I am always astonished that no crusade has been raised against the national sin of gambling. Drink ruins the homes of poor men, but not more certainly or rapidly than gambling ruins the homes of rich men, and of men far from rich. Drink may kill a man, but it takes a great many drunkards to imbibe an estate, while one night’s gambling may scatter the savings of a lifetime and turn all the wretched children of a selfish gambler into the streets to starve. I have been horrified sometimes to see ladies and gentlemen hot, eager, excited, gambling in private houses, the host actually bent on winning from those who are enjoying his hospitality, the hostess almost insulting her guests in her awful anxiety to gain the contents of their purses; and I am convinced that the only way to escape this demon is to refuse to pander to it at all, to never allow one single penny to be staked at cards in one’s own house, and to make this such a rule that it would be impossible to break it on any consideration whatever. I have seen pennies played for which begat the taste for gambling for much larger sums; and I have never seen a house where gambling was allowed truly prosper, or be anything save the residence of those whose ideas and hopes were centred in this world only, and never rose above the mere ‘society’ existence, than which nothing can be more despicable and awful. This book is not a tract, and therefore I do not say one half I should like to on this subject; but as I remember the ruined homes--one family especially, where all are scattered and most are dead, where gambling went on in the schoolroom and drawing-room alike, at every moment which could be snatched for the purpose; the broken hearts, the miserably wrecked careers, entirely due to this vice; when one can hardly take up a paper without seeing the dreary fate of some wretched youth, whose tendencies to betting and gaming have caused him to rob his master’s till and landed him in penal servitude, I must say I cannot help feeling astonished that the eager teetotalers do not try their hands at putting down gaming, especially as they have the law on their side--the kind, good, well-devised law which snaps up little boys who play pitch-and-toss at the corners of the streets, that winks at Tattersall’s and the big races, and finally is utterly powerless to punish the high-class gamester, who spends his nights at gaming-hells and ruins his home and his wretched constitution at the same time.