In England, the outcry against gaming is loud, and deservedly so; and the extent to which it is stated to be curried in the higher circles is rather underrated than exaggerated; but the severity of our laws on this crime, and recent visitations of its rigour, confine it to the saloons of wealthy vice.  With us it is not a national vice, as in France, where every license, facility, and even encouragement presents itself.  Lotteries, which have been abolished in England, as immoral nuisances, are tolerated in France, with more mischievous effect, since, the risk is considerably less than our least shares formerly were, the lotteries smaller, and those drawn three times every month.  The relics of our gaming system are only to be found on race-courses; but in France, half the toys sold at a fair or fete, where mothers win rattles for their children, are by lottery, whilst our gaming at fairs is restricted to a few low adventurers for snuff-boxes, &c.  Despair is the gloomiest feature of the French character, and of which gaming produces a frightful proportion, notwithstanding all that our neighbours say about our hanging and drowning in November: witness their suicides:—­

In 1819:  Suicides, 376; of which, 126 women.
1820:   do.      325;  do.      114  do.
1821:   do.      348;  do.      112  do.

Of the suicides of these three years 25, 50, and 36, were attributed to love, and 52, 42, 43, to despair arising from gaming, the lottery, &c.  In the winter of 1826, several exaggerated losses by gaming were circulated in Paris with great finesse, to enable bankrupts to account for their deficiencies, many of whom were exposed and deservedly punished.

A few words on the prevention of gaming, the consideration of which gave rise to this hasty sketch; I mean by dramatic exhibitions of its direful effects.  On our stage we have a pathetic tragedy by E. Moore, which, though seldom acted, is a fine domestic moral to old and young; but the author

  “Was his own Beverley, a dupe to play.”

It is scarcely necessary to allude to the recent transfers of a celebrated French expose of French gambling to our English stage, otherwise than to question their moral tendency.  The pathos of our Gamester may reach the heart; but the French pieces command no such appeal to our sympathies.  On the contrary, the vice is emblazoned in such romantic and fitful fancies, that their effect is questionable, especially on the majority of those who flock to such exhibitions.  The extasies of the gamester are too seductive to be heightened by dramatic effect; neither are they counterbalanced by their consesequent misery, when the aim of these representations should be to outweigh them; for the authenticated publication of a single prize in the lottery has been known to seduce more adventurers than a thousand losses have deterred from risk.  But they keep up the dancing spirits of the multitude, and it will be well if their influence extends no further.