I am in some pain lest this custom should get among the ladies. They are, at present, very deep in cards and dice; and while my lord is gaining abroad, her ladyship has her rout at home. I am inclined to suspect that our women of fashion will, also, learn to divert themselves with this polite practice of laying wagers. A birthday suit, the age of a beauty, who invented a particular fashion, or who were supposed to be together at the last masquerade, would, frequently give occasion for bets. This would, also, afford them a new method for the ready propagation of scandal, as the truth of several stories which are continually flitting about the town, would, naturally, be brought to the same test. Should they proceed further, to stake the lives of their acquaintances against each other, they would, doubtless, bet with the same fearless spirit, as they are known to do at _brag_; one husband would, perhaps, be pitted against another, or a woman of the town against a maid of honour. In a word, if this once becomes fashionable among the ladies, we shall soon see the time, when an allowance for bet money will be stipulated in the marriage articles. As the vices and follies of persons of distinction are very apt to spread, I am much afraid lest this branch of gaming should descend to the common people. Indeed, it seems already to have got among them. We have frequent accounts of tradesmen riding, walking, eating and drinking for a wager. The contested election in the City has occasioned several extraordinary bets. I know a butcher in Leadenhall Market, who laid an ox to a shin of beef on the success of Sir John Barnard against the field; and have been told of a publican in Thames Street, who ventured a hogshead of entire beer on the candidate who serves him with beer.” Walpole tells one or two stories about betting in the course of his chatty letters. “Dec. 19, 1750. There has been a droll cause in Westminster Hall: a man laid another a wager that he produced a person who should weigh as much again as the Duke.[46] When they had betted, they recollected not knowing how to desire the Duke to step into a scale. They agreed to establish his weight at twenty stone, which, however, is supposed to be two more than he weighs. One Bright,[47] was then produced, who is since dead, and who, actually, weighed forty-two stone and a half. As soon as he was dead, the person who had lost, objected that he had been weighed in his clothes, and though it was impossible that his clothes could weigh above two stone, they went to law. There were the Duke’s twenty stone bawled over a thousand times; but the righteous law decided against the man who had won!”