86 About Betting and Gambling. 



is not the occasional turn at roulette or rouge et noir 

 which one saw once a year, perhaps, but it is the 

 daily, nay hourly, betting and gambling. I ask the 

 whole of your readers whether I am saying the 

 truth or not, when I state that you cannot get into 

 a railway carriage among a lot of young fellows without the 

 conversation running on the odds about this or about that, 

 and more than often " nap " is going on. Why do railway 

 directors not put a notice on season tickets that they are 

 issued on condition that the holder does not play at cards 

 or any other game for money on the journey ? What more 

 demoralising sight is there than seeing young fellows, who 

 are coming some twenty miles or so to London, playing 

 cards at nine o'clock in the morning ? It is becoming a 

 public scandal. I knew one card-playing gang by sight on 

 a railway over which I often travelled — about two of them 

 went together in the same carriage ; they all had known 

 homes and employments, and possibly '' quasi " respecta- 

 bility ; hut I dont think they lost much money, and I don't 

 think the amount of their salaries would have justified 

 them travelling first class, and I fancy they paid their 

 railway fare, and a good bit more, before the year was out. 

 The first time I travelled by that railway I got in at the 

 last moment and found myself the no?i -playing member in a 

 carriageful ; and they kindly asked me to join. The pro- 

 poser of my joining, who took the pack out of what, I 

 believe, is now known as a " card side pocket," was very 

 civil, and so was I, and I made a little joke, the point of 

 which none of them saw. " No, thank you," I said — " by 

 the bye, do you remember Punches joke about sudden 

 acquaintances over games : ' Beware of the man who carries a 

 bit of chalk in his pocket and calls the marker Jack ? ' '' — and 

 these fellows never thought it funny. I took stock of them 

 directly I saw there were two card-players and three pigeons. 



