f
address, was perfection.

The Irish have a few brilliant players--one of them is on the bench; but
the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans
are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class
players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre
and Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped
the place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the
progress of this indifferentism?--how are we to awaken men out of the
stupor of this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning
of Talleyrand to his friend who could not play, as he said, "Have you
reflected on the miserable old age that awaits you?" How much of human
nature that would otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by
Whist! What scores of tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still
serve their country as whisters! what feeble intelligences that can
flicker out into a passing brightness at the sight of the "turned
trump"!

Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the
feeble, the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast
over society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will
be let loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts
of wit or pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say,
think of this. It is a peril that has been long threatening--even
from that time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by
the invariable reply, "I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist,"
exclaimed, "I really believe that the day is not distant when no
gentleman can have a vice that requires more than two people!"

ONE OF OUR "TWO PUZZLES".

The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do
with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place
them in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the
good in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will
save me from any imputation of deficient delicacy.

Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has
been expended in devising occupations where female labour might be
advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more
delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men.
Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph,
have been freely opened--and, I believe, ver