read anything?" and he made answer, "I don't think any of them read very much except the _Sportsman_." That was true--very true and rather shocking. The _Sportsman_ is bright enough and good enough in its way, and I read it constantly; but to limit your literature to the _Sportsman_ alone--well, it must be cramping. But that is what our fine young men are mostly doing nowadays; the eager, intellectual life of young Scotchmen and of the better sort of Englishmen is unknown: you may wait for a year and you will never hear a word of talk which is essentially above the intelligence of a hog; and a man of whom you are fond, purely because of his kindliness, may bore you in the deadliest manner by drawling on by the hour about names and weights, the shifting of the odds, and the changes of luck. The country fairly swarms with clubs where betting goes on all day, and sometimes all night: the despicable dupes are drawn in one after another, and they fall into manifold varieties of mischief; agonized parents pray for help; employers chafe at the carelessness and pre-occupation of their servants; the dupes sink to ruin unpitied, and still the crowd steps onward to the gulf of doom. To think that by merely setting certain noble creatures to exhibit their speed and staunchness, we should have ended by establishing in our midst a veritable Inferno! Our faith, our honour, our manhood, our future as a nation, are being sacrificed, and all because Circe has read her spell over our best and most promising souls. And our legislators amuse themselves with recriminations! We foster a horde of bloodsuckers who rear their strength on our weakness and our vices. Why should a drink-seller be kept in check by his having to pay for a license, while the ruin-seller needs no license, and is not even required to pay income tax. If licenses to bet were issued at very heavy prices, and if a crushing fine were inflicted on any man who made a book without holding a license, we might stamp out the villainous small fry who work in corners at all events. But Authority is supreme; the peer and the plutocrat go on unharmed, while the poor men who copy follies which do not hurt the rich go right on to the death of the soul. _April, 1889._ _DISCIPLINE_.