I want [he said] from this place to offer my protest against bridge parties, which are gathered together simply and solely not for playing a game but for winning money by gambling. Conceive of one case, and I only mention one. A young married lady is asked to go and stay in a country house by a lady older than herself, and an old friend of the family. Her husband cannot go with her, but she goes down to spend the week-end. Bridge is played, and, although she knows a little about it, she excuses herself as not being a sufficiently good player. It is pointed out that every one must play, and that no doubt she will do well enough. She has a suspicion that not only money is risked on the game, but that it is risked to a considerable amount. She is assured that it is nothing. At the close of the evening she discovers that she has lost £35. Of course far greater sums than that are lost, but that is a great deal for a young married lady, the wife of a professional man, to lose. She has not the money to pay. She goes home, and very properly tells her husband the whole story. He sends a cheque to the hostess, and he states distinctly in the letter that a woman who would ask a woman younger than herself, and specially under her charge, to play at bridge under such circumstances was doing nothing more or less than keeping a gambling-house.... I ask you whether you would like your wife to be involved in this vortex of gambling, and if you are prepared to face not the financial but the moral consequences?... I hope this appeal will lead you to consider the position, and take a firm stand against an insidious because a very fascinating and fashionable evil. The incident referred to is no uncommon experience, and reveals feelings alien to the fine spirit of hospitality so common to British life, and incidentally exhibits the blighting effect of the greed of money upon the life of society. The gaming-house proper is a more sordid consideration, which is only mentioned to show that its existence has not been forgotten. More often than not it is managed by a woman, and the police raids reveal over and over again that such houses are the very sink of crime and vice. From what has been written it will be seen that the evil has spread very insidiously into all ranks of society. The working woman gambles with the wage of her husband, the society woman with her dress allowance or her husband’s income, the spinster with stocks and shares through her lawyer, and the honestly intentioned though ill-advised charitable lady with raffle tickets at church bazaars. By refusing to participate in those lotteries women have one very obvious way of discountenancing an immoral method of raising money.