if there were not six in the game.' These wishes were several

times repeated both then and afterwards. Upon this the candle
was put out by a party present, who said he was shocked with the

oaths and expressions he heard, and that he put out the candle
with a design to put an end to the game. Presently upon this

they adjourned to another house, and there began a fresh game,
when Parsons and his partner had great success. They then played

at Loo again till four in the morning. During the second playing
Parsons complained to one Rolles, his partner, of a bad pain in

his leg, which from that time increased. There was an appearance
of a swelling, and afterwards the colour changing to that of a

mortified state. On the following Sunday he took advice of a
surgeon, who attended him until his death. Notwithstanding all

the applications that were made the mortification increased, and
showed itself in different parts of the body. He was visited by

a clergyman, who administered the sacrament to him, without any
knowledge of what had happened before--the man appearing to be

extremely ignorant of religion, having been accustomed to swear,
to drink, to game, and to profane the Sabbath. After receiving

the sacrament he said--'Now, I must never sin again.' He hoped
God would forgive him, having been wicked not above six years,

and that whatever should happen he would not play at cards again.
After this he was in great agony--chiefly delirious; spoke of his

companions by name, and seemed as if his imagination was engaged
at cards. He started, had distracted looks and gestures, and in

a dreadful fit of shaking and trembling died on the 4th of March,
just about a fortnight after the utterance of his terrible

imprecation.
The worthysheriff of Gloucestershire goes on to say that the

man's eyes were open when he died, and could not be closed by the
common method, so that they remained open when he was put into

the coffin. From this circumstance arose a report that he WISHED
HIS EYES MIGHT NEVER CLOSE; 'but,' says the sheriff, 'this is a

mistake; for, from the most creditable witnesses, I am fully
convinced no such wish was uttered; and the fact is, that he did

close his eyes after he was taken with the mortification, and
either dozed or slept several times.

'When the body came to be laid out, it appeared all over
discoloured or spotted; and it might, in the most literal sense,

be said, that his flesh rotted on his bones before he died.'
At the request of the sheriff, the surgeon (a Mr Pegler) who

attended the unfortunate man, sent in the following report:--
'Sir,--You desire me to acquaint you, in writing, with what I

know relating to the melancholy case of the late Richard Parsons;
a request I readilycomply with, hoping that his sad catastrophe

will serve to admonish all those who profane the sacred name of
God.

'February 27th last I visited Richard Parsons, who, I found, had
an inflamed leg, stretching from the foot almost to the knee,

tending to a gangrene. The tenseness and redness of the skin was
almost gone off, and became of a duskish and livid colour, and

felt very lax and flabby. Symptoms being so dangerous, some
incisions were made down to the quick, some spirituous

fomentations made use of, and the whole limb dressed up with such
applications as are most approved in such desperate

circumstances, joined with proper internal medicines. The next
day he seemed much the same; but on March the 1st he was worse,

the incisions discharged a sharp fetid odor (which is generally
of the worst consequence). On the next day, which was Sunday,

the symptoms seemed to be a little more favourable; but, to my
great surprise, the very next day I found his leg not only

mortified up to the knee, but the same began anew in four
different parts, viz., under each eye, on the top of his

shoulder, and on one hand; and in about twelve hours after he
died. I shall not presume to say there was anything supernatural

in the case; but, however, it must be confessed, that such cases
are rather uncommon in subjects so young, and of so good a habit

as he had always been previous to his illness.'
On one occasion Justice Maule was about to pass sentence on a

prisoner, who upon being asked to say why judgment should not be
pronounced, 'wished that God might strike him dead if he was not

innocent of the crime.' After a pause, the judge said:--'As the
Almighty has not thought proper to comply with your request, the

sentence of the court is,' &c.
A SAD REMINDER.

Every Englishman recollects the fate of that unhappy heiress, the
richest of all Europe, married to a man of rank and family, who

was plundered in the course of a few years of the whole of his
wealth, in one of those club houses, and was obliged to surrender

himself to a common prison, and ultimately fly from his country,
leaving his wife with her relations in the greatest despair and

despondency.'[23]
[23] Rouge et Noir: the Academicians of 1823.

GEORGE IV.
There are few departments of human distinction in which Great

Britain cannot boast a 'celebrity'--genteel or ungenteel. In the
matter of gambling we have been unapproachable--not only in the

'thorough' determination with which we have exhausted the
pursuit--but in the vast, the fabulous millions which make up the

sum total that Englishmen have 'turned over' at the gaming table.
I think that many thousands of millions would be 'within the

mark' as the contribution of England to the insatiate god of
gambling.

I have presented to the reader the record of gambling all the
world over--the gambling of savages--the gambling of the ancient

Persians, Greeks, and Romans--the gambling of the gorgeous
monarchs of France and their impassioned subjects; but I have now

to introduce upon the horrible stage a Prince Royal, who
surpassed all his predecessors in the gaming art, having right

royally lost at play not much less than a million sterling, or,
as stated, L800,000--before he was twenty-one years of age!

If the following be facts, vouched for by a writer of
authority,[24] the results were most atrocious.

[24] James Grant (Editor of the Morning Advertiser), Sketches in
London.

'Every one is aware that George IV., when Prince of Wales, was,
as the common phrase is, over-head-and-ears in debt; and that it

was because he would thereby be enabled to meet the claims of his
creditors, that he consented to marry the Princess Caroline of

Brunswick. But although this is known to every one,
comparatively few people are acquainted with the circumstances

under which his debts were contracted. Those debts, then, were
the result of losses at the gaming table. He was an inveterate

gambler--a habit which he most probably contracted through his
intimacy with Fox. It is a well-ascertained fact that in two

short years, after he attained his majority, he lost L800,000 at
play.

'It was with the view and in the hope that marriage would cure
his propensity for the gaming table, that his father was so

anxious to see him united to Caroline; and it was solely on
account of his marriage with that princess constituting the only

condition of his debts being paid by the country, that he agreed
to lead her to the hymeneal altar.

'The unfortunate results of this union are but too well known,
not only as regarded the parties themselves, but as regarded

society generally. To the gambling habits, then, of the Prince
of Wales are to be ascribed all the unhappiness which he entailed