1828.] Life in the West. 31 



attended to. But the rich man has no business in the world at all ! and, 

 for his time, the main study of his life is how he may most easily get rid 

 of it. Again if a poor man gamble, ten to one he drinks, and runs 

 in debt. A lord drinks and runs in debt, whether he gamble or no. The 

 poor man who gambleth at night, will sleep till noon. Why, reply we, as 

 before so will the lord, if he gamble or not gamble. He quitteth his 

 spouse, and runneth after strange women. Why, ditto, ditto the same 

 answer comes again. Moreover, society has an interest in the poor man's 

 preservation, which it cannot have in that of the rich : for the vices of the 

 first bring down effective misery on himself and on his family, and 

 expense upon the public at large. Now, if Lord A play against Lord 

 B, what can happen to concern the public, but that the one will have 

 go much the more money to waste in riot and dissipation, and the other 

 so much the less ! And for the domestic evil why, we fall from three 

 carriages to one carriage or to no carriage -but not to physical distress. 

 The Marchioness of Goose, and the Miss Gooses, are never found 

 absolutely without bread or clothes, because my lord the Marquis is 

 betting on the " Darby !" 



Wealth, time out of mind, has had a saving faculty ; and why not in this, 

 as well as in other matters ? The principle of the " Eric" exists in 

 nature ; and never was, nor ever will be, got rid of. Wealth buys a 

 Protestant the right to commit sins on earth. It buys the Catholic still 

 better indulgence and remission for sins hereafter. A poor man in 

 Ireland would be damned if he were to eat fish on a Friday ! A rich 

 man pays the fine, and is saved ready to be damned again at his 

 leisure. " Prisons," or " purgatory," a man, according to his locality, 

 buys himself out of either ! So let us hear no more, we entreat, about 

 " one law for the rich, and another for the poor :" it is the fittest 

 thing in the world that " where one man may not look over a horse, 

 another should steal a hedge" if he has got money to pay for it. And, for 

 protection we have nothing to do, on this earth, with protecting a man 

 of forty thousand a year. " The gods take care of Cato !" 



This is incontestible and obvious a man who games cannot be 

 wronged : for either he desires to win, or to lose. And if he desire to 

 win, he is a trader, and must take the chance of loss ; and if he desires 

 to lose, why then he hath his wish, and should be content. Nothing 

 is so true and Mr. Jeremy Bentham (" jurisconsulte" ) has proved it 

 unanswerably, in his Defence of Usury as that men should be left to 

 judge of their own interests, in all transactions, and especially in all 

 relative to money. Finally, there can be no reason for meddling with 

 a lord who games ; because for himself- if he does not waste his pro- 

 perty in that way, he will in some other. And, for the commonwealth, 

 this is perfectly certain that it can suffer nothing by the change of 

 hands : for whoever the man is that has won the money, he cannot put it 

 to a worse use than the man did that has lost it ! 



Therefore, so much for one side of this subject which we flatter our- 

 selves we have rather settled. And now for " Life in the West," which 

 does a little take the other side but which is a book that will have a 

 sale ; for it has the first property that ensures a call for a book now-a- 

 clays it takes ground that is new ; and the man knows what he is talk- 

 ing about that has written it. It is a book of golden instruction this, in 

 the disguise of a novel ! The "Young Squire's" best Companion at Don- 

 caster ; the " Freshman's" salvation, the day he reaches the University ; 

 Twenty-one shillingsworth of good counsel cheap to any junior member 



