It is evident from this graphic description of the process, that
the villany of sharpers has been ever the same; for old Roger's
account of the matter in his day exactly tallies with daily
experience at the present time.

The love of card-playing was continued through the reign of
Elizabeth and James I.,[60] and in the reign of the latter it had
reached so high a pitch that the audiences used to amuse
themselves with cards at the play-house, while they were waiting
for the beginning of the play. The same practice existed at
Florence. If the thing be not done at the present day, something
analogous prevails in our railway carriages throughout the
kingdom. It is said that professed card-sharpers take
season-tickets on all the lines, and that a great DEAL of money
is made by the gentry by duping unwary travellers into a game or
by betting.

[60] King James, the British Solomon, although he could not
'abide' tobacco, and denounced it in a furious 'Counterblaste,'
could not 'utterly condemn' play, or, as he calls it, 'fitting
house-pastimes.' 'I will not,' he says, 'agree in forbidding
cards, dice, and other like games of Hazard,' and enters into an
argument for his opinion, which is scarcely worth quoting. See
Basilicon Doron--a prodigy of royal fatuity--but the perfect
'exponent' of the characteristics of the Stuart royal race in
England.


There is no reason to suppose that the fondness for this