rfect
horror of _gambling_, and little imagined I was pursuing it in a
wholesale manner. To satisfy my inordinate curiosity, for
sight-seeing, I have twice or thrice in my life passed the
threshhold of a gambling-house in London, but never felt the least
personal desire to embark the smallest sum, although keenly alive
to the dangerous excitement in others. On one of these occasions
it fell to my lot to witness a most affecting and trying scene.
The names of the parties came to my knowledge afterward, which
from delicacy I of course suppress. A gentleman had for some years
been separated from his wife, in consequence of infidelity on her
part with a man of high fashion, an officer of the Guards. An
action and divorce ensued; but two children whom he had previous
to this unfortunate event, he refused to acknowledge, thus
endeavoring to put the stain of illegitimacy upon them. Years
rolled on, and the father and son never met. Rouge-et-Noir was the
fashionable game of the day, and Pall-Mall and St. James-street
swarmed with gambling-houses. Two gentlemen were quarrelling upon
a point, each accusing the other of taking the stake. The younger
man was the officer on guard that day, and consequently in
uniform. High words ensued; cards were exchanged; and in one
moment, from the most ungovernable rage, they became motionless as
statues. The silence was at length interrupted by an explanation
of 'By Heaven! my son!' This remark was made from the impulse of
the moment, and probably struck a chord in the parent's heart that
let loose all his affections. They retired to another apartment;
explanations ensued; and a reconciliation was the result.'

Elsewhere Mr. ABBOTT describes the gambling-houses of Paris, 'those dens
of iniquity,' as he terms them. 'The varied scenes of frantic joy and
human debasement,' he writes, 'which I witnessed at FRASCATI'S, were truly
appalling. The extremes of excitement were as powerfully exhibited in the
loser of twenty francs as in the man who had lost his twenty thousand.'
The annexed sketch of the lamented career of poor CONWAY, who will be
'freshly remembered' by many of our readers in the Atlantic cities, is
authentic in every particular. It is not without its lesson, in more
regards than one:

'I find I have neglected to mention an actor, who stood
sufficiently forward, both by his