&c.

are shadows with a name.

When the Hazard tables open, it is at an hour when the respectable and controlled youths of London are within the walls of their homes; few are abroad except the modern man of _ton_, the rake, the sot, the robber, and the vagabond; and the dangers of gaming on these orders of society is little indeed, when compared with the baneful effects of that vice upon the mercantile youth of London.

It is to this class, and to the youth of the middling orders of society, that gaming is destructive, and it is upon these that the Rouge et Noir tables cast the most fatal influence.
Young men of this order cannot in general be absent from their families after midnight, the hour when the nocturnal Hells formerly yawned upon their victims; but now the introduction of Rouge et Noir has rendered the abominable track of play a morning and evening's lounge, set forth in all the false glare which the artful proprietors can invent to deceive the thoughtless; and thus it affords opportunities and temptations to such youth almost irresistible.
When the glittering of London pleasures first meets the eye of a young man placed upon the road of a mercantile life, or when he enters any of the multifarious departments in the machine of society which always lead the industrious and prudent to honourable emolument, he too frequently misconceives the fashionable gamester's character, and confounds his crimes with elegant accomplishments.

The road to pleasure is broad, and the gates of these Hells are open to him at hours when he can be absent, and can indulge his whim without suspicion--for at first he looks upon his new enjoyment but a mere whim, which he can abandon at any moment.