for a solution of this vexed problem to-day. To get money without working for it was the fashion. The passion for gambling reached its climax in this age. A desire to build up a rapid fortune and contempt for the slower results of patient industry seized all classes of society. Company after company was formed, "scheme after scheme of the most fantastic description rose and glittered and burst." There was a company "for making salt water fresh," another for "importing jackasses from Spain." One projector invited subscriptions of two guineas for an undertaking which should in time be revealed: in one day he received two hundred guineas, with which he decamped! Born of this gambling spirit was the famous South Sea Bubble, the bursting of which reduced thousands of families to absolute beggary.
The women of this period were notorious for gambling. Whole estates, jewels and valuable possessions were staked, lost, and won, night after night, through the Georgian period. We hear of certain ladies sitting down daily to the card-table, where the lowest stake was two hundred guineas. It was not regarded as a vice; it was a resource for getting money without working for it. The game of whist, hitherto chiefly played by the clergy, was
