Another letter in the same Journal, 2 Sept. 1736, shows how the canker of gambling was surely eating into the very heart of the nation. It is _à propos_ of private Gaming Houses. “I beg leave, through your Means, to make a few Remarks upon the great Encrease of a Vice, which, if not timely prevented, will end in the Ruin of the young and unwary of both Sexes; I mean, Play in private Houses, and more particularly that artful and cheating _Game_ of _Quadrille_. It is the constant business of the _Puffs_ who belong to the Gaming Societies, to make a general Acquaintance, and, by a Volubility of Tongue, to commend Company and Conversation: to advise young People, or those who have but lately come to Town, to improve themselves in the _Beau Monde_. The young and unwary, thro’ their Inexperience, greedily swallow this Advice, and deliver themselves up to the Conduct of these Harpies who swarm in every Corner, where Visiting is in Fashion: by whom they are introduced into these polite Families, and taught to lose their Money and Reputation in a genteel Manner. These Societies consist mostly of two or three insignificant old Maids, the same number of gay Widows; a batter’d old Beau or two, who, in King William’s time, were the Pink of the Mode: The Master of the House, some decay’d Person of a good Family, made use of merely as a Cypher to carry on the Business, by having the Honour to be marry’d to the Lady, who, to oblige her Friends and People of good Fashion only, suffers her House to be made use of for these Purposes. In these places it is that young Ladies of moderate Fortunes are drawn in, to the infallible Ruin of their Reputations; and when, by false Cards, Slipping, Signs, and Crimp, they are stript of their last Guinea, their wretched companions will not know them. Any one acquainted with the West End of the Town cannot but have observed all this with Regret, if they have Honour and Compassion in them. Nor need I mention the West End only. I believe all Points of the Compass are infected, and it were to be wished a Remedy could be found out to prevent it.” An attempt to remedy this state of things was made, in 1739, by passing “an Act for the more efficient preventing of excessive and deceitful gaming” (12 Geo. II. c. 28), which provided that the Person that keeps a house, or other place, to game in, forfeits £200, half to the prosecutor, and half to the poor of the parish, except at Bath, where the half goes to poor in the Hospital. Lotteries, Sales, Shares in Houses to be determined by Lottery, Raffle, &c., are under this Act, the Lands, Houses, &c. forfeited. All persons gaming in the places aforesaid, or adventurers in Lotteries, on conviction forfeit £50. The games forbidden are Ace of Hearts, Faro, Basset and Hazard, except in Royal Palaces. Justices of Peace refusing to act and convict on this Act forfeit £10.