The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, both volumes in a single file

Popular 19th century book about gambling. According to the Preface: "Forty or fifty years ago--that is, within the memory of many a living man--gambling was 'the rage' in England, especially in the metropolis. Streets now meaningless and dull--such as Osendon Street, and streets and squares now inhabited by the most respectable in the land--for instance, St James's Square, THEN opened doors to countless votaries of the fickle and capricious goddess of Fortune; in the rooms of which many a nobleman, many a gentleman, many an officer of the Army and Navy, clergymen, tradesmen, clerks, and apprentices, were 'cleaned out'--ruined, and driven to self-murder, or to crimes that led to the gallows. 'I have myself,' says a writer of the time, 'seen hanging in chains a man whom a short time before I saw at a Hazard table!'"