This passion for gaming in the colonies was only a reflection of the craze in England. For more than a century after the return of Charles the Second, the rattle of the dice-box, and the shuffling of cards were the most familiar sounds in every London chocolate-house. Young sinners and old spent their fortunes, and misspent their lives, playing for money at Brooke's or Boodle's. When a man fell dead at the door of White's, he was dragged into the hall amid bets as to whether he were dead or alive, and the surgeon's aid was violently opposed, on the ground of unfairness to those betting on the side of death. The Duke of St. Albans, at eighty, too blind to see the cards, went regularly to a gambling-house with an attendant. Lady Castlemaine lost twenty-five thousand pounds in one night's play. General Braddock's sister, having gamed away her fortune at Bath, finished the comedy by hanging herself. When her affectionate brother heard the news, he remarked jocularly, "Poor Fanny, I always thought she would play till she was forced to tuck herself up." I offer all this testimony to show that our Colonial Cavalier was only the child of his age, when he too shook the dice, and shuffled the cards. Being short of cash, his bets were generally made in tobacco, or, failing that, in flesh and blood. Many a slave found a new master in the morning, because his old master had been unlucky at play the night before. In a community so absorbed in the excitement of hazard, the lottery of course took deep hold. The first plantation in America was aided by a grand "standing lottery," with along list of "welcomes, prises and rewards," amounting to more than ten thousand crowns. The declaration sets forth that "all prises, welcomes and rewards drawne wherever they dwell, shall of the treasurer have present pay, and whosoever under one name or poesie payeth three pound in ready money, shall receive six shillings and eight pence, or a silver spoone of that value at his choice." "The money for the Adventurers is to be paid to Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, and Treasurer for _Virginia_, or such officers as he shall appoint in City or Country, under the common seale of the company for the receit thereof." The example thus set, was followed whenever the colonies felt a pressure for money. In Virginia a lottery was established to meet the expenses of the French and Indian War--the drawing directed to be "in the Burgesses' Room of the Capital at Williamsburgh at ten in the morning. Prizes current money from £5 to £2000. The lucky numbers to be published in the _Gazette_." In Maryland, in the eighteenth century, a "Scheme of Lottery is humbly proposed to the Public for Raising the sum of 510 pounds, current money, to be applied towards completeing the Market-House in Baltimore-Town in Baltimore Co., buying two Fire-Engines and a parcel of Leather-Buckets for the use of the said Town, enlarging the present Public Wharf and Building a new one."