Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/38

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • ing his troops, and making his dispositions

for commencing the gaming, encouraged not merely by the probable hope, but the undoubted certainty that whoever may be entitled to the victory, he himself shall obtain the spoils. As the general principle of gambling is to acquire our neighbour's property without giving him an equivalent, raffling, as practised at the watering places, especially at Brighton, is dexterously calculated for picking the pockets of visitors, in order to fill the pockets of the inhabitants; and, indeed, is to Brighton shopkeepers a greater source of revenue than any other craft which they exercise, with all the benefit of monopoly and extortion. The raffle-holder gains without any risk: his profits are always twofold, and by a little additional dexterity of fraud, may be threefold. In the first place, the article