ruffians and bludgeon-men employed, where gratuities failed;
personal violence and even assassination threatened to all who
dared to expose the crying evil--among others, to Stockdale, the
well-known publisher of the day, in Piccadilly.

Then came upon the nation the muddy flood of French
emigrants, poured forth by the Great Revolution--a set of men,
speaking generally, whose vices contaminated the very atmosphere.

Before the advent of these worthies the number of gambling houses
in the metropolis, exclusive of those so long established by
subscription, was not more than half-a-dozen; but by the year
1820 they had increased to nearly fifty. Besides _Faro_ and
_Hazard_, the foreign games of _Macao, Roulette, Rouge et Noir_,
&c., were introduced, and there was a graduated accommodation for
all ranks, from the Peer of the Realm to the Highwayman, the
Burglar, and the Pick et.

At one of the watering-places, in 1803, a baronet lost L20,000
at play, and a bond for L7000. This will scarcely surprise us
when we consider that at the time above five hundred notorious
characters supported themselves in the metropolis by this species
of robbery, and in the summer spread themselves through the
watering-places for their professional operations. Some of them
kept bankers, and were possessed of considerable property in the
funds and in land, and went their _circuits_ as regularly as the
judges. Most excellent judges they were, too, of the
condition of a `pigeon.'

In a great commercial city where, from the extent of its trade,