, is the
first trial of monetary difficulty. People, long struggling, get
blunted to the _res angustae_, precisely as people fast prospering do
to the steady tide of wealth. The man who leaps heart-struck from his
seat, as for the first time he contemplates a quarter's rent due and
unprovided for, or the foolish fellow who groans in spirit over a
protested bill returned upon the hand which he 'set' to it, merely for
the convenience of acquaintance, and who has never thought of stamped
paper since--such are two of the negative monetary associations which
checker life; of course, their number is legion. The man who found his
fairy gold transmuted into oak leaves, experienced a decided monetary
sensation; but not more so than fell to the lot of many a speculator,
who had bought to his last available penny in the Mississippi or the
South-sea Bubbles; or, to come to more recent days, in the stock of
fly-away English projected railways. To the mass of monetary
sensations of the kind, we fear, must be added at the present day
those produced by betting-offices. In these swindling dens, it is by
no means uncommon to see children, whose heads hardly come above the
counter, staking their shillings; even servant-maids haunt the
'office;' working-men abound, and clerks and shop-boys are great
customers. Among these people, there ought to be a good crop of
monetary sensations. In success, the little man-boy sees a grand
vision of cheap cigars, and copper and paste jewellery; for the urchin
early initiated in practical London-life, thinks of such things, and
worse, when the country lad of the same age would dream of nothing
beyond kites, fishing-tackle, or perhaps a gun. Molly, the housemaid,
has her prospects of unbounded 'loves of dresses' and 'ducks of
bonnets;' and the clerk and the shopman very possibly count upon their
racing gains as the fruitful origin of 'sprees' and 'larks'
innumerable. On the other hand, how has the money staked been
acquired? The pawnbroker's shop and the till will very frequently
figure in the answer. Pilfered half-crowns, or perhaps sovereigns,
kept back from collected accounts; or, in domestic service, pledged
spoons and forks, are frequently at the bottom of the betting
transactions of these 'noble sportsmen.' Then comes the period of
anticipation, and hope and fear. Bright visions of luck, on one hand;
a black and down-sloping avenue, stopping at the jail door, on the
other. Luck--and the stolen prope