said the other, uncovering his breast and displaying it all
bloody with lacerations.

It is only at play that we can observe, from moment to moment,
all the phases of despair; from time to time there occur new

ones--strange, eccentric, or terrible. After having lost
quietly, and even with serenity, half his fortune, the father of

a family staked the remainder, and lost it without a murmur.
Facere solent extrema securos mala.[9] The bystanders looked at

him; his features changed not; only it was perceived that they
were fixed. It seemed that he was unconscious of life. Two

streams of tears trickled from his eyes, and yet his features
remained the same. He was literally a weepingstatue. The

spectators were seized with fright, and, although gamesters, they
melted into pity.

[9] 'Great calamities render us CARELESS.'
At Bayonne, in 1725, a French officer, in a rage at billiards,

jammed a billiard-ball in his mouth, where it stuck fast,
arresting respiration, until it was, with difficulty, extracted

by a surgeon. Dusaulx states that he was told the fact by a
lieutenant-general, who was an eye-witness.

It is well known that gamblers, like dogs that bite a stone flung
at them, have eaten up the cards, crushed up the dice, broken the

tables, damaged the furniture, and finally 'pitched into' each
other--as described by Lucian in his Saturnalia. Dusaulx assures

us that he saw an enraged gambler put a burning candle into his
mouth, chew it, and swallow it. A mad player at Naples bit the

table with such violence that his teeth went deep into the wood;
thus he remained, as it were, nailed to it, and suddenly expired.

The other players took to flight; the officers of justice visited
the place; and the corpse was deprived of the usual ceremony of

burial.[10]
[10] Gazette de Deux-Ponts, du 26 Novembre, 1772.

The following strange but apparentlyauthentic fact, is related
in the Mercure Francois (Tome I. Annee 1610).

'A man named Pennichon, being a prisoner in the Conciergerie
during the month of September, 1610, died there of a wonderfully

sudden death. He could not refrain from play. Having one day
lost his money, he uttered frightful imprecations against his

body and against his soul, swearing that he would never play at
cards again. Nevertheless, a few days after, he began to play

again with those in his apartment, and on a dispute respecting
discarding, he repeated his execrable oaths. And when one of the

company told him he should fear the Divine justice, he only swore
the more, and made such confusion that there had to be another

deal. But as soon as three other cards were given him, he placed
them in his hat, which he held before him, and whilst looking at

them, with his elbows on the table and his face in the hat, he so
suddenly expired that one of the party said--"Come, now play,"

and pushed him with his elbow, thinking he was asleep, when he
fell down dead upon the floor.'

In some cases the effect of losses at play is simply
stupefaction. Some players, at the end of the sitting, neither

know what they do nor what they say. M. de Crequi, afterwards
Duc de Lesdiguieres, leaving a gambling party with Henry IV.,

after losing a large sum, met M. de Guise in the court-yard of
the castle. 'My friend,' said he to the latter, 'where are the

quarters of the Guards now-a-days?' M. de Guise stepped back,
saying, 'Excuse me, sir, I don't belong to this country,' and

immediately went to the king, whom he greatly amused with the
anecdote.

A dissipated buck, who had been sitting all night at Hazard, went
to a church, not far from St James's, just before the second

reading of the Lord's Prayer, on Sunday. He was scarcely seated
before he dozed, and the clerk in a short time bawled out AMEN,

which he pronounced A--main. The buck jumped up half asleep and
roared out, 'I'll bet the caster 20 guineas!' The congregation

was thrown into a titter, and the buck ran out, overwhelmed with
shame. A similar anecdote is told of another 'dissipated buck'

in a church. The grand masquerade given on the opening of the
Union Club House, in Pall Mall, was not entirely over till a late

hour on the following Sunday. A young man nearly
intoxicated--certainly not knowing what he was about-- reeled

into St. James's church, in his masquerade dress, with his hat
on. The late Rev. Thomas Bracken, attracted by the noise of his

entrance, looked directly at him as he chanced to deliver the
following words:--'Friend! how camest thou in hither, not having

on a wedding garment?' It seemed so to strike the culprit that
he instantly took off his hat and withdrew in confusion.

At play, a winner redoubles his caution and sang-froid just in
proportion as his adversary gets bewildered by his losses,

becoming desperate; he takes advantage of the weakness of the
latter, giving him the law, and striving for greater success.

When the luck changes, however, the case is reversed, and the
former loser becomes, in his turn, ten times more pitiless--like

that Roman prefect, mentioned by Tacitus, who was the more
inexorable because he had been harshly treated in his youth, co

immmitior quia toleraverat. The joy at winning back his money
only makes a gamester the more covetous of winning that of his

adversary. A wealthy man once lost 100,000 crowns, and begged to
be allowed to go and sell his property, which was worth double

the amount he had lost. 'Why sell it?' said his adversary; 'let
us play for the remainder.' They played; luck changed; and the

late LOSER ruined the other.
Sometimes avidity makes terrible mistakes; many, in order to win

more, have lost their all to persons who had not a shilling to
lose. During the depth of a severe winter, a gamester beheld

with terror the bottom of his purse. Unable to resolve on
quitting the gaming table--for players in that condition are

always the most stubborn--he shouted to his valet--'Go and fetch
my great sack.' These words, uttered without design, stimulated

the cupidity of those who no longer cared to play with him, and
now they were eager for it. His luck changed, and he won thrice

as much as he had lost. Then his 'great sack' was brought to
him: it was a BEAR-SKIN SACK he used as a cloak!

In the madness of gaming the player stakes everything after
losing his money--his watch, his rings, his clothing; and some

have staked their EARS, and others their very LIVES-- instances
of all which will be related in the sequel.

Not very long ago a publican, who lost all his money, staked his
public-house, lost it, and had to 'clear out.' The man who won

it is alive and flourishing.
'The debt of honour must be paid: 'these are the terrible words

that haunt the gamester as he wakes (if he has slept) on the
morning after the night of horrors: these are the furies that

take him in hand, and drag him to torture, laughing the while. .
. .

What a 'sensation' it must be to lose one's ALL! A man,
intoxicated with his gains, left one gaming house and entered

another. As soon as he entered he exclaimed, 'Well, I am filled,
my pockets are full of gold, and here goes, ODDS OR EVEN?'

'Odds,' cried a player. It was ODDS, and the fortunatewinner
pocketed the enormous sum just boasted of by the other.

On the other hand, sudden prosperity has deranged more heads and
killed more people than reverses and grief; either because it

takes a longer time to get convinced of utter ruin than great
good fortune, or because the instinct of self- preservation

compels us to seek, in adversity, for resources to mitigate
despair; whereas, in the assault of excessive joy, the soul's

spring is distended and broken when it is suddenly compressed by
too many thoughts and too many sensations. Sophocles, Diagoras,

Philippides, died of joy. Another Greek expired at the sight of
the three crowns won by his three sons at the Olympic games.