“Miserable!--that the petitioner, a deemed sharper, should be taken in by a pigeon, to use the _lingua_ of the Club. But so it has happened. Mr Brodie knows nothing of such vile tricks--not he! He never made them his study--not he! Never was at either pains or expense to acquire them, nor ever studied under Mr Breslaw, &c., &c., for that very special purpose--not he indeed! Mr Brodie never haunted night-houses, where nothing but the blackest and vilest arts were practised to catch a pigeon; nor ever was accessary either by himself or others in his combination, to behold the poor young creature plucked alive, and not one feather left upon its wings--not he indeed! He never was accessory to see or be concerned in fleecing the ignorant, the thoughtless, the young, and the unwary, nor ever made it his study, his anxious study, with unwearied concern, at midnight hours, to haunt rooms where he thought of meeting with the company from which there was a possibility of fetching from a scurvy sixpence to a hundred guineas--not he indeed! He is unacquainted altogether with packing or shuffling a set of cards--he is indeed! Mr Brodie, in all his innocent amusements, never met with any person, who, after having been fleeced of money to the amount or a hundred pounds, and detected of the vile and dishonest methods by which it had been abstracted from him, received, as a return for his moral rectitude, a very handsome incision on the eye--never he indeed! He never was in such company, nor ever met with such accident--not he! It is only the petitioner, or such like him, who are known and adepts in the devices--which Mr Brodie very modestly says he is innocent of--who could be guilty of such practices, and receive such returns. “But, however certain Mr Brodie’s innocence may be on these scores, previous to the 17th January current, it is as certain that on that night, both him and Ainslie, and Smith, had acquired more complete knowledge of the business of gambling than the petitioner; for, notwithstanding all his art, they went infinitely beyond him; he was totally at a loss when he observed the dice take such a run; not indeed but he was apprehensive something was going on unfair and ungenerous. At last, having been despoiled of his money, he seized them, and discovered the charm. For this unjustifiable procedure in the defender, the petitioner is confident every good magistrate will feel it their duty to give him reparation; and it is their business to check these infamous proceedings, be they followed by whatsoever person they may; for, the greater the man is, and the weightier his purse, the more is he the object of justice and example; and the lower the man is in rank or station, who suffers by such, the louder is the cry and more the demand for redress.