1828.] Life in the West. 41 



gotten to name the author of the book] shews, if hot . easy, are 

 managed, when any considerable temptation arises for them. The 

 seeming madness of playing at such a game is not very difficult to be 

 accounted for : men hope to avoid the chance of the bank : they do not 

 play at every deal, and they hope to miss that on which the " appret" 

 occurs or to have a small stake only down, where they have before 

 been playing large ones. And this is sometimes the case a player puts 

 down on a hundred deals and misses the deal which turns out an 

 " appret." On the other hand, they put down a first stake of 100/. ; 

 and at that very instant an " appret" arises, which forfeits the half of it ! 

 The grand incentive, however, is the hope of luck a player hopes to 

 gain so largely, that the drain of the table shall be dust in the balance. 

 On a stake by which he must win or lose 100/., the fine of II. 10*. seems 

 a matter of no consequence. He forgets that, as the luck fluctuates, this 

 stake of 1GO/. is won and lost staked and re-staked fifty times in 

 an evening; and in the mean time whoever wins or loses the slow, 

 certain, advantage of the banker eats on its way at the sixty-eighth 

 stake the event will have occurred, which swallows it from both winner 

 and loser entirely. 



This affair of calculation, hangs tediously, something; and yet we 

 have done it in less space than the author gives it whose analysis, how- 

 ever at length of this game, as well as several others, we recommend 

 our readers by all means to look over attentively. We know that any 

 among them who could be idiots enough to play at common gaming- 

 houses or who are unable to comprehend so simple a proposition, as 

 that men cannot play who have not a farthing in the world, and give 

 splendid suppers and rich wines, and yet play to lose we know that 

 such subjects deserve no counsel but these are not times since the 

 days of Hamlet to treat any people exactly as they deserve ; and there- 

 fore, we afford a sort of bird's eye view even to these* of the traps 

 which are laid for them to step into. 



Autumn is a very busy season for all kinds of legs. 



Visitors to watering-places, races, and fights, are supposed to have a little 

 loose cash about them, and therefore, an infinite variety of these gentry are 

 always on the alert to get hold of it. 



Among the rest are persons connected with the London gaming-houses, 

 who move off to the scene of action, with gaming tables of all kinds, like 

 caravans of wild beasts, to the different fairs. These tables, for the conve- 

 nience of travelling, take to pieces, and are under the management of the most 

 practised town sharpers. " Une, deux, cinque," and " Roulette, 1 ' are the 

 games most commonly played in the booths, and English hazard at the houses. 

 " Une, deux, cinque" is played with an ivory ball, about the size of a plum 

 dumpling, and has very much the look of one. It has forty-eight small round 

 Hat spots, twenty-four black, sixteen red, and eight blue. The points in favour 

 of the bank, upon what is considered the fair ball, are, three bars to black, two 

 to red, and one to blue, six points out of forty-eight. 



These tables are always provided with two balls, one the ball just 

 described, and another which is called the " double ball," on account of hav- 

 ing double bars ; twelve points in favour of the bank, but out of a less num- 

 ber of spots. When a good flat comes into one of these dens, the double ball 

 is planted upon him. 



A gentleman, a member of Crockford's, in spite of the warnings his repeated 

 losses ought to have given him, at the last Hampton races, went into one of 

 these booths, and was fleeced out of about 60 in ready money, and 1700 

 upon owings, he being well known, bv a low set of these itinerant vagabonds. 



jVI.M. New Series. -VoL.V. No, 25. r 



