Europe. Something might be gained, indeed, if we could trace the causes
which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation, for that
discovery might show us some means of influencing the next. But I do not
believe that this is possible. The times have undoubtedly grown more
dull, as civilisation has made them more alike, but there is, I think,
no truth in the common statement that vice is bred of idleness. The
really idle man is a poor creature, incapable of strong sins. It is far
more often the man of superior gifts, with faculties overwrought and
nerves strained above concert pitch by excessive mental exertion, who
turns to vicious excitement for the sake of rest, as a duller man falls
asleep. Men whose lives are spent amidst the vicissitudes, surprises and
disappointments of the money market are assuredly less idle than country
gentlemen; the busy lawyer has less time to spare than the equally
gifted fellow of a college; the skilled mechanic works infinitely
harder, taking the average of the whole year, than the agricultural
labourer; the life of a sailor on an ordinary merchant ship is one of
rest, ease and safety compared with that of the collier. Yet there can
hardly be a doubt as to which individual in each example is the one to
seek relaxation in excitement, innocent or the reverse, instead of in
sleep. The operator in the stock market, the barrister, the mechanic,
the miner, in every case the men whose faculties are the more severely
strained, are those who seek strong emotions in their daily leisure, and
who are the more inclined to extend that leisure at the expense of
bodily rest. It may be objected that the worst vice is found in the
highest grades of society, that is to say, among men who have no settled
occupation. I answer that, in the first place, this is not a known fact,
but a matter of speculation, and that the conclusion is principally
drawn from the circumstance that the evil deeds of such persons, when
they become known, are very severely criticised by those whose criticism
has the most weight, namely by the equals of the sinners in question--as