The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 2 Part 9

This huge robbery from Peter was not to pay Paul. Not a bit of it. It was to try the fickle G.o.ddess of gaming once more--a Napoleonic stroke for an Austerlitz of fortune.

He lost this L10,000 in two nights.

Did he despair at this hideous catastrophe? Did he tear his hair--rush out of the room--blow his brains out or drown himself?

Not a bit of it. He 'set his wits to work' once more. He procured a woman to personate General Tonyn's sister--forged again--and again obtained from the Bank of England another large supply of ready cash--with which, however, he 'went off' this time.

He was caught; and then only he thought of self-murder, and cut his throat--but not effectually. He recovered, was tried at the Old Bailey, and hanged on the 6th of July, 1796.

No doubt the reader imagines that the man of such a career was an OLD stager--some long-visaged, parchment-faced fellow the OTHER side of forty at least. Well, this hero of the gaming table, Henry Weston, was aged only TWENTY-THREE years! What terrible times those must have been to produce such a prodigy!

To the judge who tried him Henry Weston sent a list of a number of PROFESSIONAL GAMBLERS, among them was a person of high rank. Weston, at different times, lost above L46,000 at play; and at a house in Pall Mall, where he lost a considerable part of it, three young officers also lost no less than L35,000.

ARTHUR THISTLEWOOD.

It seems that the wretched traitor Arthur Thistlewood, who paid the forfeit of his life for his crimes, had dissipated by gaming the property he had acquired by a matrimonial connection--L12,000. An unfortunate transaction at cards, during the Lincoln races, involved him in difficulties, which he found it impossible to meet; and he fled to avoid the importunities of his more fortunate a.s.sociates. He was afterwards known only as the factious demagogue and the professed gambler!

FOUNTLEROY, THE FORGER.

Henry Fountleroy was a gentleman of rank, a partner in the banking house of Marsh, Sibbold, and Co., of Berners Street. He was convicted of having forged a deed for the transfer of L5450 long annuities, in fraud of a certain Frances Young. Like Thurtell, Fountleroy defended himself, and battled with the prejudicial reports circulated against him--among the rest his addiction to gambling. 'I am accused,' he said, 'of being an habitual gambler, an accusation which, if true, might easily account for the diffusion of the property. I am, indeed, a member of two clubs, the Albion and the Stratford, but never in my life did I play in either at cards, or dice, or any game of chance; this is well known to the gentlemen of these clubs; and my private friends, with whom I more intimately a.s.sociated, can equally a.s.sert my freedom from all habit or disposition to play.'(21)

(21) See the case in 'Celebrated Trials,' vol. vi

I close this record of crime and misery by a few narratives of a more miscellaneous character.

GAMBLING FOR LIFE.

Marshal Grammont used to tell a story of three soldiers, who, having committed offences punishable by death, it was ordered that one of them should be hanged as an example, and the three were directed to decide which of them should suffer by throwing dice. The first threw fourteen, the second seventeen, and the last, taking up the dice as coolly as though he were engaged in a trivial game, threw eighteen! Thereupon he exclaimed, with an expression of vexation, 'Ah, now! if I had been playing for money I should not have been so lucky!'

This may appear 'taking it very cool;' but I think the following cases of Englishmen' rather stronger.'

ONE OF MANY INSTANCES.

In the Times of February 11th, 1819, mention is made of a gang of nearly thirty persons, male and female, and all presenting the most shocking appearance of both want and depravity, who were brought to the Marlborough Street Office. Among these wretched beings was a woman named Hewitt, said to be the wife of one Captain Hewitt, a leader of the ton, who, after ruining himself and family at the gambling table, ran away from them, and was not since heard of. His wife being left to herself, and having probably been tainted by his evil example, by an easy gradation became first embarra.s.sed, then a prost.i.tute, then a thief, and on the occasion above mentioned exhibited one of the most distressing spectacles of vice and misery that could be conceived.

TRURTELL THE MURDERER.

This man, it is well known, was executed for the murder of Weare.

Thurtell was evidently no common man. His spoken defence, as reported, is one of the finest specimens of impa.s.sioned eloquence--perfectly Demosthenic. His indignation at the reports circulated in prejudice of his case was overwhelming. Nothing can be finer than the turn of the following sentence:--'I have been represented by the Press--WHICH CARRIES ITS BENEFITS OR CURSES ON RAPID WINGS from one extremity of the kingdom to the other--as a man more depraved, more gratuitously and habitually profligate and cruel, than has ever appeared in modern times.'

Touching his gambling pursuits, he said:--'I have been represented to you as a man who was given to gambling, and the constant companion of gamblers. To this accusation in some part my heart, with feeling penitence, pleads guilty. I have gambled; I have been a gambler, but not for the last three years. During that time I have not attended or betted upon a horse-race, or a fight, or any public exhibition of that nature.

If I have erred in these things, half of the n.o.bility of the land have been my examples; some of the most enlightened statesmen of the country have been my companions in them. I have, indeed, been a gambler; I have been an unfortunate one. But whose fortune have I ruined?--whom undone?

My own family have I ruined; I have undone myself!'(22)

(22) See the entire speech in 'Celebrated Trials,' vol. vi. 547.

A MOST WONDERFUL END OF A GAMBLER.

In the Annual Register for the year 1766 occurs the following 'circ.u.mstantial and authentic account of the memorable case of Richard Parsons,' transmitted by the high sheriff of Gloucestershire to his friend in London.

On the 20th of February, 1766, Richard Parsons and three more met at a private house in Chalfold, in order to play at cards, about six o'clock in the evening. They played at Loo till about eleven or twelve that night, when they changed their game for Whist. After a few deals a dispute arose about the state of the game. Parsons a.s.serted with oaths that they were six, which the others denied; upon which he wished 'that he might never enter the kingdom of heaven, and that his flesh might rot upon his bones, if there were not six in the game.' These wishes were several times repeated both then and afterwards. Upon this the candle was put out by a party present, who said he was shocked with the oaths and expressions he heard, and that he put out the candle with a design to put an end to the game. Presently upon this they adjourned to another house, and there began a fresh game, when Parsons and his partner had great success. They then played at Loo again till four in the morning.

During the second playing Parsons complained to one Rolles, his partner, of a bad pain in his leg, which from that time increased. There was an appearance of a swelling, and afterwards the colour changing to that of a mortified state. On the following Sunday he took advice of a surgeon, who attended him until his death. Notwithstanding all the applications that were made the mortification increased, and showed itself in different parts of the body. He was visited by a clergyman, who administered the sacrament to him, without any knowledge of what had happened before--the man appearing to be extremely ignorant of religion, having been accustomed to swear, to drink, to game, and to profane the Sabbath. After receiving the sacrament he said--'Now, I must never sin again.' He hoped G.o.d would forgive him, having been wicked not above six years, and that whatever should happen he would not play at cards again.

After this he was in great agony--chiefly delirious; spoke of his companions by name, and seemed as if his imagination was engaged at cards. He started, had distracted looks and gestures, and in a dreadful fit of shaking and trembling died on the 4th of March, just about a fortnight after the utterance of his terrible imprecation.

The worthy sheriff of Gloucestershire goes on to say that the man's eyes were open when he died, and could not be closed by the common method, so that they remained open when he was put into the coffin. From this circ.u.mstance arose a report that he WISHED HIS EYES MIGHT NEVER CLOSE; 'but,' says the sheriff, 'this is a mistake; for, from the most creditable witnesses, I am fully convinced no such wish was uttered; and the fact is, that he did close his eyes after he was taken with the mortification, and either dozed or slept several times.

'When the body came to be laid out, it appeared all over discoloured or spotted; and it might, in the most literal sense, be said, that his flesh rotted on his bones before he died.'

At the request of the sheriff, the surgeon (a Mr Pegler) who attended the unfortunate man, sent in the following report:--'Sir,--You desire me to acquaint you, in writing, with what I know relating to the melancholy case of the late Richard Parsons; a request I readily comply with, hoping that his sad catastrophe will serve to admonish all those who profane the sacred name of G.o.d.

'February 27th last I visited Richard Parsons, who, I found, had an inflamed leg, stretching from the foot almost to the knee, tending to a gangrene. The tenseness and redness of the skin was almost gone off, and became of a duskish and livid colour, and felt very lax and flabby.

Symptoms being so dangerous, some incisions were made down to the quick, some spirituous fomentations made use of, and the whole limb dressed up with such applications as are most approved in such desperate circ.u.mstances, joined with proper internal medicines. The next day he seemed much the same; but on March the 1st he was worse, the incisions discharged a sharp fetid odor (which is generally of the worst consequence). On the next day, which was Sunday, the symptoms seemed to be a little more favourable; but, to my great surprise, the very next day I found his leg not only mortified up to the knee, but the same began anew in four different parts, viz., under each eye, on the top of his shoulder, and on one hand; and in about twelve hours after he died.

I shall not presume to say there was anything supernatural in the case; but, however, it must be confessed, that such cases are rather uncommon in subjects so young, and of so good a habit as he had always been previous to his illness.'

On one occasion Justice Maule was about to pa.s.s sentence on a prisoner, who upon being asked to say why judgment should not be p.r.o.nounced, 'wished that G.o.d might strike him dead if he was not innocent of the crime.' After a pause, the judge said:--'As the Almighty has not thought proper to comply with your request, the sentence of the court is,' &c.

A SAD REMINDER.

Every Englishman recollects the fate of that unhappy heiress, the richest of all Europe, married to a man of rank and family, who was plundered in the course of a few years of the whole of his wealth, in one of those club houses, and was obliged to surrender himself to a common prison, and ultimately fly from his country, leaving his wife with her relations in the greatest despair and despondency.'(23)

(23) Rouge et Noir: the Academicians of 1823.

GEORGE IV. There are few departments of human distinction in which Great Britain cannot boast a 'celebrity'--genteel or ungenteel. In the matter of gambling we have been unapproachable--not only in the 'thorough'

determination with which we have exhausted the pursuit--but in the vast, the fabulous millions which make up the sum total that Englishmen have 'turned over' at the gaming table.

I think that many thousands of millions would be 'within the mark' as the contribution of England to the insatiate G.o.d of gambling.

I have presented to the reader the record of gambling all the world over--the gambling of savages--the gambling of the ancient Persians, Greeks, and Romans--the gambling of the gorgeous monarchs of France and their impa.s.sioned subjects; but I have now to introduce upon the horrible stage a Prince Royal, who surpa.s.sed all his predecessors in the gaming art, having right royally lost at play not much less than a million sterling, or, as stated, L800,000--before he was twenty-one years of age!

If the following be facts, vouched for by a writer of authority,(24) the results were most atrocious.

(24) James Grant (Editor of the Morning Advertiser), Sketches in London.

'Every one is aware that George IV., when Prince of Wales, was, as the common phrase is, over-head-and-ears in debt; and that it was because he would thereby be enabled to meet the claims of his creditors, that he consented to marry the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. But although this is known to every one, comparatively few people are acquainted with the circ.u.mstances under which his debts were contracted. Those debts, then, were the result of losses at the gaming table. He was an inveterate gambler--a habit which he most probably contracted through his intimacy with Fox. It is a well-ascertained fact that in two short years, after he attained his majority, he lost L800,000 at play.

'It was with the view and in the hope that marriage would cure his propensity for the gaming table, that his father was so anxious to see him united to Caroline; and it was solely on account of his marriage with that princess const.i.tuting the only condition of his debts being paid by the country, that he agreed to lead her to the hymeneal altar.

'The unfortunate results of this union are but too well known, not only as regarded the parties themselves, but as regarded society generally.

To the gambling habits, then, of the Prince of Wales are to be ascribed all the unhappiness which he entailed on the unfortunate Caroline, and the vast amount of injury which the separation from her, and the subsequent trial, produced on the morals of the nation generally.'

CHAPTER V. ODDITIES AND WITTICISMS OF GAMBLERS.