divident-warrants, indignation meetings of Venezuelan bond-
holders, coupons, cases of champagne, satin-skinned horses with
plaited manes, grand stands, pretty faces, bright flags, lobster
salads, cold lamb, fortune-telling gipsies, barouches-and-four,
and "our Aunt Sally." High play is still rife in some
aristocratic clubs; there are prosperous gentlemen who wear clean
linen every day, and whose names are still in the Army List, who
make their five or six hundred a year by Whist-playing, and have
nothing else to live upon; in East-end coffee-shops, sallow-faced
Jew boys, itinerant Sclavonic jewellers, and brawny German sugar-
bakers, with sticky hands, may be found glozing and wrangling
over their beloved cards and dominoes, and screaming with
excitement at the loss of a few pence. There are yet some occult
nooks and corners, nestling in unsavoury localities, on passing
which the policeman, even in broad daylight, cannot refrain from
turning his head a little backwards--as though some bedevilments
must necessarily be taking place directly he has passed--
where, in musty back parlours, by furtive lamplight, with
doors barred, bolted, and sheeted with iron, some wretched,
cheating gambling goes on at unholy hours. Chicken-hazard is
scotched, not killed; but a poor, weazened, etiolated biped is
that once game-bird now. And there is Doncaster, every year--
Doncaster, with its subscription-rooms under authority, winked at
by a pious corporation, patronized by nobles and gentlemen
supporters of the turf, and who are good enough, sometimes, to
make laws for us plebeians in the Houses of Lords and Commons.
There is Doncaster, with policemen to keep order, and admit none
but "respectable" people--subscribers, who fear Heaven and
honour the Queen. Are you aware, my Lord Chief-Justice, are you
aware, Mr Attorney, Mr Solicitor-General, have you the slightest