1827.J Letter on Affairs in general. 523 



bear out my view of this subject. According to the preamble of this very 

 bill doubts have arisen upon the point, and it is therefore extraordinary that 

 there is nothing in the body of the bill to put those doubts to rest. It is, 

 indeed, declared a misdemeanor to set spring-guns; but not a word is said 

 as to whether the person setting them is to be considered guilty of murder 

 or manslaughter, in case death should be occasioned by their going off. 

 The bill, which passed the Commons in 1825, declared such person to be 

 guilty of manslaughter, and gave to the trespasser, who was only wounded 

 by them, treble damages ajid costs in the action which it entitled him to 

 bring against the person who set them. I like that bill better than the 

 present ; but I suspect this milder measure was introduced in its stead, in 

 order to conciliate the opposition which was then got up against the prin- 

 ciple of it by the Duke of Wellington and one or two of his military cro- 

 nies, who being rendered callous by long practice to the shooting of men 

 by wholesale, could not be expected to see any harm in shooting them 

 by retail. 



From the Game Laws, I come by no unnatural transition to a paragraph, 

 which I saw in The Morning Herald of the other day, stating that the 

 parishioners of St. George's, Hanover Square, had been treated with an 

 *' impressive and eloquent" sermon against gaming by their worthy vicar, 

 the Dean of Chester. Now, to my mind, a work of greater supererogation 

 could not have been attempted : first, because the gamblers, for whose 

 benefit it was intended, are not in general church-goers; and next, because 

 they would be impenetrable to argument even if they were. Of all the 

 propensities which commence by making dupes, and end by making knaves 

 of those who are their victims, none is so perfectly reason-proof as that 

 which derives its origin from the excitements of the gaming table, and the 

 visionary who seeks to cure the toothache by philosophical dissertations, 

 which 4< make a pish at pain and sufferance," is not likely to have more 

 success than he who seeks to cure the gamester by discourses, "writ in the 

 style of gods," upon the danger and immorality of his practices. By the 

 stage, the pulpit, the bar and the senate, efforts have been made, in all 

 ages, languages, and countries, to repress, if not to extinguish, the spirit of 

 gaming, and the experience of successive generations is pregnant with proof, 

 that under every different combination of climate, circumstance and cha- 

 racter, those efforts have all been equally vain and ineffectual. If then 

 we cannot put a stop to the practices of the gamester, it is worth while to 

 consider whether we cannot render them less noxious to himself and the 

 community, by placing them under the correction and control of some re- 

 sponsible public authority. I expect you will raise an immense outcry 

 against me, when I declare to you that my honest opinion is, that the 

 system of prohibition, which we pursue in England with regard to gaming 

 houses, is infinitely more prejudicial to public and private prosperity than 

 that of licensing, which is pursued in most, for I do not say all, of the con- 

 tinental states. In England, every gaming house is by law tabooed or 

 prohibited ground; and the keeper and frequenter are both liable to the 

 infliction of severe and even infamous punishment. The consequence is, 

 that a degree of mystery attaches to them, which renders them highly 

 attractive to the young and inexperienced. Yon must be introduced by a 

 friend; you must be entrusted with a pass word ; you must be sworn as 

 it were to secrecy and silence. What passes over the table at night, you 

 must not divulge to the uninitiated in the morning; and hence you are 

 often deep in the gulph of ruin before you can bo cautioned that you are 



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