Star. — 1822-12-25 (London, England)

GAMBLING.  . put St. James's ,(all of which had previonsly been closed in consequence of the, above sentence); the unfortunate deci. [ won of the Bench of MagistrAtes before whom the [appeal was heard, having afforded full security to the proprietors and frequenters of "Hells" from the future visits of Police Officers. The vice of gaming, when once it has taken root, becomes the most pngovernable and irresistible pas• stun inherent in our nature, and in its consequences pregnant •A ith every degradation and crime which the human mind can conceive. PUS of property, (fiends, and respectability are its immediate and Inevitable effects • fraud, breach of trust, robbery, and forgery, are the means too often employed to obtain a fresh-supply to feed this vice; and happy is the habitual gamester if he escape the gallows, or death by his own hand. This picture may appear overcharged, but those who have frequented " Hells," or associated with men who are in the practice of so doing, can bear testimony to its truth from daily ',witnessing its effects, even upon persons who had formerly torne the most honourable and irreproachable character. . Upwards of fifty persons of rank and family, officers and others, within the last five or six years have been publicly branded as criminals, or have anticipated by a suicidal act the disgrace which would ultimately have overtaken them. Who does not recollect the fine of those unfortunate suicides Mangles, Grimes, and Cohen, who, almost on the threshold of the gaming-houses,' where they had been plundered, committed that act equally forbidden by the laws of GOD and man? nor can the Public yet have forgotten the miserable end of Hayward, Bennett, and Barber, and others who, within the last twelve months, Suffered for their crimes; or the dreadful, but probable fate of James Willis, who on Wednesday last was tried at the Old Bailey, and capitally convicted of stealing a silver teapot and other articles from a coffee-house he frequented ; even this man had formerly moved in a most respectable sphere of society, but having unfortunately made an acquaintance, who introduced him to the " gambling-houses," he had at different times lost upwards of £2000; and being deeply distressed, had resorted to those disgraceful means which had at length placed him as a criminal at that bar.  If the vice of gaming were confined to the higher ranks of society, the evil would not be of so alarms ing and destructive a nature; but we behold in the most public streets of the metropolis " Hells," which commence their nefarious system of plunder at twelve o clock in the day, opening at that early hour avowedly for the convenience of apprentices, tradesmen, merchants' and bankers' clerks, numbers of whom daily frequent the play tables, risking the property of their employers in the delusive hope of winning money wherewith to indulge those habits of luxury and di:. sipation always engendered by the practice of gaming. Thus the evil is extended, and accessible to all ranks of society ; it therefore becomes the interest of the mercantile world particularly to consider what measures will be most effectual to suppress nuisances of so vicious and demoralizing a nature.