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at any trial is as distinctly an event-a chance event--as the turning up of ace or deuce at the cast of a die.
What then are we to say of the experience of those who have won money by following a lucky player? Let us revert to our coin-tossers. Let us suppose that the progress of the venture in a given county is made known to a set of betting men in that county; and that when it becomes known that a person has tossed ' head' twelve times running, the betting men hasten to back the luck of that person. Further, suppose this to happen in every county in England. Now we have seen that these persons are no more' likely to toss a thirteenth 'head,' than they are to fail. About half will succeed and about half will fail. Thus about half their backers will win and about half will lose. But the successes of the winners will be widely announced; while the mischance's of the losers will be concealed. This will happen--the like notoriously does happen-for two reasons. First, gamblers pay little attention to the misfortunes of their fellows: the professed gambler is utterly selfish, and moreover he hates the sight of misfortune because it unpleasantly reminds him of his own risks. Secondly, losing gamblers do
not like their losses to be noised abroad; they object to having their luck suspected by others, and they are even disposed to blind themselves to their own ill-fortune as far as possible. Thus, the inevitable success of about one-half of our coin-tossers would be accompanied inevitably by the success of those who 'backed their luck,' and the successes of such backers would be bruited abroad and be quoted as examples; while the failure of those who had backed the other half (whose luck was about to fail them), would be comparatively unnoticed. Unquestionably the like
holds in the case of public gambling-tables. If any doubt this, let them inquire what has been heard of those who continued to back Garcia and other 'bank-breakers.' We know that Garcia and the rest of these lucky gamblers have been ruined; they had risen too high and were followed too constantly for their fall to remain unnoticed. But what has been heard of those unfortunates who backed Garcia after his last success-
ful evening, and before the change in his luck had been made manifest ? We hear nothing of them, though a thousand stories are told of those who made money while Garcia and the rest were 'in luck.'
In passing, we may add to these considerations the circumstance that it is the interest of gaming-bankers
to conceal the misfortunes of the unlucky, and to announce and exaggerate the success of the fortunate. I by no means question, be it Understood, the possibility that money may be gained quite safely by
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