British youth. The Demon of Play has him for his own, and he may
go on playing and playing until he has lost every florin of his
own, or as many of those belonging to other people as he can beg
or borrow. Far more fortunate for him would it be in the long
run, if he met in the outset with a good swinging loss. The
burnt child _DOES_ dread the fire as a rule; but there is this
capricious, almost preternatural, feature of the physiology of
gaming, that the young and inexperienced generally win in the
first instance. They are drawn on and on, and in and in. They
begin to lose, and continue to lose, and by the time they have
cut their wise teeth they have neither sou nor silver to make
their dearly-bought wisdom available.

`At least one-half of the company may be assumed to be arrant
rascals--rascals male and rascals female--_chevaliers
d'industrie_, the offscourings of all the shut-up gambling-houses
in Europe, demireps and _lorettes_, single and married women
innumerable.'

In the course of the three visits he has paid to Hombourg, Mr
Sala has observed that `nine-tenths of the English visitors to
the Kursaal, play;' and he does not hesitate to say that the
moths who flutter round the garish lamps at the Kursaal Van
der Hohe, and its kindred Hades, almost invariably singe their
wings; and that the chaseer at _Roulette_ and _Rouge_, generally
turn out edged tools, with which those incautious enough to play
with them are apt to cut their fingers, sometimes very
dangerously.

The season of 1869 in Hombourg is thus depicted in a high class