GAMES of CHANCE
.—Those games are so called, which depend solely upon the turning up of a CARD, or the uncertain "HAZARD of THE DIE." When fairly played, without any latent deception on one side or the other, they are considered truly equitable between the players, who are then said "to PLAY UPON THE SQUARE," without a point of advantage, the whole being dependent upon, and decided by, the EFFECT of CHANCE. The celebrated nocturnal game of Hazard, at which such immense property is annually LOST and WON, at the most fashionable and powerfully-supported GAMING HOUSES, is known to be the first and fairest GAME of CHANCE, upon which an adventurer (determined to encounter the probability of ruin) can possibly venture to STAKE HIS MONEY: on the contrary, it must be admitted, that the torrent of villainy, and unprincipled prostitution of affected integrity, have made such rapid and unprecedented strides to perfection, that the most experienced SPORTSMEN must despair of being enabled to play upon the square, after so many GAMBLERS of FASHION have, within a few years, been detected with loaded dice in their possession.
The game of E O, so plausibly deluding to all classes, particularly to rustics upon the different country COURSES and RACE GROUNDS, is the most deceptive, and most destructive, of any ever yet displayed for the purpose of public attraction; it may be very candidly placed in a parallel line with those low and rascally inventions of HUSTLING in the HAT, and PRICKING in the BELT, to both which an infinity of cunning countrymen become infatuated dupes, to the great emolument and gratification of that horde of miscreants, who subsist only upon the credulity and ignorance of the inexperienced, avaricious, and unsuspecting.