For what a pother, after all, the unwise of this world are wont to make about one stranded gambling-house, in a remote corner of Liguria! If they were in earnest or sincere, how small a matter they would think it! Of course, when I say so, hypocrisy holds up its hands in holy horror. But that is the way with the purveyors of mint, cumin, and anise; they raise a mighty hubbub over some unimportant detail--in order to feel their consciences clear when business compels them to rob the widow and the orphan. In reality, though Monte Carlo is bad enough in its way--do I not pay it unwilling tribute myself twice a year out of the narrow resources of The Garret, Grub Street?--it is but a skin-deep surface symptom of a profound disease which attacks the heart and core in London and Paris. Compared with Panama, Argentines, British South Africans, and Liberators, Monte Carlo is a mole on the left ankle. "The Devil's advocate!" you say. Well, well, so be it. The fact is, the supposed moral objection to gambling as such is a purely commercial objection of a commercial nation; and the reason so much importance is attached to it in certain places is because at that particular vice men are likely to lose their money. It is largely a fetish, like the sinfulness of cards, of dice, of billiards. Moreover, the objection is only to the _kind_ of gambling. There is another kind, less open, at which you stand a better chance to win yourself, while other parties stand a better chance to lose; and that kind, which is played in great gambling-houses known as the Stock Exchange and the Bourse, is considered, morally speaking, as quite innocuous. Large fortunes are made at this other sort of gambling, which, of course, sanctifies and almost canonises it. Indeed, if you will note, you will find not only that the objection to gambling pure and simple is commonest in the most commercial countries, but also that even there it is commonest among the most commercial classes. The landed aristocracy, the military, and the labouring men have no objection to betting; nor have the Neapolitan lazzaroni, the Chinese coolies. It is the respectable English counting-house that discourages the vice, especially among the clerks, who are likely to make the till or the cheque-book rectify the little failures of their flutter on the Derby.