The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 2 Part 13

Sir W. Ingilby entered into a description and practical ill.u.s.tration of the trick of sauter la coupe with a pack of cards, and it is said that the performance of the honourable baronet elicited demonstrations of laughter, which the judge suppressed, and even REPROBATED. Altogether, it must have been a most interesting and exciting trial.

As before stated, Lord Denman was the presiding judge; there was a special jury; the attorney-general, Sir W. Follet, and Mr Wightman appeared for the n.o.ble plaintiff; and the keen-witted and exquisitely polished Mr Thesiger (now Lord Cholmondeley), Mr Alexander, and Mr W.

H. Watson for the defendant. A great many of the n.o.bility were present, together with several foreigners of distinction.

4. BROOKES' CLUB, IN ST JAMES'S STREET.

This was a house notorious for very high gaming, and was frequented by the most desperate of gamblers, among the rest Fox, Brummell, and Alderman Combe. According to Captain Gronow:--

At Brookes's, for nearly half a century, the play was of a more gambling character than at White's. . . . On one occasion Lord Robert Spencer contrived to lose the last shilling of his considerable fortune given him by his brother, the Duke of Marlborough. General Fitzpatrick being much in the same condition, they agreed to raise a sum of money, in order that they might keep a Faro bank. The members of the club made no objection, and ere long they carried out their design. As is generally the case, the bank was a winner, and Lord Robert bagged, as his share of the proceeds, L100,000. He retired, strange to say, from the fetid atmosphere of play, with the money in his pocket, and never again gambled. The lowest stake at Brookes' was L50; and it was a common event for a gentleman to lose or win L10,000 in an evening. Sometimes a whole fortune was lost at a single sitting.(38)

(38) Walpole, pa.s.sim.

5. WHITE'S CLUB.

White's Club seems to have won the darkest reputation for gambling.

Lord Lyttleton, writing to Dr Doddridge, in 1750, says:--'The Dryads of Hogley are at present pretty secure, but I tremble to think that the rattling of a dice-box at White's may one day or other (if my son should be a member of that n.o.ble academy) shake down all our fine oaks. It is dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in the town, what devastations are made by that destructive fury, the spirit of play.' A fact stated by Walpole to Horace Mann shows the character of the company at this establishment:--'There is a man about town, Sir William Burdett, a man of very good family, but most infamous character.

In short, to give you his character at once--there is a wager in the bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett.' Swift says:--'I have heard that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never pa.s.sed by White's chocolate-house (the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and n.o.ble cullies) without bestowing a curse upon that famous academy as the bane of half the English n.o.bility.'

It was from the beginning a gaming club, 'pure and simple.' The play was mostly at Hazard and Faro. No member was to hold a Faro bank. Whist was comparatively harmless. Professional gamblers, who lived by dice and cards, provided they were free from the imputation of cheating, procured admission to White's. It was a great supper-house, and there was play before and after supper, carried on to a late hour and to heavy amounts.

At White's they betted on every possible thing, as shown by the betting-book of the establishment--on births, deaths, and marriages; the length of a life; the duration of a ministry; a placeman's prospect of a coronet; the last scandal at Ranelagh or Madame Cornely's; or the shock of an earthquake! 'A man dropped down at the door of White's; he was carried into the house. Was he dead or not? The odds were immediately given and taken for and against. It was proposed to bleed him. Those who had taken the odds that the man was dead protested that the use of a lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.' I have met with a similar anecdote elsewhere. A waiter in a tavern in Westminster, being engaged in attendance on some young men of distinction, suddenly fell down in a fit. Bets were immediately proposed by some of the most thoughtless on his recovery, and accepted by others. The more humane part of the company were for sending immediately for medical a.s.sistance, but this was overruled; since, by the tenor of the bets, he was to be 'left to himself,' and he died accordingly!

According to Walpole--'A person coming into the club on the morning of the earthquake, in 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing up of powder-mills, went away in horror, protesting they were such an impious set that he believed if the last trump were to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.'

And again: 'One of the youths at White's, in 1744, has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted L1500 that a man could live twelve hours under water; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since.

Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives instead of Mr Blake, the a.s.sa.s.sin.'

He also tells us of a very curious entry in the betting-book. Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber.'

'How odd,' says Walpole, 'that these two old creatures, selected for their antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end to their own lives! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look so well. "Faith," said he, "it is very well that I look at all." Lord Mountford would have been the winner: Cibber died in 1757, Nash in 1761.'

Hogarth's scene at the gambling house is taken at White's. 'We see the highwayman, with his pistols peeping out of his pocket, waiting by the fireside till the heaviest winner takes his departure, in order to "recoup" himself for his losings; and in the Beaux' Stratagem, Aimwell asks of Gibbet--"Ha'n't I seen your face at White's?" "Ay, and at Will's too," is the highwayman's answer.'

According to Captain Gronow, George Harley Drummond, of the famous banking-house, Charing Cross, only played once in his whole life at White's Club, at Whist, on which occasion he lost L20,000 to Brummell.

This even caused him to retire from the banking-house, of which he was a partner.

'Walpole and a party of friends (d.i.c.k Edgec.u.mbe, George Selwyn, and Williams), in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire--a coat of arms for the two gaming clubs at White's--which was "actually engraven from a very pretty painting of Edgec.u.mbe, whom Mr Chute, as Strawberry King at Arms," appointed their chief herald-painter. The blazon is vert (for a card-table); three parolis proper on a chevron sable (for a Hazard table); two rouleaux in saltire between two dice proper, on a canton sable; a white ball (for election) argent. The supporters are an old and young knave of clubs; the crest, an arm out of an earl's coronet shaking a dice-box; and the motto, Cogit amor nummi--"The love of money compels." Round the arms is a claret-bottle ticket by way of order.'

6. WATTIER'S CLUB.

This great Macao gaming house was of short duration. Mr Raikes says of it:--'The club did not endure for twelve years altogether; the pace was too quick to last; it died a natural death in 1819, from the paralyzed state of its members. The house was then taken by a set of blacklegs, who inst.i.tuted a common bank of gambling. To form an idea of the ruin produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests the following melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results: none of the dead reached the average age of man.' Among the members were Beau Brummell and the madman Bligh.

7. CROCKFORD'S CLUB.

This once celebrated gaming house is now 'The Wellington,' where the rattle of knives and forks has succeeded that of dice. It was erected in 1827, and at its opening it was described as 'the new Pandemonium--the drawing-rooms, or real h.e.l.l, consisting of four chambers: the first an ante-room, opening to a saloon embellished to a degree which baffles description; thence to a small curiously-formed cabinet or boudoir, which opens to the supper-room. All these rooms are panelled in the most gorgeous manner; s.p.a.ces are left to be filled up with mirrors and silk, or gold enrichments; while the ceilings are as superb as the walls.

A billiard-room on the upper floor completes the number of apartments professedly dedicated to the use of the members. Whenever any secret manoeuvre is to be carried on, there are smaller and more retired places, both under this roof and the next, whose walls will tell no tales.'

'It rose,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, 'like a creation of Aladdin's lamp; and the genii themselves could hardly have surpa.s.sed the beauty of the internal decorations, or furnished a more accomplished maitre d'hotel than Ude. To make the company as select as possible, the estabishment was regularly organized as a club, and the election of members vested in a committee. "Crockford's" became the rage, and the votaries of fashion, whether they like play or not, hastened to enroll themselves. The Duke of Wellington was an original member, though (unlike Blucher, who repeatedly lost everything he had at play) the great captain was never known to play deep at any game but war or politics. Card-tables were regularly placed, and Whist was played occasionally; but the aim, end, and final cause of the whole was the Hazard bank, at which the proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared for all comers. Le Wellington des Joueurs lost L23,000 at a sitting, beginning at twelve at night, and ending at seven the following evening.

He and three other n.o.blemen could not have lost less, sooner or later, than L100,000 a piece.(39) Others lost in proportion (or out of proportion) to their means; but we leave it to less occupied moralists and better calculators to say how many ruined families went to make Mr Crockford a MILLIONNAIRE--for a millionnaire he was in the English sense of the term, after making the largest possible allowance for bad debts.

A vast sum, perhaps half a million, was sometimes due to him; but as he won, all his debtors were able to raise, and easy credit was the most fatal of his lures. He retired in 1840, much as an Indian chief retires from a hunting country when there is not game enough left for his tribe, and the club tottered to its fall.'

(39) 'Le Wellington des Joueurs was the name given to Lord Rivers in Paris. The other three, we believe, were Lord Sefton, Lord Chesterfield, and Lord Granville or Lord Talbot.' Times, 7 Jan. 1868.

Crockford was originally a FISHMONGER, keeping a shop near Temple Bar.

By embarking in this speculation he laid the foundation of the most colossal fortune that was ever made by play.

It was said there were persons of rank and station, who had never paid their debts to Crockford, up to 1844, and that some of his creditors compounded with him for their gambling debts. His proprietorship had lasted 15 or 16 years.

Crockford himself was examined by the committee of the House of Commons on the Gaming Houses; but in spite of his a.s.surance by the members that were indemnified witnesses in respect of pending actions, he resolutely declined to 'tell the secrets of his prison-house.' When asked whether a good deal of play was carried on at his club, he said:--'There may have been so; but I do not feel myself at liberty to answer that question--to DIVULGE THE PURSUITS OF PRIVATE GENTLEMEN. Situated as I was, I do not feel myself at liberty to do so. I do not feel myself at liberty to answer that question.'

When asked to whom he had given up the house, he fenced in like manner, saying that he had given it up to a 'committee' of about 200 gentlemen,--concerning which committee he professed to 'know absolutely nothing'--he could not even say to whom he had given up the house--he gave it up to the gentlemen of the club four years before--he could not even say (upon his word) whether he signed any paper in giving it up--he believed he did not--adding--'I said I grew too old, and I could not continue in the club any longer, and I wished to give up the club to the gentlemen, who made their own arrangement.'

Being asked, 'Do you think that a person is just as honourably bound to pay a debt which he loses upon a game of Hazard, as he would be to pay a bet which he loses on a horse-race?' Crockford replied--'I think most certainly he would honourably be bound to pay it.'--'Do you think that if the loser of a bet on a game at Hazard had no charge to make of any kind of unfairness, and he were to commence an action to recover that money back again, he would lay himself open to a charge in the world of having acted dishonourably?' The old gambler's reply was most emphatic, overwhelming, indignant--'I should take all the pains I could to avoid such a man.'

If this evidence was not satisfactory, it was, at any rate, very characteristic.

A few interesting facts came out before the parliamentary committee on Gaming, in 1844, respecting Crockford's.

It was said that Crockford gave up the business in 1840, because there were no more very high players visiting his house.

'A number of persons,' according to the admission of the Honourable Frederick Byng, 'who were born to very large properties, were very nearly ruined at Crockford's.'

The sums won on the turf were certainly larger than those won by players at Crockford's; a man might lose L20,000 in one or more bets, to one or more persons; but against this he might have won an equivalent amount in small sums from 200 or more persons.(40)

(40) This is not very clearly put, but the meaning is that much more money was lost at Crockford's than on the turf.

Some years previously to Crockford's retirement, it is said that he found the debts so bad that he was obliged to leave off his custom of paying cheques; and said he would cancel all previous debts, but that in future gentlemen would have to pay with money.

He made them play for money instead of with counters, in consequence of the large sums that were owing to him upon those counters.

8. THE TRAVELLERS' CLUB,

next the Athenaeum in Pall Mall, originated soon after the peace of 1814, in a suggestion of the late Lord Londonderry, then Lord Castlereagh, for the resort of gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay.(41) Here Prince Talleyrand was fond of a game at Whist. With all the advantage of his great imperturbability of face, he is said to have been an indifferent player.

(41) Quarterly Review, No. cx. p. 481.

Rule 10 of the club directs, 'that no dice and no game of hazard be allowed in the rooms of the club, nor any higher stake than guinea points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner.'

CHAPTER VII. DOINGS IN GAMING HOUSES.

Besides the aristocratic establishments just described, there were numerous houses or places of resort for gambling, genteel and ungenteel.

In vain did the officers of the law seem to exert their utmost vigilance; if they drove the serpent out of one hole it soon glided into another; never was the proverb--'Where there's a will there's a way'--more strikingly fulfilled.

COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS.

Sir John Fielding thus describes the men in the year 1776. 'The deceivers of this denomination are generally descended from families of some repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse of their own substance and character, and learnt, by having been undone, the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more wealth and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by admiring what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to a.s.sist you in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate themselves into the company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they watch every opportunity of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least inclination to cards, dice, the billiard table, bowling-green, or any other sort of Gaming, you are morally sure of being taken in.