This book, which is dedicated to the memory of the
late Bishop Watts-Ditchfield, is a -dissuasive from gambling, with which, in spite of the writer's good intentions, it is diffi- cult to go all the way. " Gambling " is what Bentham calls a " question-begging ' term. By a gambler we understand a person who gambles, as by a drunkard we understand a person who drinks—to excess. And, in this sense, drink and gambling are the cause of such great evils that the social reformer may be pardoned if his denunciation of them is wanting in discrimination. Practically, if not in theory, his case is strong : the man who starts in life as an abstainer, and makes it a rule never to back a horse, is on the safe side, and is often well advised in taking it. But, as one may drink a glass of wine without being a drunkard, so one may put into a sweepstakes without being a gambler. Drunkenness, it seems, is on the decline in all -classes. Gambling is so amongst educated people ; Crockford's has become a memory. Among the masses it is, unfortunately, rampant ; but if Mr. Glass were more of a casuist he would be more convincing. His chapter on " Gambling and Commerce " is unsatisfying. He quotes the Spectator as asking : " If you buy corn with a hope of a rise, which is of the essence of commerce, why may you not stake a similar bet on the turn of a card ? " He attempts to answer the implicit argument, but does so without obvious success.
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