true, but resembling our Bow-street officers in more respects
than one.

`Now that we have taken a survey of the brilliant and moving
throng, let us approach the stationary crowd to the left hand,
and see what it is that so fascinates and rivets their
attention. They are looking upon a long table covered with green
cloth, in the centre of which is a large polished wooden basin
with a moveable rim, and around it are small compartments,
numbered to a certain extent, namely 38, alternately red and
black in irregular order, numbered from one to 36, a nought or
zero in a red, and a double zero upon the black, making up the
38, and each capable of holding a marble. The moveable rim is
set in motion by the hand, and as it revolves horizontally from
east to west round its axis, the marble is caused by a jerk of
the finger and thumb to fly off in a contrary movement. The
public therefore conclude that no calculation can foretell where
the marble will fall, and I believe they are right, inasmuch as
the bank plays a certain and sure game, however deep, runs no
risk of loss, and consequently has no necessity for superfluously
cheating or deluding the public. It also plays double, that is,
on both sides of the wheel of fortune at once.

`When the whirling of both rim and marble cease, the latter
falls, either simultaneously or after some coy uncertainty, into
one of the compartments, and the number and colour, &c., are
immediately proclaimed, the stakes deposited are dexterously
raked up by the croupier, or increased by payment from the bank,
according as the colour wins or loses. Now, the two sides or
tables are merely duplicates of one another, and each of them is