Towards the close of the fifteenth, and in the early part of the sixteenth century, before Luther had sounded the tocsin of religious reform, and given a new impulse to both the busy and the idle, the Germans appear to have been greatly addicted to gaming. Woodcuts of this period showing men and women playing at cards and dice are common. John Geiler of Kaisersberg, a famous preacher in his day, who, like Latimer, was accustomed to season his sermons with a little humour--not to say fun--rings a peal against gaming in his 'Speculum Fatuorum,' first printed at Strasburg about 1508. He says that there are some games at cards which are purely of chance, such as "_der offen Rusch und Schantzen_,"[119] while others, such as "_des Karnefflins_" depend on both chance and skill. In treating of the lawfulness of playing at cards, dice, and similar games "for the sake of recreation"--a saving clause which appears to have been introduced in favour of the laboriously studious and devout,--he cites authorities both _pro_ and _con_. A certain gloss says that to play at such games, whether for money, or "gratis," is a deadly sin; and Hostiensis says that to play for recreation, for money,--"to kill themselves for love, with wine"--is a deadly sin in the laity as well as the clergy. Angelus, however, says that it is lawful for both clergy and laity to play for recreation, for small stakes: "_pro modico non notabili_." Geiler's own conclusion is that, as doctors differ, there is danger. Gaming in his time, as in our own, appears to have levelled all distinctions: lords and ladies, and even clergymen, dignified or otherwise, eager to win money, and confiding in their luck, or their skill, cared but little for the rank or character of those with whom they played, provided they could but post the stakes; and felt no more compunction in winning a ruffling burgher's money, than a peer would in receiving the amount of a bet from a cab-man, or a wealthy citizen, a few years ago, in rendering bankrupt the wooden-legged manager of a thimble-rig table at Epsom or Ascot.--The "thimble-rig," however, is now numbered with the things that have been--"_fuit_." Lord Stanley brought it into political disrepute; and Sir James Graham put it down, just about the time that the railway speculation began to be the "rage" under the auspices of a knowing Yorkshireman.