Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/74

58 hundred and fifty within the Bills of Mortality; making, for the whole of London, an average loss (for liquors only) of four hundred and five pounds a day, estimating each to be occupied only six hours. As all these have been taken at estimates too low for the actual state of things, we may correctly set the amount down at the round sum of five hundred pounds a day, without saying a word of the dry money, which may, we can safely conjecture, be as much more; or a total of one thousand pound daily for the gratification of a game at once new and fascinating. So much for La Bagatelle, at which novices do frequently win large numbers, and the best players are sometimes foiled. For my part I never lost any thing at it; and in my last play won every thing. But it is no less pernicious to the stranger, who is sure to be done, either by booty or playing off. Therefore it is, I warn my readers to keep clear from invitations to, even "one roll up of the balls," for ever so small a wager; for, as I am not now playing, but writing for the good of the uninformed, I should not perform my duty (I am told) if I did not come out with every precaution and advice in my power; and I will add, if they are not cured by my exposition of the