FOOTNOTES:

16(00) is a leap year. 17(00), 18(00), 19(00), are not leap years. 20(00) is a leap year.

The shifting of days caused great disturbance in festivals dependent on Easter. Pope Gregory, in 1582, ordered the 5th of October to be called 15th of October; the Low Countries made 15th of December 25th of December. Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy, accepted the Gregorian change, but the Protestant countries and communities resisted up to 1700. In England the ten days’ difference had increased to eleven days, and the Act of 24 Geo. II. was passed to equalize the style in Great Britain and Ireland to the method now in use in all Christian countries, except Russia. In England, Wednesday, September 2, 1752, was followed by Thursday the 14th of September, and the New Style date of Easter-day came into use in 1753.—Note by John Westby Gibson, Esq., LL.D.]

Dollars stamped in 1797 and issued 2,325,099

” ” 1804 ” 1,419,484

” ” 1809 and 1810 ” 1,073,051

————

Total 4,817,634

————

“WEST END GAMBLING HOUSES.

“TO THE EDITOR OF THE GLOBE.

Sir,—Can it be true—as rumour has it—that in an old-established gambling club, not 100 miles from St. James’s Street, enormous sums are nightly staked, and that fortunes rapidly change hands? I hear that three men sat down a few nights ago to play écarté in this said club, and that one of their number was at a certain period of the evening a loser of the enormous sum of £100,000. That when this very impossible figure was reduced to limits within which the winners considered the loser could pay, play ceased and the party broke up. The next day—so runs the story—one of the winners called with bills to the amount of £26,000, drawn on stamped paper, for the loser to accept. This gentleman, however, though he freely admits having played, states that, having dined not wisely but too well, he has no sort of recollection of losing any specific sum, but merely a hazy idea that fabulously large amounts were recklessly staked all round, and no accounts kept. In other words, he repudiates, and finally, after a lengthened discussion, has consented to place himself in the hands of a friend to decide what he is to pay. If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, I can only stigmatize the whole affair as a public scandal, and the police should promptly interfere and shut up a club where such disgraceful things occur. When Jenks’s baccarat ‘hell’ was closed, and Mr. J. Campbell Wilkinson and his six associates were each fined £500 (hence the very excellent bon mot which appeared in the Sporting Times that ‘Jenks’ babies’ had become ‘Jenks’ monkeys’), the public were justified in believing that, at last, there was not to be one law for the rich and another for the poor, and that in future men who broke the law by gambling for thousands, would have the same justice meted out to them as those who did so by tossing for coppers. However, it appears such hopes were premature, and before this happy state of things is arrived at, further attention must be drawn to the matter, hence this letter, for which I sincerely trust you will be able to find space.—I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

“A Hater of Professional Gamblers.

“January 24th.”

“Ye Captains and ye Colonels, ye parsons wanting place, Advice I’ll give you gratis, and think upon your case, If there’s any possibility, for you I’ll raise the dust, But then you must excuse me, if I serve myself the first.”