12 CHAMPAGNE DOES NOT RUIN. 



race-horses — consequently being born was the cause 

 of his ruin. 



To a gentleman so situated, by allowing a little lati- 

 tude of imagination, it might not be very difficult to 

 prove that being born had been the cause of his ruin. If 

 our present object was a dissertation on primary causes, 

 we would allow that his thesis might be in some measure 

 correct, and I will furnish another instance in favour 

 of his argument. A man goes to Crockford's splendid 

 house, drinks his splendid champagne, and finally loses 

 his own splendid fortune, or a part of it. Doubtless, 

 if he had not entered the house, he had not drunk the 

 champagne, nor lost his fortune there ; so, according 

 to our friend's doctrine, a splendid house and splendid 

 champagne were the cause of the ruin, and are con- 

 sequently to be avoided. Now I beg so far to differ 

 in opinion as to roundly assert, that the house and the 

 champagne are both mighty good things ; so are 

 race-horses, and being born : all are perfectly harm- 

 less if we would only use them for the purposes for 

 which they were intended, and not by our own folly 

 turn things that were designed for our amusement or 

 luxury, or both, into the means of our misery and 

 ruin. When this is the case, the fault is not in the 

 things themselves, but in the weakness of the mind 

 of the man. In my intercourse with the world, I 

 have been led hundreds of times into gaming-houses, 

 both at home and abroad, and never once took a 

 dice-box in my hand where hazard was played. I am 

 and always was enthusiastically fond of racing, and 

 was so as a boy. I considered then, and consider 

 now, the seeing a favourite horse win his race one of 

 the most exhilarating moments of a man's life ; and 

 yet (with the exception of once, and that when quite 



