time, until his rolls having dwindled away, it seemed that H. had come down to his last £10 note. This he flung on the “red” with a look of sheer despair, and awaited the issue with an agony of expression that was painful to witness. “Red” would have proved his salvation, but alas! once more “black” was in the ascendant, and H. was “played out.” With a muttered oath, but without any words intelligible to the bystanders, he darted outside the saloon into the open. Those absorbed in play merely jeered at his sudden departure; their hearts had become hardened to such scenes, but even to their callous temperaments came a sudden sickening chill as the report of a pistol rang out clearly through the midnight air. Their unspoken thoughts found language as a chance passer-by excitedly rushed in, telling them that Captain H. had shot himself and was lying smothered in blood, dead in the road. It was too true. H. had solved life’s mysteries by one mad act, and had added another name to the long death-roll of fickle Fortune’s victims! Shortly after this the laws against gambling were altered and rendered much more stringent by a government proclamation signed by Richard Southey and dated, 17th March 1873. Prior to this, however, and whilst the gambling hells were in full swing, there had been rusting in the legal armory of the government a weapon which surely ought to have been sufficient to deal to some extent with the gambling nuisance. On June 2d, 1872, the government had already recognized the extent and growth of this evil, and with a view of lessening it, I find that the commissioners issued a notice, which was published in the _Gazette_, prohibiting lotteries and fining offenders twenty-five rix dollars over and above the forfeiture of the property played for, with an alternative of being severely flogged. Tavern keepers and publicans who had broken the act were also forever precluded from holding licenses. This latter notice caused the hell-keepers and their patrons to observe more caution, but it was merely an improvement on the surface, for the former speedily constituted so-called “clubs,” where gambling went on as freely as ever. A notice such as the following