The sudden flood of easily gotten wealth which came mainly as a result of the exploitation of South Africa, and also partly in consequence of the financier acquiring control of trade by the development of the large over-capitalised syndicate, has not only created a new Park Lane, a _nouveau riche_ and therefore a vulgar one, but has brought in its train a low personal and social morality, and has created in our society purple patches of decadence which can be placed alongside the rotting luxuriance of the Roman Empire. It was so in France when Law’s financial schemes set everybody dreaming of an age of gold and paper money; it was so with ourselves when the South Sea Bubble was being blown up; it will always be so under like circumstances. The influence spreads from one end of society to the other. It colours our newspapers. The tinsel spectacle excites the imagination of the common man or woman. Our charities and philanthropies hang upon the trains of luxurious vulgarity.[4] In a subtle way the grossness at the top percolates through to the bottom, and the plebeian in his own special heavy-footed style dances to the same sensuous tune to which the feet of his betters are more daintily tripping. From the vicious social conditions at the top the gambling impulse finds its way to the bottom. Imitation of the upper classes, even in the most democratic of societies,—and ours is far from that,—continues to have an important influence in the life of the people. Such is the origin of the disease. We must now consider some of its effects. II If gambling comes from a poisoned source, it poisons the life with which it is in touch. Other writers in this volume are dealing with the personal and family disasters for which it is responsible. I confine my attention to its influence upon citizenship, upon the persons upon whose intelligence and character rests the fabric of the State and the community.