ed out,
shows that the offenders did not always encounter the universal
reprobation of society.

(98) History of England, ii.

'Whist was not much in vogue until a later period, and was far
too abstruse and slow to suit the depraved taste which required
unadulterated stimulants.'

The ordinary stakes at these mixed assemblies would, at the present day,
be considered high, even at the clubs where a rubber is still allowed.

'The consequences of such gaming were often still more lamentable than
those which usually attended such practices. It would happen that a lady
lost more than she could venture to confess to her husband or father.
Her creditor was probably a fine gentleman, or she became indebted
to some rich admirer for the means of discharging her liabilities. In
either event, the result may be guessed. In the one case, the debt
of honour was liquidated on the old principle of the law-merchant,
according to which there was but one alternative to payment in purse. In
the other, there was likewise but one mode in which the acknowledgment
of obligation by a fine woman would be acceptable to a man of the
world.'

'The pernicious consequences of gambling to the nation at large,'
says another writer, 'would have been intolerable enough had they been
confined to the stronger sex; but, unfortunately, the women of the day
were equally carried away by this criminal infatuation. The disgusting
influence of this sordid vice was so disastrous to female minds, that
they lost their fairest distinction and privileges, together with
the blushing honours of modesty. Their high gaming was necessarily
accompanied with great losses. If all their resources, regular and
irregular, honest and fraudulent, were dissipated, still, _GAME-DEBTS
MUST BE PAID!_ The cunning winner was no stranger to the necessities of
the case. He hinted at _commutations_--which were not to be refused.

"So tender these,--if debts crowd fast upon her, She'll pawn her
_VIRTUE_ to preserve her _HONOUR!_"

Thus, the last invaluable jewel of female possession was unavoidably
resigned. That was indeed the forest of all evils, but an evil to which
every deep gamestress was inevitably exposed.'

Hogarth strikingly illustrated this phase of womanhood in England,
in his small picture painted for the Earl of Charlemont, and entitled
'_Picquet, or Virtue in Danger_.' It shows a young lady, who, during a
_tete-a-tete_, had just lost all her money to a handsome