gaming in what is called high life, will deplore and deprecate in vain, until they discover and point out to the objects of their care and commiseration some other and better mode of disposing of their time. For, in the present state of things, those, like other human brutes who do not consume more than twenty hours out of the twenty-four in the due exercise of those animal functions that merely concern the preservation of themselves and the procreation of their kind, must in the remaining four do something --and if they did not game, probably they might do something worse. Till, then, the change above alluded to shall take place, those persons must continue to live and to act as hitherto they have lived and acted,

́ And having din'd, drunk, voted, gam'd, and whor'd,
Give to the family vault another lord.—'

III. If the legislature neither prohibit nor sanction gaminghouses, but leave them quite free to take their own course like any other free branch of commerce, it seems evident that they will be more frequented than where they are prohibited, and a stigma thereby attached to them, and less frequented than when the government extends its sanction to them. This, however, may seem to depend upon the question-will an act of prohibition or sanction, expressive of the will of the legislature, have the effect here assumed, upon the opinion, and consequently the actions, of the public? This is a question which can only be determined by experience, and experience would appear to have determined it in the affirmative. Witness the different light in which gaming is viewed in France and in England. In France a man engaged in business-a man following a profession or a trade-occasionally walks into a gaming-house, and walks out of it, without losing either his character or his credit. There are cases of professional men in Paris being enabled to sup

port their cabriolet by speculations at the rouge et noir tables. In England a professional man, or a man of business, who should be seen in a gaming-house, would, we conceive, be in no small danger of losing-the former his practice, the latter his creditboth their character. Now, this is the effect of legislative enactment: and this surely is something.

Such being the influence which the expression of the will of the legislature has upon the opinion of the people, let us now see what would be the consequence of not exercising that influence as regards the present question, of leaving gaming-houses entirely to themselves. In that case those who frequent gaminghouses now, when they are conscious by so doing of being guilty of an illegal act, would surely not frequent them less than at present. And, again, many who do not frequent gaming-houses now, would, we think, then frequent them. There are many persons engaged in the details of commerce and other occupations, who, if they thought or fancied that by play they could get a sum of money easily and rapidly, would not scruple to enter a gaming-house for that purpose. But though such persons, not being deterred from gaming by the deep and settled principle which is founded on the conviction of reason, would not scruple in this way occasionally to enter a gaming-house; they would not put themselves to the inconvenience, not to mention the risk of loss of character and credit, which must be gone through when a gaming-house dares not appear under its own name and form, but is obliged to assume the name and form of a club-house. In this latter case there is the process of being introduced, ballotted for, &c., to be gone through. In the former a man might drop into a gaming-house merely in passing, and as he is going about his other business, and make a small speculation or two in rouge et noir, or any other game, exactly in the same way as he at present makes a speculation or two in the Stock Exchange.

On the other hand, the very infamy, the depth of blackguardism and villany, the combination of all that is most despicable and detestable in humanity, which now surround those places in England must be powerful to keep the honest and industrious, the respectable portion of society far from their polluted precincts, to deter them from ever approaching them. And in this point of view the very atrocities that occasionally occur at such places, and the difficulty, almost impossibility, which we have shewn that the aggrieved have of obtaining redress, may have a beneficial effect. It is true a few individuals may suffer by them but then they are persons who, with their eyes open, have been guilty of a breach of the laws of their country. And

it is perhaps somewhat too much for such persons to suppose that they should obtain legal redress for grievances suffered. We more particularly allude to such acts of violence as those of which examples have been given, committed by gaming-house ruffians, in the very act of a breach of the laws, and in consequence of such breach. It does seem not very unjust, that by the suffering of such the body of their countrymen should be benefitted.

ART. IV.-1. A further Inquiry into the expediency of applying the Principles of Colonial Policy to the Government of India, and of effecting an essential change in its landed Tenures, and in the character of its Inhabitants. By the Author of the original Inquiry, J. M. Richardson. 8vo. pp. 293. 1828.

2 Reflections on the present State of British India, 8vo. p. 214. Hurst and Co. 1829.

3 A View of the present State and future Prospects of the Free Trade and Colonization of India. 8vo. pp. 106. Ridgway. 1829.

4 India; or Facts submitted to illustrate the Character and Condition of the Native Inhabitants, with suggestions for reforming the present System of Government. By R. Rickards, esq. 8vo. Smith, Elder, and Co. pp. 656. 1829.

IN

No. VIII. of the Westminster Review, a rapid sketch was given of the government of British India. It is not intended now to go over the same ground again, and, happily, the state of things is considerably improved since that article was written, at least in that to which it particularly referred, the despotic interference with the expression of public opinion. Though the character of the government remains what it was, yet its temper seems decidedly to have meliorated: there has been forbearance at least exercised towards the press, instead of the implacable hostility which distinguished some of the predecessors of the present Governor-general-and that forbearance is something. For the importance, the necessity, of allowing opinion to express itself by the organ of a free press, we urgently contended. Without such security, and in comparison with such security, every other check was shown to be unavailing, if not useless. It were well if the freedom of the press existed by a better right than that of capricious sufferance. Very timid indeed-and is this to be wondered at-are the criticisms of the newspapers India on the acts of public functionaries there. Banishment and ruin, with which an editor may at any instant be visited, are no trifles to weigh against a wandering word. The terrors

of