cheat at the game, as, with a proportion of two in forty, or five per cent., in his favour, the keeper should have reaped a heavy harvest of profit from his venture. The gentlemen who had played the game at the time when the occasional half guinea was thought enough to remunerate the proprietor, could hardly have liked the innovation, regarding the five per cent. ‘pull’ against them as ‘a circumstance which, in the long run, would infallibly exhaust the _Exchequer_’ much more than the breeches pockets of the young squires. The booths at Ascot Heath, and the taverns in Windsor, were, at race time, great haunts for the keepers of the E.O. tables, some of whom were respectable men in their calling, and might be trusted to give twenty, or even more, shillings for a guinea; but the majority, gambling for twopenny pieces and sixpences, were little, if anything, better than the thimble-rig and prick-the-garter gentry of that, or the three-card practitioners of our own, time. Ascot, indeed, was, then, a race meeting of the first importance, and the week was a fair of the most attractive character to the Berkshire landlords and their tenantry. The Oatlands Stakes was transferred to Newmarket from Ascot, after a memorable race, when a hundred thousand pounds changed hands; and we read that the Turf was a barren and dreary prospect—for the losers. ‘Horses are daily thrown out of training, jockeys are going into mourning, grooms are becoming E.O. merchants, and strappers are going on the highway.’” In the _Quarterly Review_ for 1834, a description is given of gambling at races, as it then was. “Doncaster, Epsom, Ascot, Warwick, and most of our numerous race grounds and race towns are scenes of destructive and universal gambling among the lower orders, which our absurdly lax police never attempt to suppress; and yet, without the slightest approach to an improperly harsh interference with the pleasures of the people, the roulette and E.O. tables which plunder the peasantry at these places, for the benefit of travelling sharpers (certainly equally respectable with some bipeds of prey who drive coroneted cabs near St James’s), might be put down by any watchful magistrate.” The Commons Select Committee on Gaming in 1844 tells us a great deal about the gambling at Doncaster, during race meetings. A Mr Richard Baxter was the witness, and he said: “The extent to which gambling has been carried on, both upon the course, and in the town of Doncaster, has varied at different periods. Twenty years ago, in 1824, was my first acquaintance with the matter: I went, as a stranger, to live in Doncaster, and I found that there were 40 or 50 houses, and men stationed at the doors, and passing up and down the streets, not only, by word, inviting the passers by to go into those houses, but putting into their hands cards (one of which I have here)— TO NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN. ROULETTE. Bank. £1000. _At Mason’s (the Tailor), Scott Lane._