The prosecution could not, however, stop private gambling, nor in fact is such a desirable result practicable, for since the publication of the new law I have heard of very high play taking place. But though I have since known hundreds and occasionally thousands of pounds to change hands in private houses, the gambling nuisance is no longer flaunted before sober and respectable citizens, or what is of more importance, under the very eyes of those feebly pliant mortals who yield to the slightest solicitations of the gambling ogre. The class of “wasters” which public gambling bred and fostered were a distinct outrage upon society. How could an honest and industrious but unlucky digger fail to draw invidious comparisons between his own hard lot and the “purple and fine linen” style of life which apparently marked the “rake’s progress” of the professed gambler? Had not some such proclamation been issued, I feel confident that episodes like that related in Bret Harte’s “Outcasts of Poker Flat” might have marked the progress of the fields, though I doubt whether any of the gamblers of that time would have compared very favorably with “John Oakhurst, gentleman.” The legitimate diamond industry afforded ample scope for the most enthusiastic speculator, and there was no need of any adventitious aid to add to the uncertainties of digging life. In closing this chapter I may just draw attention to the fact that a new scheme, the “totalisator,” inciting and encouraging gambling on the South African race-courses has been introduced (1885). This, though it protects backers of horses from levanting bookmakers, and affords the current and proper odds on each race, ought at once to be stopped.[22] Its very existence proves the truth of the old saying that “one man may steal a horse, while another dare not look in at the stable door.”