GAMING-HOUSES
—are those infamous NOCTURNAL RECEPTACLES of the most abandoned iniquity, where such scenes of villainy are in perpetual practice, that the most fertile pen must be inadequate to even a tolerable representation. These houses in the Metropolis, are, by the SPORTING WORLD, denominated "Hells;" and so truly are they entitled to that sublime distinction, that the whole FORCE of MAGISTRACY has been most laudably and successfully exerted against them without exception. Houses of this description are appropriated only to the purposes of play, and that of the most unfair description. They are kept by SYSTEMATIC DEPREDATORS, "who shun the light;" men who have no credit to support, no reputation to lose; and who are as completely lost to every sense of shame, as they are completely banished from the respectable classes of society. Here it is where the young, the inexperienced, the injudicious, and the inconsiderate, sacrifice not only their OWN, and often the property of OTHERS, but prostitute also that most invaluable GEM their INTEGRITY, and with it a PEACE of MIND never to be restored.
From the first moment of entering such an iniquitous sink of POLLUTION, such a complication of VILLAINY, and such a combination of the most desperate and abandoned THIEVES, every infatuated adventurer may date the origin of future misery. Whether it be CARDS, DICE, E. O. or whatever GAME or NAME the speculative sport may be, the credulous, unsuspecting dupe has no one CHANCE TO WIN, but inevitably every chance to lose, under the certainty of their systematic depredation. Thus far in explanation of those Hells, legally considered nuisances to society, as being prejudicial to the morals, and destructive to the property, of such individuals as unhappily fall within the vortex of so fashionable an influence; but there are other GAMING HOUSES of a superior order, and of the most magnificent description, supported in all the style of EASTERN SPLENDOR, by annual contribution from the first characters in the kingdom, and called "SUBSCRIPTION HOUSES," to which none but their own INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS are admitted under any plea whatever; and these, as private houses, being ABOVE THE LAW, any member possesses, of course, the privilege of ruining himself, and reducing his family to beggary, without transgressing the LAWS of HIS COUNTRY, or incurring the censure of his best and most fashionable friends.