The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 2 Part 5

GAMBLING FOR RECRUITS FOR THE ARMY.

An Irish officer struck out a mode of gambling, for recruits. He gave five guineas bounty, and one hundred to be raffled for by young recruits,--the winner to be paid immediately, and to purchase his discharge, if he pleased, for L20. The dice-box was constantly going at his recruiting office in Dublin.

DOUBLING THE STAKES.

A dashing young man of large fortune, about the year 1820, lost at a subscription house at the West End, L80,000. The winner was a person of high rank. The young man, however, by doubling the stakes, not only recovered his losses, but in his turn gained considerably of his antagonist.

AN ANNUITY FOR A GAMBLING DEBT.

A fashionable n.o.bleman had won from a young and n.o.ble relative the sum of L40,000. The cash not being forthcoming, he accepted an annuity of L4000.

SIR WILLIAM COLEPEPPER.

It is told of Sir William Colepepper that, after he had been ruined himself at the gaming table, his whole delight was to sit there and see others ruined. Hardened wretch--'Who though he plays no more, overlooks the cards'--with this diabolical disposition!

THE BITER BITTEN.

A certain d.u.c.h.ess, of a ci-devant lord-lieutenant, who expected to make a pigeon of Marshal Blucher, was fleeced of L200,000; to pay which her lord was obliged to sell a great part of his property, and reside on the continent.

HUNTED DOWN.

A stout-hearted and gallant military baronet lost an immense sum at a celebrated gaming house; but was so fortunate as to recover it, with L1200 more. This last sum HE PRESENTED TO THE WAITERS. He was pursued by two of the 'play-wrights' to a northern watering-place, where he was so plucked that all his possessions were brought to the hammer. A competency was, however, saved from the magnificent wreck.

COMING OF AGE.

When Sir C-- T--, a weak young man, with a large fortune, came of age, the Greeks, thinking him an excellent quarry, went to York Races, made him drunk and plundered him of a large sum. The next morning one of the party waited upon him to acquaint him of his loss--(L20,000 or L30,000), and brought bonds for his signature to that amount!

HEAVY LIABILITIES TO BEGIN WITH.

In the year 1799, when the Marquis of Donegal succeeded to the t.i.tle on his father's death, his debts, princ.i.p.ally to gamblers and money-lenders, amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling!

A GENTLEMAN TURNED BARBER.

In an old magazine I find the following curious statement:--

'There is now living in Barnaby Street, Carnaby Market, a man who, although exercising the menial office of penny barber, was in his younger days in possession of estates and personal property to a large amount, and is the only lineal descendant remaining of the very ancient family of the H--s of Bristol.

'His relations dying when he was young, he was placed under proper guardians, and received a liberal education, first at Westminster, and afterwards at Cambridge, suitable to his rank and fortune. When of age he converted his estates into money, and retired to Dublin, where he remained some time. He then made the tour of Europe, and returned to Ireland, where he went through all the scenes of dissipation to which young men are so much addicted, till at last he was beset by those harpies the gamblers, and stripped of his immense fortune in one single night!

'He then subsisted for some little time on the bounty of his undoers, who intended to make him one of them; but, not having sufficient address for the profession, he was dismissed and "left in the lurch;" and most of his friends discarding him, he embarked with his last guinea for England. Here he has encountered many difficulties, often been in gaol for debt, and pa.s.sed through various scenes of life, as valet, footman, thief-taker, and at length, a penny-barber! He has a wife and large family and lives in a very penurious manner, often lamenting his early folly.'(11)

(11) 'The Western County Magazine, 1791. By a Society of Gentlemen.'

This well-conducted old magazine was printed and published at Salisbury, and was decidedly a credit to the town and county.

PENSIONED OFF BY A GAMING HOUSE.

A visitor at Frascati's gaming house in Paris tells us:--

'I saw the Chevalier de la C--(a descendant of the once celebrated romance-writer) when he was nearly ninety. The mode of life of this old man was singular. He had lost a princely property at the play-table, and by a piece of good fortune of rare occurrence to gamesters, and unparalleled generosity, the proprietors of the salon allowed him a pension to support him in his miserable senility, just sufficient to supply him with a wretched lodging--bread, and a change of raiment once in every three or four years! In addition to this he was allowed a supper--which was, in fact, his dinner--at the gaming house, whither he went every night at about eleven o'clock. Till supper-time (two o'clock in the morning) he amused himself in watching the games and calculating the various chances, although incapable of playing a single coup. At four o'clock he returned to his lodging, retired to bed, and lay till between nine and ten o'clock on the following night. A cup of coffee was then brought to him, and, having dressed himself, at the usual hour he again proceeded to the salon. This had been his round of life for several years; and he told me that during all that time (excepting on a few mornings about Midsummer) he had never beheld the sun!'

A Mr R--y, son of a baronet, left Wattier's club one night with only L4 in his pocket, saying that he would look in at the h.e.l.ls.

He did so, and, returning after three o'clock in the morning, offered to bet L500 that he had above L4000. The result proved that he had L4300, all won at gaming tables, from the small beginning of L4. He then sat down to play games of skill at Wattier's, and went home at six o'clock without a single pound! The same man subsequently won L30,000, and afterwards lost it all, with L15,000 more, and then 'went to the Continent.'

A major of the Rifle Brigade, in consequence of gambling in London, by which he lost vast sums of money, went out of his senses and died a few years ago in an asylum. This occurred within the last ten or twelve years.

Says Mr Seymour Harcourt, in his 'Gaming Calendar,' 'I have myself seen hanging in chains a man whom, a short time before, I saw at a Hazard table!'

Hogarth lent his tremendous power to the portrayal of the ruined gamester, and shows it to the life in his print of the gaming house in the 'Rake's Progress.'

Three stages of that species of madness which attends gaming are there described. On the first shock all is inward dismay. The ruined gamester is represented leaning against a wall with his arms across, lost in an agony of horror. Shortly after this horrible gloom bursts into a storm and fury. He tears in pieces whatever comes near him, and, kneeling down, invokes curses on himself. His next attack is on others--on every one whom he imagines to have been instrumental in his ruin. The eager joy of the winning gamester, the attention of the usurer, and the profound reverie of the highwayman, are all strongly marked in this wonderful picture.

HOW MANY GAMESTERS LIVE BY PLAY?

It is an observation made by those who calculate on the gaming world, that above nine-tenths of the persons who play LIVE by it.

Now, as the ordinary establishment of a GENTEEL gamester, as he is commonly called, cannot be less than L1000 per annum, luck, which turns out EQUAL in the long run, will not support him; he must therefore LIVE by what they call among themselves the BEST OF THE GAME--or, in plain English, cheating.

So much for the inner and outer life of gamblers. And now I shall introduce Mr Ben. Disraeli, recounting, in the happiest vein of his younger days, a magnificent gambling scene, quite on a par with the legend of the Hindoo epic before quoted,(12) and which, I doubt not, will (to use the young Disraeli's own words) make the reader 'scud along and warm up into friskiness.'

(12) Chapter II.

A curious phrase occurs in the 9th chapter of 'The Young Duke,' in the paragraph at the beginning, after the words--'O ye immortal G.o.ds!'

Although the scene of the drama is part of a novel, yet there can be no doubt of its being 'founded on fact'--at any rate, I think there never was a narrative of greater verisimilitude.

'After dinner, with the exception of Cogit, who was busied in compounding some wonderful liquid for the future refreshment, they sat down to Ecarte. Without having exchanged a word upon the subject, there seemed a general understanding among all the parties, that to-night was to be a pitched battle--and they began at once, very briskly. Yet, in spite of their universal determination, midnight arrived without anything very decisive. Another hour pa.s.sed over, and then Tom Cogit kept touching the baron's elbow, and whispering in a voice which everybody could understand. All this meant that supper was ready. It was brought into the room.

'Gaming has one advantage--it gives you an appet.i.te; that is to say, so long as you have a chance remaining. The duke had thousands,--for at present his resources were unimpaired, and he was exhausted by the constant attention and anxiety of five hours. He pa.s.sed over the delicacies, and went to the side-table, and began cutting himself some cold roast beef. Tom Cogit ran up, not to his Grace, but to the baron, to announce the shocking fact, that the Duke of St James was enduring great trouble; and then the baron asked his Grace to permit Mr Cogit to serve him.

'Our hero devoured--we use the word advisedly, as fools say in the House of Commons--he devoured the roast beef, and rejecting the hermitage with disgust, asked for porter.

'They set to again, fresh as eagles. At six o'clock, accounts were so complicated, that they stopped to make up their books. Each played with his memorandums and pencil at his side. Nothing fatal had yet happened.

The duke owed Lord Dice about L5000, and Temple Grace owed him as many hundreds. Lord Castlefort also was his debtor to the tune of 750, and the baron was in his books, but slightly.

'Every half-hour they had a new pack of cards, and threw the used ones on the floor. All this time Tom Cogit did nothing but snuff the candles, stir the fire, bring them a new pack, and occasionally made a tumbler for them.

'At eight o'clock the duke's situation was worsened. The run was greatly against him, and perhaps his losses were doubled. He pulled up again the next hour or two; but, nevertheless, at ten o'clock owed every one something. No one offered to give over; and every one, perhaps, felt that his object was not obtained. They made their toilets, and went down-stairs to breakfast. In the mean time the shutters were opened, the room aired; and in less than an hour they were at it again.

'They played till dinner-time without intermission; and though the duke made some desperate efforts, and some successful ones, his losses were, nevertheless, trebled. Yet he ate an excellent dinner, and was not at all depressed; because the more he lost the more his courage and his resources seemed to expand. At first, he had limited himself to 10,000; after breakfast, it was to have been 20,000; then 30,000 was the ultimatum; and now he dismissed all thoughts of limits from his mind, and was determined to risk or gain everything.

'At midnight he had lost L48,000.

'Affairs now began to be serious. His supper was not so hearty. While the rest were eating, he walked about the room, and began to limit his ambition to recovery, and not to gain.

'When you play to win back, the fun is over: there is nothing to recompense you for your bodily tortures and your degraded feelings; and the very best result that can happen, while it has no charms, seems to your cowed mind impossible.

'On they played, and the duke lost more. His mind was jaded. He floundered--he made desperate efforts, but plunged deeper in the slough.