the Service and suffered a year’s imprisonment. In 1904 Rear-Admiral Henderson, Superintendent of Devonport Dockyard, discovered that betting was being systematically carried on, and published an order notifying the discharge of a skilled labourer of nineteen years’ service. Professional betting is not confined to horse-racing. Lists are habitually issued in connection with other sports, particularly football. It is gambling which causes the rush for the football editions of the halfpenny journals, and, notwithstanding the efforts made by some of its principal patrons, leading officials of the football world have been found taking part in the disreputable gambling arrangements of sporting newspapers. There are numerous instances in athletics, such as foot-racing, of the proceedings being reduced to a farce by the bookmakers, who controlled the runners; and more than one serious accident on the cycle track has been caused by the efforts of one or more competitors to obey the roping orders from their masters in the ring without arousing the suspicions of the public spectators. GAMBLING CARDS In miscellaneous gambling, cards, harmless in themselves, are still prominent. The game of Bridge amongst the wealthier classes is responsible for reproducing many of the vicious situations we read of in the chronicles of our forefathers. While Queen Victoria was lying dead, one very prominent female society leader could not be got to abstain from this form of gambling even for a brief space. At the aristocratic mansion over which she presides guests must play. One young man of moderate income suggested that his means were quite unequal to such hazards as the hostess and her friends were accustomed to, but he was given to understand that he could play or leave. He unhappily chose the former alternative, and in a few hours lost half-a-year’s income. There are hundreds of smaller imitators of this woman, whose husband ranks high in the political world. The disgusting position is frequently created of young girls, not discouraged from gambling by their parents, losing money which they have difficulty in paying to men with whom they are not otherwise well acquainted. In speaking to a young lady who moves in society circles, and on inquiring with due diffidence as to her knowledge of gambling among the friends of her family, she said, without the slightest hesitation, “Oh, every one we know gambles.” One of the speakers at the council meeting of a ladies’ association, of which Lady Trevelyan is president, said that a society lady, on a friend observing that £150 a year seemed a small allowance for her daughter, replied that the latter was such a good Bridge player that she easily made £1000 a year. Amongst the poor, where horse-race betting does not prevail, cards, to which juveniles are largely taking, as well as automatic machine gambling, are often made the vehicle for disposing of their small means. THE STOCK AND PRODUCE EXCHANGES