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Certain degree of discredit is attached to every game which depends either partly or wholly on chance; and between the sharper and the honorable player the line does not seem to be very distinctly drawn. Persons, therefore, in official situations who value themselves upon reputations are seldom known to engage in play, even within limits and under circumstances which might be considered to render it perfectly innocent and allowable!
And in a Chinese work now before me the practice is described as 'the thief's back door' (an indirect entrance to a dishonest life), as being "as near to murder as adultery is to disgrace to our parentage" and "as near akin to robbery as ..."
... a guide to poverty, want, crime, and the scaffold.
These observations embrace, I believe, all the points suggested in your letter; but I enclose some answers by an intelligent Chinese to queries on the same subject, which may be interesting from the originality of information and the ideas which they embody.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) C. B. Hillier,
Chief Magistrate.
(True Copy)
Colonial Secretary.