Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/76

60 Next to draughts, in a general way, is backgammon, a game of science indeed, as well as of luck. Although you cannot play, you may bet; but if you do you are done. The moment the bets are made superior to the stakes at play, the game is sold. Sold! Even in the most respectable looking company, you are done out of your bet to a dead certainty.

Those, with dominos, are the only games at play, in a general way, to which the untaught, unpractised visitor to our Metropolis is exposed. Other and more ardent trials await the man of money, and of warm, generous feelings, who thinks every one he meets as honest as himself. Faro, Rouge et Noir, E. O. Vingt-une, Hazard, are the high-cut games of those who attack the vitals of an hereditary estate, or the peace of a family, long ennobled by acts of nobleness, which royalty cannot enhance by the fictitious addition of its ribbons, its smiles, or the laying on of a sword; much less by writing on a piece of paper or parchment the word or  What less was Mr. P before he was lord B! how was his state altered by being created Earl of M?

Lately, a general blow up hath taken place of nearly all the do's at the West end of the town,