ndangering
their lives in the excitement of play. If we may accept this as a basis,
we can see how the idea can be developed. If it is right to exclude
Doctors, why then, as a kindred class, Lawyers should also be refused
admission. Of course Clergymen of all denominations are, even now,
conspicuous by their absence. If they are not, the decree of banishment
should refer also to the wearers of the cloth.

We have now got rid of Doctors, Lawyers, and Parsons--three of the
Professions. To be consistent, we must take the fourth. This will
prevent Musicians from gambling. But if Musicians are tabooed, why not
Actors? And if Actors, why not Artists? And if we except Artists, we
must join Literature and Science, or there might be jealousy. And now we
have excluded Doctors, Lawyers, Parsons, Musicians, Actors, Artists,
Authors, Men of Science, and everyone more or less connected with them.

Now we must remember what is bad for the master must be equally bad for
the man. So if a Doctor is excluded, a Chemist, an Undertaker, and a
Grave-digger would also be kept away. A Lawyer would carry with him
Judges, Magistrates, Clerks, and Law Stationers. The Clergy would
represent everyone connected with a church, from an Archbishop to a
Bell-ringer. Then, if we are to take away the Professions, Commerce must
follow--wholesale and retail. In one blow we keep out of the rooms
nearly the entire community.

Still there are the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service. But these are
all more or less branches of the original class. They, like the Doctors,
work for the public good. Without an Army and Navy and a Civil Service,
how would the State exist? So they must go. And now we have very little
left. We have lost the Doctors, the Clergy, the Lawyers, the
Contributors to Fine Arts, the Merchants, the Traders, and the Servants
of the Crown. Naturally the lower orders would follow the lead of the
upper classes, and then there would be only the Croupiers left. And as
the Croupiers may not play themselves, and would have the play of no one
to superintend, they, too, might be excused, as their labour would be in
vain.

And now having reduced the visitors of the tables to an unknown
quantity, I may disappear myself. Yours retiringly,

_Spanish Castle, Isle of Skye._ AN EX-X.

* * * * *

A RUSH OF ONE.--The _Times_, a few days ago, alluding to the unemployed
loafer, said, "it is he who flocks" to Relief Commi