The Impostor; Or, Born Without a Conscience, by the Author of 'Anti-Coningsby' Or, Born Without a Conscience, by the Author of 'Anti-Coningsby'. (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: to believe that at no time does the human brain from the first period that it becomes perceptible, resemble either that of a fish, a reptile, or a bird. This however is a subject for future discussion, Meanwhile ' The Vestiges' are not only clever in themselves, but will, we trust, be the cause of cleverness in others, and lead to still greater and bolder attempts at the unravelment of nature's mystic web. THE GAMBLING HOUSE. There are some dark truths that cannot be too often repeated, one of them is the fact that gambling tables are the resort of but two Glasses ?sharpers and dupes. There are exceptions to every rule, to this they are especially rare. Mrs. Trollope, the entertaining authoress, has been before hand with me, I see, in making fun of the vestiges. (See the ' Attractive Man,' voL 3.) I should be sorry to suspect the off-hand fair one of being " unable to make anything else of them," as a lovely friend of mine sarcastically (not to say spitefully) insinuates. It is a common case to suppose that there can be no cheating at rouge et noir. This is a gross mistake, the whole is a cheat, the chances to begin with, are against you, and the watchful croupier has it in his power by passing a card, in a way which, if cleverly executed, the keenest eye is unable to detect, to give victory to whichever color be pleases. Of course he will always, if possible, give it to that on which his quiet eye has detected the fewest stakes. Were it not for the decoys it would be a safe game to play always with the weaker side, though even that would require great practice. As it is, play is madness. Roulette is a still grosser swindle. A pedal, worked by the knee of the croupier, decides the color and the number. In fine, it is playing against destiny. Dice are still more delusi...