The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 2 Part 4

CHAPTER III. ANECDOTES OF THE Pa.s.sIONS AND VICISSITUDES OF GAMESTERS.

Although all the motives of human action have long been known--although psychology, or the science of soul and sentiment, has ceased to present us with any new facts--it is quite certain that our edifice of Morals is not quite built up. We may rest a.s.sured that as long as intellectual man exists the problem will be considered unsolved, and the question will be agitated. Future generations will destroy what we establish, and will fashion a something according to their advancement, and so on; for if there be a term which, of all others, should be expunged from the dictionaries of all human beings, it seems to be Lord Russell's word FINALITY. Something NEW will always be wanted. 'Sensation' is the very life of humanity; it is motion--the reverse of 'death'--which we all abhor.

The gamester lives only for the 'sensation' of gaming. Menage tells us of a gamester who declared that he had never seen any luminary above the horizon but the moon. Saint Evremond, writing to the Count de Grammont, says--'You play from morning to night, or rather from night to morning.

All the rays of the gamester's existence terminate in play; it is on this centre that his very existence depends. He enjoys not an hour of calm or serenity. During the day he longs for night, and during the night he dreads the return of day.'

Being always pre-occupied, gamesters are subject to a ridiculous absence of mind. Tacitus tells us that the Emperor Vitellius was so torpid that he would have forgotten he was a prince unless people had reminded him of it from time to time.(8) Many gamesters have forgotten that they were husbands and fathers. During play some one said that the government were about to levy a tax on bachelors. 'Then I shall be ruined!' exclaimed one of the players absorbed in the game. 'Why, man, you have a wife and five children,' said the speaker.

(8) Tanta torpedo invaserat animum Vitellii, ut si principem eum fuisse non meminissent, ipse oblivisceretur. Hist., lib. iii.

This infatuation may be simply ridiculous; but it has also a horrible aspect. A distracted wife has rushed to the gaming table, imploring her husband, who had for two entire days been engaged at play, to return to his home.

'Only let me stay one moment longer--only one moment. . . . . I shall return perhaps the day after to-morrow,' he stammered out to the wretched woman, who retired. Alas! he returned sooner than he had promised. His wife was in bed, holding the last of her children to her breast.

'Get up, madam,' said the ruined gambler, 'the bed on which you lie belongs to us no longer!' . . .

When the gamester is fortunate, he enjoys his success elsewhere; to his home he brings only consternation.

A wife had received the most solemn promise from her husband that he would gamble no more. One night, however, he slunk out of bed, rushed to the gaming table, and lost all the money he had with him. He tried to borrow more, but was refused. He went home. His wife had taken the precaution to lock the drawer that contained their last money. Vain obstacle! The madman broke it open, carried off two thousand crowns--to take his revenge, as he said, but in reality to lose the whole as before.

But it is to the gaming room that we must go to behold the progress of the terrible drama--the ebb and flow of opposite movements--the shocks of alternate hope and fear, infinitely varied in the countenance, not only of the actors, but also of the spectators. What is visible, however, is nothing in comparison to the secret agony. It is in his heart that the tempest roars most fiercely.

Two players once exhibited their rage, the one by a mournful silence, the other by repeated imprecations. The latter, shocked at the sang-froid of his neighbour, reproached him for enduring, without complaint, such losses one after the other. 'Look here!' said the other, uncovering his breast and displaying it all b.l.o.o.d.y with lacerations.

It is only at play that we can observe, from moment to moment, all the phases of despair; from time to time there occur new ones--strange, eccentric, or terrible. After having lost quietly, and even with serenity, half his fortune, the father of a family staked the remainder, and lost it without a murmur. Facere solent extrema securos mala.(9) The bystanders looked at him; his features changed not; only it was perceived that they were fixed. It seemed that he was unconscious of life. Two streams of tears trickled from his eyes, and yet his features remained the same. He was literally a weeping statue. The spectators were seized with fright, and, although gamesters, they melted into pity.

(9) 'Great calamities render us CARELESS.'

At Bayonne, in 1725, a French officer, in a rage at billiards, jammed a billiard-ball in his mouth, where it stuck fast, arresting respiration, until it was, with difficulty, extracted by a surgeon. Dusaulx states that he was told the fact by a lieutenant-general, who was an eye-witness.

It is well known that gamblers, like dogs that bite a stone flung at them, have eaten up the cards, crushed up the dice, broken the tables, damaged the furniture, and finally 'pitched into' each other--as described by Lucian in his Saturnalia. Dusaulx a.s.sures us that he saw an enraged gambler put a burning candle into his mouth, chew it, and swallow it. A mad player at Naples bit the table with such violence that his teeth went deep into the wood; thus he remained, as it were, nailed to it, and suddenly expired.

The other players took to flight; the officers of justice visited the place; and the corpse was deprived of the usual ceremony of burial.(10)

(10) Gazette de Deux-Ponts, du 26 Novembre, 1772.

The following strange but apparently authentic fact, is related in the Mercure Francois (Tome I. Annee 1610).

'A man named Pennichon, being a prisoner in the Conciergerie during the month of September, 1610, died there of a wonderfully sudden death. He could not refrain from play. Having one day lost his money, he uttered frightful imprecations against his body and against his soul, swearing that he would never play at cards again. Nevertheless, a few days after, he began to play again with those in his apartment, and on a dispute respecting discarding, he repeated his execrable oaths. And when one of the company told him he should fear the Divine justice, he only swore the more, and made such confusion that there had to be another deal. But as soon as three other cards were given him, he placed them in his hat, which he held before him, and whilst looking at them, with his elbows on the table and his face in the hat, he so suddenly expired that one of the party said--"Come, now play," and pushed him with his elbow, thinking he was asleep, when he fell down dead upon the floor.'

In some cases the effect of losses at play is simply stupefaction. Some players, at the end of the sitting, neither know what they do nor what they say. M. de Crequi, afterwards Duc de Lesdiguieres, leaving a gambling party with Henry IV., after losing a large sum, met M. de Guise in the court-yard of the castle. 'My friend,' said he to the latter, 'where are the quarters of the Guards now-a-days?' M. de Guise stepped back, saying, 'Excuse me, sir, I don't belong to this country,' and immediately went to the king, whom he greatly amused with the anecdote.

A dissipated buck, who had been sitting all night at Hazard, went to a church, not far from St James's, just before the second reading of the Lord's Prayer, on Sunday. He was scarcely seated before he dozed, and the clerk in a short time bawled out AMEN, which he p.r.o.nounced A--main.

The buck jumped up half asleep and roared out, 'I'll bet the caster 20 guineas!' The congregation was thrown into a t.i.tter, and the buck ran out, overwhelmed with shame. A similar anecdote is told of another 'dissipated buck' in a church. The grand masquerade given on the opening of the Union Club House, in Pall Mall, was not entirely over till a late hour on the following Sunday. A young man nearly intoxicated--certainly not knowing what he was about--reeled into St. James's church, in his masquerade dress, with his hat on. The late Rev. Thomas Bracken, attracted by the noise of his entrance, looked directly at him as he chanced to deliver the following words:--'Friend! how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment?' It seemed so to strike the culprit that he instantly took off his hat and withdrew in confusion.

At play, a winner redoubles his caution and sang-froid just in proportion as his adversary gets bewildered by his losses, becoming desperate; he takes advantage of the weakness of the latter, giving him the law, and striving for greater success. When the luck changes, however, the case is reversed, and the former loser becomes, in his turn, ten times more pitiless--like that Roman prefect, mentioned by Tacitus, who was the more inexorable because he had been harshly treated in his youth, co immmitior quia toleraverat. The joy at winning back his money only makes a gamester the more covetous of winning that of his adversary. A wealthy man once lost 100,000 crowns, and begged to be allowed to go and sell his property, which was worth double the amount he had lost. 'Why sell it?' said his adversary; 'let us play for the remainder.' They played; luck changed; and the late LOSER ruined the other.

Sometimes avidity makes terrible mistakes; many, in order to win more, have lost their all to persons who had not a shilling to lose. During the depth of a severe winter, a gamester beheld with terror the bottom of his purse. Unable to resolve on quitting the gaming table--for players in that condition are always the most stubborn--he shouted to his valet--'Go and fetch my great sack.' These words, uttered without design, stimulated the cupidity of those who no longer cared to play with him, and now they were eager for it. His luck changed, and he won thrice as much as he had lost. Then his 'great sack' was brought to him: it was a BEAR-SKIN SACK he used as a cloak!

In the madness of gaming the player stakes everything after losing his money--his watch, his rings, his clothing; and some have staked their EARS, and others their very LIVES--instances of all which will be related in the sequel.

Not very long ago a publican, who lost all his money, staked his public-house, lost it, and had to 'clear out.' The man who won it is alive and flourishing.

'The debt of honour must be paid: 'these are the terrible words that haunt the gamester as he wakes (if he has slept) on the morning after the night of horrors: these are the furies that take him in hand, and drag him to torture, laughing the while. . . .

What a 'sensation' it must be to lose one's ALL! A man, intoxicated with his gains, left one gaming house and entered another. As soon as he entered he exclaimed, 'Well, I am filled, my pockets are full of gold, and here goes, ODDS OR EVEN?' 'Odds,' cried a player. It was ODDS, and the fortunate winner pocketed the enormous sum just boasted of by the other.

On the other hand, sudden prosperity has deranged more heads and killed more people than reverses and grief; either because it takes a longer time to get convinced of utter ruin than great good fortune, or because the instinct of self-preservation compels us to seek, in adversity, for resources to mitigate despair; whereas, in the a.s.sault of excessive joy, the soul's spring is distended and broken when it is suddenly compressed by too many thoughts and too many sensations. Sophocles, Diagoras, Philippides, died of joy. Another Greek expired at the sight of the three crowns won by his three sons at the Olympic games.

Many fine intellects among players have been brutified by loses; others, in greater number, have been so by their winnings. Some in the course of their prosperity perish from idleness, get deranged, and ruin themselves after ruining others. An instance is mentioned of an officer who won so enormously that he actually lost his senses in counting his gains.

Astonished at himself, he thought he was no longer an ordinary mortal; and required his valets to do him extraordinary honours, flinging handfuls of gold to them. The same night, however, he returned to the gaming house, and recovered from his madness when he had lost not only all his gains, but even the value of an appointment which he held.

UNFORTUNATE WINNING.

M. G--me was a most estimable man, combining in himself the best qualities of both heart and head. He was good-humoured, witty, and benevolent. With these qualifications, and one other which seldom operates to a man's disadvantage--a clear income of three thousand a year--the best society in Paris was open to him. He had been a visitor in that capital about a month, when he received an invitation to one of the splendid dinners given weekly at the salon. As he never played, he hesitated about the propriety of accepting it, but on the a.s.surance that it would not be expected of him to play; and, moreover, as he might not again have so good an opportunity of visiting an establishment of the kind, he resolved to go--merely for the satisfaction of his curiosity.

He had a few stray napoleons in his purse, to throw them--'just for the good of the house,' as he considered it--could hardly be called PLAY, so he threw them. Poor fellow! He left off a winner of fourteen hundred napoleons, or about as many pounds sterling--and so easily won! He went again, again, and again; but he was not always a winner; and within fifteen months of the moment when his hand first grasped the dice-box he was lying dead in a jail!

LORD WORTHALL'S DESPERATE WAGER.

At a gambling party Lord Worthall had lost all his money, and in a fit of excitement staked his whole estate against L1000, at cutting low with cards, and in cutting exclaimed,--

'Up now Deuce, or else a Trey, Or Worthall's gone for ever and aye.'

He had the luck to cut the deuce of diamonds; and to commemorate the serious event, he got the deuce of diamonds cut in marble and had it fixed on the parapet of his mansion.

THE CELEBRATED THADDEUS STEVENS.

He was an inveterate gamester on a small scale, and almost invariably, after a day's duty in the House, would drop in at a favourite casino, and win or lose fifty dollars--that being the average limit of his betting.

A PROVIDENT GAMBLER.

A Monsieur B--, well known in Parisian life, having recently lost every shilling at a certain sporting club where play is carried on in Paris, went to the country, where his sister lent him L150.

He won all back again, and got a considerable sum of money in hand. He then went to his hotel, to his bootmaker, and tailor, paid them, and made arrangements to be fed, clothed, and shod for ten years.

A MAGNIFICENT FORTUNE WASTED.

Lord Foley, who died in 1793, entered upon the turf with an estate of L18,000 per annum, and L100,000 ready money. He left with a ruined const.i.tution, an enc.u.mbered estate, and not a shilling of ready money!

AN ENTERPRISING CLERK.

Lord Kenyon, in 1795, tried a clerk 'for misapplying his master's confidence,' and the facts were as follows. He went with a bank note of L1000 to a gaming house in Osendon Street, where he won a little.

He also won two hundred guineas at another in Suffolk Street. He next accompanied some keepers of a third house to their tables, where he lost above nine hundred pounds. He played there almost every night; and finally lost about L2500!