VI. ENGLAND…

VI. ENGLAND

Under the second Henry, when the courtiers grew weary of the minstrels and jugleurs, or when they were not occupied in making love, they beguiled the lagging moments by gaming in every form then known. Before the third crusade, there was no check upon the gaming vice, and no limit to the stakes. The gamester, when he had been defrauded of his patrimony, in turn preyed upon the unsuspecting youth. He lived upon the weaknesses of human nature then as now, and watched with pleasure the trembling fingers and flushed cheeks of his victim, led on, as they were, by apparent carelessness, to risk a larger sum after losing a smaller. The victim was left by the gamester, only when the former could not even call his clothes his own. The dupes often discovered, when it was too late, that they had been ruined, not by the superior skill of their adversary, but by his dishonesty. For their own advantage, then, they who had been victims began to practice the arts of deception, chief among which was the loading of the dice.

During the reign of Richard I., (he of the Lion’s Heart) and that of King John, dice constituted the chief amusement of the nobility, and the length to which they carried the game, may be inferred from the fact that not even the “pomp and circumstance” of the martial field could allure them from the fascinating pursuit. The Barons who collected to resist the tyranny of John, were reproached by Matthew Paris with spending their time in gambling with dice when their presence was required in the field. Even the flames and the dissensions of civil war could not excite in them an ardor equal to that induced by the dice-box. But the evil did not stop here, and honor itself was sacrificed at the shrine of the unworthy and demoralizing passion by some of that brilliant band of cavaliers to whom England is indebted for her fundamental privileges and constitutional liberty. Should still stronger proof be required of the prevalence of the gaming vice among the Anglo- Normans of to-day, it would be found in the instrument which was prepared by the “allied” kings of England and France in 1190, for the government of the forces they had fitted out against the Saracens, and which related particularly to this vice. It was thereby enacted that “knights and clerks should be restrained to the loss of twenty shillings in one day, but that sailors and soldiers detected in playing for money at all should be fined at will, or ‘ducked.’” During subsequent reigns gaming, although generally condemned, was vigorously pursued. How the practice operated upon the morals of the English people, during the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, may be inferred from that phrase in Shakespeare which avers “dicers’ oaths are accounted proverbially false.” Gambling prevailed in England under Henry VIII, and it seems the King himself, was an unscrupulous gamester. The evidence is ample that gambling flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and in the time of Charles II. Evelyn, writing on the day when James II was proclaimed King of England, says: “I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day I was witness of. The King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland and Mazarine, a French boy singing love songs in that glorious galaxy, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table, a bank with twice two thousand pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflection with astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust.”

From the Harleian Miscellany, we copy the following observations on gaming in England during the year 1668:

“One propounded this question: Whether men in ships at sea were to be accounted amongst the living or the dead—because there were but a few inches betwixt them and drowning. The same query may be made of gamesters, though their estates being never so considerable—whether they are to be esteemed rich or poor, since there are but a few casts at dice betwixt a person of fortune and a pauper.

“Betwixt twelve and one of the clock a good dinner is prepared by way of ordinary, and some of civility and condition oftentimes eat there and play a while for recreation after dinner, and both moderately and most commonly without deserving reproof. Towards night, when ravenous beasts shall seek their prey, there come in shoals of hectors, trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, prigs, divers, lifters, kidnappers, vouchers, millikens, pie-men, decoys, shop-lifters, foilers, bulkers, droppers, gamblers, donnapers, cross-biters, etc., under the general appellation of “rooks,” and in this particular it serves as a nursery for Tyburn, for every year some of its gang march thither.

“Would you imagine it to be true that a grave gentleman well stricken in years, in so much that he cannot see the pips of the dice, is so infatuated with this witchery as to play here with other’s eyes, of whom this quibble was raised; ‘That Mr. Such-a-one plays at dice by the ear.’ Another gentleman, stark blind, I have seen play at hazard, and surely that must be by the ear, too.

“Late at night, when the company grows thin, and your eyes dim with watching, false dice are often put upon the ignorant, or they are otherwise cozened with topping, or slurring, and if you are not vigilant the book shall square you up double or treble books, and though you have lost your money, dun you as severely for it as if it was the justest debt in the world.

“There are yet some more genteel and subtle ‘crooks’ whom you shall not distinguish, by their outward demeanor, from persons of condition, and who will sit by a whole evening and observe who wins, and then if the winner be ‘bubbleable’ they will insinuate themselves into his acquaintance, and civilly invite him to drink a glass of wine, wheedle him into play, and win all his money either by false dice, as high fulhams, low fulhams, or by palming, topping, etc. Note by the way, that when they have you at a tavern, and think you are a sure ‘bubble,’ they will many times purposely lose some small sums to you the first time, to encourage you more freely to ‘bleed’ at the second meeting to which they will be sure to invite you. A gentleman whom ill fortune had hurried into a passion, took a box to a side table and then fell to throwing by himself. At length he swore with an emphasis—‘Now, I throw for nothing, I can win a thousand pounds, but when I play for money I lose my all.’”

In the time of Henry VIII., as stated heretofore, gambling pervaded every rank of society. Sir Miles Partridge threw dice with this king and won from him the celebrated “Jesus bells,” then the largest in England, which were in the tower of St. Paul’s. Partridge was hung for some criminal offense in the time of Edward VI. During the Protectorate of Cromwell, vigorous attempts were made to suppress gaming; but under Charles II., a dissolute monarch, the vice more than recovered the ground it had lost. The aristocracy of the period plunged into gaming as it did into other dissipation. After the death of this King the gambling mania again declined only to revive during the classic reign of Queen Anne. Parliament thereupon turned its attention to the subject, and passed stringent measures against the evil.

Under the first and second Georges, faro and hazard were subjected to heavy penalties and yet, these and other games continued to be played by all classes. In his correspondence with Horace Walpole, Lord Oxford makes pregnant and forcible reference to the absorbing passion for play that distinguished, or rather, disgraced, the times. December 13, 1754, Walpole wrote: “I met Dyke Edgecombe and asked him with great importance, if he knew whether Mr. Pitt was out?” “Yes,” replied Edgecombe, who was too much of a gamester not to have a sportsman’s conception of the meaning of “out,” “How do you know?” I asked, “Why, I called at his door, just now, and his footman told me so,” he replied. Another incident, related in Lord Oxford’s correspondence, shows to what ruin the desperate play of that time sometimes led. After expressing his surprise at the extraordinary death of ——, a most accomplished man of the day, he says: “He himself, with all his judgment in debts, would have bet any man in England against himself for self murder. Yet, after having been supposed the sharpest genius in his time, he, by all that appears, shot himself in the distress of his circumstances. He lost £1,200 a year by Lord Albemarle’s death and more by Lord Gage’s, late Duke of Bedford. The same day he asked immediately for the government of Virginia, or the fox hounds, and pressed for an answer with the eagerness that surprised the Duke of N., who never had a notion of pinning down the relation of his own, or any man’s wants, to a day. Yet that seems to have been the case with ——, who determined to throw the die of life or death upon that answer from the court. Tuesday was the night for the answer, which did not prove to be favorable. He consulted, indirectly, and at last directly, several people of the easiest method of finishing life, and seems to have thought that he had been too explicit, and invited company to dinner on the day of his death, and ordered a supper at White’s, where he had supper but the day before. He played until it was one o’clock in the morning; it was New Year’s morning. Lord Bertie drank to him a happy New Year. He clapped his hands strangely to his eyes. In the morning he had a lawyer and three witnesses to execute his will, which he made them read twice very carefully, paragraph by paragraph, and then asking the lawyer if that would stand good though a man were to shoot himself, and being assured that it would, he said, “Pray be seated while I step into the next room,”—and shot himself. I feel for the distress this man must have felt before he decided on so desperate an action. He had the the most compendious understanding of any man I ever saw. He had effected a finesse in many matters beyond what he deserved, and aimed at reducing affections to a calculation like Demoirves.

Again Lord Oxford writes: “The great event is the catastrophe of Sir ——, who has frittered away his whole fortune at hazard, but that does not exceed what was lost by the Duke of Bedford, he having lost at one period of the night (though he recovered the greater part of it) 230,000 pounds. The citizens put on their double chameleoned pumps and trudged to St. James Street expecting to see judgment on White, angels with flaming swords and devils playing away with the dice box, etc., but there was nothing done.”

In gambling, the reign of George III. was no improvement on those of his predecessors, but quite the contrary. The vice became more general among the nobility and, if possible more desperate. The most talented men of the day were heavy players at faro and hazard. Lord Lauderdale states that £5,000 ($25,000) were often staked on a single card at faro; and, on authority equally good, we learn that Mr. Fox played at hazard for twenty two consecutive hours and lost on an average £500 ($2,500) in cash each hour. Fox was an infatuated gamester, and he once declared that the greatest pleasure in life was to play and win, and the next greatest pleasure to play and lose.

Under this monarch, gambling invaded private mansions to an extent greater than ever before, or since. Many noblemen, enjoying public esteem and political confidence, permitted their homes to become virtual gambling dens. Lords, statesmen, and orators received from ten to twenty guineas per hour for dealing faro in the houses of eminent personages. At this time, women of the highest rank plunged into gaming and in their houses promoted the terrible evil.

Since the time of George IV. gambling among the aristocracy has decreased greatly. Gambling parties in the houses of the higher classes are now exceedingly rare. The English Lord or Baronet now gambles at his club, at Monte Carlo, or some other Continental resort. One sees many English women playing at Monte Carlo, but it is said with them to be a pastime mainly. Gambling is still largely indulged in by the lower classes of London, but is attended with much inconvenience and risk owing to the vigilance of the police. Turf betting, however, in which all classes join, goes on unchecked.

In gambling, as in all other occupations, the Englishman manifests his race characteristics. Cool and collected, he bets in a cold-blooded sort of way, impossible to an Italian or Frenchman. The Englishman knows generally what he is doing and rarely “loses his head,” whatever else he may lose. Although conservative, he will, at times, bet heavily and desperately. The gambling propensity in England now exhibits itself on the turf more than elsewhere. Gambling houses have flourished for 200 years at least. Formerly, gambling among the nobility was carried on at clubs or “coffee houses,” and was one of the understood features of club-life. It was also largely practiced in private mansions. In time, establishments, devoted solely to gambling, were started, and called “clubs,” that an air of importance and respectability might be thrown about them. The practice has continued to this day and the vilest gaming “hells” in London are known by the euphonious name of “clubs.” Some of the gaming resorts once noted in London were: “White’s”, “Brooks’”, “Crockford’s”, “Fishmongers’ Hall”, the “Berkely Club”, “St. James”, “Melton-Mowbray”, “Strangers”, “Cavendish”, “Leicester”, and “Hertford.”

In its day, “Fishmonger’s Hall” was the most celebrated den of the metropolis. A description of this place was given in a communication to the London Times, of July 22nd, 1824 as follows:

At the head of these infamous establishments is one yclept, “Fishmongers’ Hall,” which seeks more plunder than all the others put together, though they consist of about a dozen. This place has been fitted up at an expense of about £40,000, and is the most splendid house interiorly and exteriorly in all the neighborhood. It is established as a bait for the fortunes of the great, many of whom have already been very severe sufferers. Invitations to dinners are sent to noblemen and gentlemen, at which they are treated with every delicacy, and the most intoxicating wines. After such enjoyment a visit to the French hazard table in an adjoining room is a matter of course, where the consequences are easily divined. A man thus allured to the den may determine not to lose more than a few pounds, which he has about him, but in the intoxication of the moment and the delirium of play, it frequently happens that notwithstanding the best resolves he borrows money upon his checks, which being known to be good, are readily cashed for very considerable amounts. In this manner £10,000, £20,000, £30,000, or more, have often been swept away. The profits for the last season over and above expenses, which cannot be less than £100 a day, are said to be fully £150,000 ($750,000). It is wholly impossible, however, to come at the exact sum unless we could get a peep at the ledger of accounts of each day’s gains at this pandemonium, which, though, of course, contains no name, as it might prove awkward, if at any time that book fell into other hands. Some idea can be formed of what has been made, when it is understood that £1,000 alone was given to be divided among the waiters at the end of the last season, besides the “Guy Fawkes” of the place, the head servant having that amount given him last year as a New Year’s gift.

“It would be well for the frequenters of this resort to understand that it is their money that pays the rent and superb embellishments of the house, the good feed and fashionable clothes which disguise the knaves of the establishment, the refreshments and wine with which they are regaled, and which are served with no sparing hand in order to bewilder the senses, to prevent from being seen what is going forward, and which will not be at their service longer than they have money to be fleeced of; they may also understand that it is their money which has gone to make the vast fortunes of which two or three of the keepers are possessed. The ‘hellites’ at all the ‘hells,’ not content with the gains by the points of the game in favor of the bank, and from the equal chances, do not fail to resort to every species of cheating. The dealers and croupiers are especially selected for their adeptness in all the mysteries of the black art. Sleight-of-hand tricks at rouge et noir, by which they make any color when they wish, false dice and cramped boxes at French hazard, are all put in practice with perfect impunity, when every one save the banker and croupiers are in state of delirium of intoxication. About two years ago false dice were detected at the French hazard bank in Piccadilly, in which the proprietors of the ‘Fishmongers’ Hall’ had a share. A few noblemen and gentlemen had been losing largely, (it is said about £50,000) when the dice became suspected, one gentleman seized them, conveyed them away, and found the next morning that they were false.

“The ‘hells’ generally are fitted up in a very splendid style, and their expenses are very great. Those of the ‘Fishmongers’ Hall’ are not less than £1,000 per week. The next in importance are about £150 per week, and the minor ones from £40 to £80.

“The inspectors, or over-lookers, are paid from £6 to £8 a week each, the croupiers or tailleurs £3 to £6, the waiters and porters £2, and a looker-out for the police officers, to give warning of their approach £2. What may be given to the watchman upon the beat of the different houses, besides liquor, etc., is not known, but they receive no doubt according to the services they are called upon to render. Then comes rent, and incidental expenses, such as wines, etc. There is another disbursement, not easily ascertained, but it must be very large, viz.: the money annually given in a certain quarter to obtain timely intelligence of any information laid against a ‘hell’ at a public office, to prevent sudden surprises. This has become the more necessary since by recent act the parties keeping the houses, and those playing and betting at them are, when sufficiently identified, subject to a discipline at the tread mill. The houses are well fortified with strong iron-plated doors, to make the ingress into them a tardy and difficult matter. There is one at the bottom of the stairs, one near the top, a third into the room of play. These are opened or closed one after another as the person ascends or descends, for the doorkeeper to take a bird’s eye view of the person. The appearance of the houses, attention of the waiters, civility of the dealers, condescension of the bankers, refreshments and wine, all combined, have an intoxicating influence upon the inexperienced and unreflecting mind. The proprietors, or more particularly speaking, the bankers of these houses of robbery are composed for the most part of a heterogenous mass of worn out gamblers, blacklegs, pimps, horse dealers, jockeys, valets, pettifogging low tradesmen that have been dealers at their own, and at other tables. They dress in the first style of fashion, keep good houses, women, carriages, and fare sumptuously, bedizen themselves out with valuable gold watches, chains, diamonds, and rings, costly snuff boxes, etc.—property with but little exception originally belonging to unfortunates who had been fleeced out of everything, and who, in the moment of disaster, parted with them for a mere trifle. Some have got into large private mansions, and keep very respectable establishments, but persons with a superficial knowledge of the world can very easily see through the disguise of the gentlemen they assume. They are awkward and vulgar in their gait, nearly all without education and manners, and when they discourse, low slang bespeaks their calling—escapes them in spite of their teeth. There is not a single constant player who can say that he is a winner by them.”

In 1830 “Crockford’s” was one of the most prosperous gambling establishments in London. It was situated on the west side of St. James street, Piccadilly, and was built by the man whose name it bore. Although devoted to gambling purposes, “Crockford’s” was a private club, and numbered among its members several gentlemen of eminent respectability. It was from this fact, doubtless, that the place succeeded in maintaining a fair reputation and was not interfered with by the authorities. Mr. Crockford, early in life, had been a fishmonger, which occupation he abandoned to become a gaming-house keeper. With a man named Taylor, he for a time, managed the “Waiters’ Club,” which had for its patrons employes and well-to-do trades-people. In little more than a year Crockford amassed a large sum of money. Being ambitious, he next constructed a net for higher game, in his St. James street palace. In its meshes he would entangle the aristocratic and wealthy. In this he succeeded to a remarkable degree, and, within a few years, accumulated a colossal fortune. His “club house” was most magnificent within and imposing without. The interior comprised a grand drawing-room, library, billiard room, supper room, and several “parlors” devoted to play. All the apartments were embellished and furnished at enormous expense and with a magnificence quite beyond description. From the start every precaution was taken to make the membership as select as possible; the founder sagaciously perceiving that no surer course to success could be adopted. The most distinguished personages of the day, including the Duke of Wellington, were members, and “Crockford’s” became the “fad” in fashionable London. Play was heavy in this palatial “hell,” and repeatedly £10,000, £15,000, £20,000, and even more, were lost at a single sitting by members of the nobility. It is said that not less than a dozen lost £100,000 each at this fashionable “den.” Crockford’s policy extended a liberal credit to his noble dupes. A score or more of the heads and scions of great families were indebted to him constantly to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He retired in 1840 but long before that was a millionaire. Building for himself an expensive town residence and buying an estate at Newmarket, once the property of a proud nobleman, Crockford lived like a prince, and that, too, without losing favor with the titled dupes whom he bled. It would seem as if the aristocrats deemed it a privilege to impoverish themselves in his “gilded hell.” It was said, perhaps in the bitterness of irony, that Crockford retired only because there were not remaining enough unplucked noblemen to make it an object to continue his business.

“White’s Club,” established as a “chocolate house” in 1698, near the bottom of St. James street, was the most famous gaming resort of its time. Dean Swift, in his essay on Modern Education, says of the place: “I have heard that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never passed by White’s Chocolate House, a common rendezvous of famous sharpers and noble cullies, without bestowing a curse on that famous ‘academy’ as the bane of half the English nobility.” White’s was the place where the nobility indulged their passion for play, and of the number who frequented its baneful precinct, were the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Chesterfield, Chalmanely, Colley Cibber, Major John Churchill, and Budd Doddington. It was there that Chesterfield uttered many of his celebrated witticisms, and afforded delightful entertainment to a distinguished company. He gambled, although fully aware of the inevitable results of the practice. Indeed, according to Walpole, he once told his son that “a member of a gambling club should be a cheat or he would soon be a beggar.” Pelham, the Prime Minister, was a life-long gambler, and, even when holding his exalted office, divided his time between attending to its duties and playing at White’s. In a letter to Dr. Doddridge, in 1750, Lord Littleton said: “I tremble to think that the rattling of the dice box at White’s may, one day or other, if my son should become a member of that ‘noble academy,’ shake down all our fine oaks. It is dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in town, what devastations are made by that destructive power, the sport of play.” Faro was the principal game at White’s, and professional gamblers, provided they were thought honest, were admitted. “Heavy” betting was the practice, and Lord Carlisle lost £10,000 at one sitting. During the game he stood to win £50,000 of Sir John Bland, of Kippax Park, who, himself, after losing £32,000 one night, succeeded in winning back the greater part of it. In 1755, however, he gambled away his whole fortune at hazard. At this period almost every difference of opinion regarding expected occurrences was made the subject of a bet. A book for the recording of such bets was kept at White’s and some of the entries were of the strangest character. One member bet that the first baronet to be hung would be Sir William Burdette, who seems to have been the black sheep of a very respectable family. Bets were recorded on the duration of the ministry, the receiving of titles, on earthquakes, scandals, births, deaths, marriages, and countless other events. One day a man fell to the pavement in front of White’s and instantly a member bet that he was dead and the wager was accepted. When it was proposed to bleed the man the gamesters protested vigorously on the ground that the use of the lancet would interfere with a fair settlement of the bet. Walpole writes: “A person coming into the club on the morning of the earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing up of a powder mill, went away in a hurry, protesting that they were such an impious set that he believed ‘if the last trumpet were sounded they would bet puppet show against judgment.’” And in another place he says, “One of the youths at White’s has committed murder and intends to repeat it. He bet £12,000 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 been heard of since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives instead of the real murderers.” “Lord Digby,” wrote Guy Williams, “is very soon to be married to Miss Fielding. Thousands might have been won at White’s on his lordship not knowing that such a being existed.” One of the entries in the book read, “Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland 20 guineas that Nash outlives Colley Cibber.” Neither won the bet, for both committed suicide before either Nash or Cibber died. Bets were also made that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, would out-live the Duchess of Cleveland.

Play at White’s was believed to be “on the square,” but there is much information to the effect that it was not. The fact that professional gamblers were admitted ought to be conclusive on the point. Hogarth, in his representation of gambling at White’s, places a highwayman at the fireside, waiting until the heaviest winner shall depart and thus furnish his opportunity.

“Brooks’ Club” was founded in 1764, immediately south of White’s, on St. James street. Of the celebrities who frequented it, one time or another, were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick, Hume, Gibbon, Sheridan, Fox, Pitt, Lords Euston and Chatham, Wilberforce, Horace Walpole, the Dukes of Roxburgh and of Portland, the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Crew, afterwards Lord Crew. It did not flourish at first and Brooks, its proprietor, died in poverty in 1772. The club then became known as “Almack’s” and for a time enjoyed prosperity as the favorite rendezvous of the rich and great men of London. That the betting was heavy there may be inferred from the fact that a certain Mr. Thynne, because he won only 12,000 guineas ($63,000.) in two months, retired in disgust on March 21st., 1772. Fast scions of noble families were accustomed to lose or win from £10,000 to £25,000 in an evening at “Almack’s”. It was asserted that when play was in progress there was rarely less than £10,000 in bets on the table. Lord Starbordale, one night while he was still in his minority, lost £10,000, but won it back by one fortunate turn at hazard, whereupon he exclaimed, with a great oath: “Now if I had been playing deep I might have won millions.”

The fashionable young men of the day were veritable dudes and affected foreign notions and tastes and wore curls and eyeglasses. When about to sit down to play, they replaced their embroidered coats with others of frieze, or turned them wrong side out for luck. They slipped on leather wristlets to save their lace ruffles. To avoid disarranging their hair and to protect their eyes from the light, high-crowned broad-brimmed hats were worn by them. Pitt put his whole soul in play while at it, as into all else that he did. When Wilberforce returned in triumph to Parliament and to London, in 1790, he was at once elected to membership in all the “clubs.” “Almack’s,” however, was his favorite resort, where he became very intimate with Pitt, whom he had known at Cambridge. Wilberforce was not a heavy gambler and did not continue the practice long. It has been handed down that he once lost £100 and that on another occasion he kept the bank and won £600.

Gibbon, the historian, spent much of his time at “Almack’s”, and was far from averse to play. He was accustomed to indite his correspondence from there and in one letter, dated June 24th, 1776, wrote: “Town grows empty, and this house, where I have passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant, and notwithstanding the range for play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any other club to which I belong.”

Six years before, Horace Walpole, in a letter to Mann, draws a less favorable picture. “Gaming at “Almack’s”, which has taken the place of “Whites”, is worthy the decline of our Empire, or the decline of the wealthy, as you choose.”

The “Berkley Club” enjoyed its greatest prosperity about the middle of the present century. It had spacious and finely furnished rooms and afforded every convenience to its members. French hazard was the principal game at this resort. No stake less than a sovereign was accepted and players were allowed to bet as high as they desired. The terms of play, as well as the management, were such as to exclude all except the wealthy elite. These frequented the place in considerable numbers, but it never had the patronage once enjoyed by “White’s”, “Almack’s”, and “Crockfords.”

The “Waiter’s Club,” in Piccadilly, flourished in the early part of the present century. For ten years, or more, the company wont to gather there was rather select, but the ruinous effects of play (dishonest play, it was quite generally believed) soon demoralized and actually forced them to disband. By an easy transition the place passed to the management of a set of blacklegs, who conducted it as a common gambling “hell.”

Gambling in the 18th century, in England, is thus described in the Eclectic Magazine for May, 1885: “In the more contracted sense in which we understand the word ‘gambling,’ our grandsires appear to have been more attached to it than the generations which went before them. The actor and the politician, the divine and the tradesman, were alike infected with the rage for gaming. The Duke of Devonshire lost his valuable estate of Leicester Abbey, to Manners at a game of basset. Peers were impoverished, and estates mortgaged, in a single night, and the men who had entered the room in a state of affluence, rushed madly into the streets at night, penniless, and probably in debt to a large amount. The chocolate rooms in the neighborhood of Charing-cross, Leicester-fields, and Golden Square, were the principal ‘hells’ of the West end, and it was not far for ruin, disgrace and despair to find oblivion in the bosom of the Serpentine, or the Thames. The coffee houses, we are told, most notorious for gambling, were ‘White’s Chocolate-house,’ for ficket or basset clubs, in 1724, ‘Littleman’s,’ for faro, which was played in every room; ‘Oldman’s,’ ‘Tom’s,’ ‘Will’s,’ and ‘Jonathan’s’ Coffee-houses, for ‘ombre,’ ‘picquet,’ and ‘loo.’ About 1730 the ‘Crown’ Coffee-house, in Bedford-row, became the rendezvous of a party of whist players. Early in the century, although Swift mentions it as a clergyman’s game, whist appears to have been less in vogue, excepting with footmen and servants, among whom it kept company with foot and all fours.

“From the frequent mention of it in Swift’s ‘Journal to Stella,’ we should surmise that ‘ombre’ was in great fashion about 1710 to 1730, as was crimp among the ladies, according to Steele, and, in 1726, we find in ‘Gay’s Correspondence’ a letter to Swift, in which he alludes to the favor in which the game of quadrille was then held: ‘I can find amusement enough without quadrille, which here is the universal employment of life.’ ‘Nay,’ cries honest parson Adams, in the ‘True Briton,’ on January the 28th, 1746, ‘the holy Sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings, and card playing goes on as publicly as on any other day. Nor is this only among the young lads and the damsels, who might be supposed to know no better, but men advanced in years, and grave matrons are not ashamed of being caught at the same pastime.’

“The Daily Journal of January 9th, 1751, gives a list of the officers retained ‘in the most notorious gaming houses,’ showing how these matters were then managed. The first twelve were:

“1. A commissioner, always a proprietor, who looks in of a night, and the week’s account is audited by him and two other proprietors.

“2. A director, who superintends the room.

“3. An operator, who deals the cards at a cheating game called ‘faro.’

“4. Two crowpiers (croupiers) who watch the cards and gather in the money for the bank.

“5. Two puffs, who have money given them to decoy others to play.

“6. A clerk, who is a check upon the puffs, to see that they sink none of the money given them to play with.

“7. A squib is a puff of lower rank who serves at half-pay salary while he is learning to deal.

“8. A flasher, to swear how often a bank has been stripped.

“9. A dunner, who goes about to recover money lost at play.

“10. A waiter, to fill out wine, snuff candles, and attend to the gaming rooms.

“11. An attorney, a Newgate solicitor.

“12. A captain, who is to fight any gentleman who is peevish at losing his money.

“The green-rooms of the theatres even, were the scenes of great doings in the gaming way, and Miss Bellamy tells us that thousands were frequently lost there in a night—rings, brooches, watches, professional wardrobes, and even salaries in advance, being staked and lost as well as money.

“It was in vain that essays, satires and sermons were written with a view to checking this universal vice. Hogarth has depicted it in all its horrors, whether in the scene where it first leads the idle apprentice into sin, or in others, where it shows the young rake on the way to jail. But its dreadful consequences were most forcibly placed before the eyes of the infatuated town by Edward Moore, in a tragedy, first performed at Drury Lane in 1753, and entitled the “Gamester.” How did “the town” receive this lesson? The “New Theatrical Dictionary” says: “With all its merits, it met with but little success, the general cry against it being that the distress was too deep to be borne. Yet we are rather apt to imagine its want of perfect approbation arose in one part, (and that no inconsiderable one) of the audience from a tenderness of another kind than that of compassion, and that they were less hurt by the distress of “Beverly” than by finding their darling vice—their favorite folly—thus vehemently attacked by the strong lance of reason, and dramatic execution.”

But gambling in England has never been confined to the aristocracy. If anything, it has been even more prevalent in the “Lower orders of society.” The play in the “dens” frequented by them has been less “heavy,” but none the less ruinous and far more productive of misery and crime. Such resorts have thrived for centuries in every part of London, and indeed, in every large English city. Many of them have been known as “clubs,” as are those of to-day, which the police raid from time to time.

In these places, as in those more aristocratic, hazard became the favorite game immediately upon its introduction from Paris, early in the century, and for a time almost superceded other gambling devices. St. James street early became the center for aristocratic gambling, and in no quarter of London were the third and fourth class “hells” so numerous as in the section surrounding this district. After “Crockford’s” was established and it became apparent that it was not only prospering under the protection and patronage of the ennobled and wealthy, but was also safe from police interference, the gamblers who designed to prey upon the lower classes were not slow to conclude that nowhere in London would they be so secure as in the same vicinity. Accordingly, in a short time, scores of “clubs” sprung up in Leicester Square, the Quadrant, in Regent street, and between Bennett and Jermyn Streets. The Quadrant was known as “Devil’s walk,” getting the name because of the half dozen or more “hells” which flourished on its North side, between the County Fire offices and Glasshouse street, and because of the hundreds of abandoned women who promenaded the pavement then, as now, during the closing hours of the day and far into the night. It was a locality especially favorable to these “dens.” The throngs of people were greater in its vicinity at night than in any other part of London. Competition between the different houses was so sharp that each had its messengers on the street, mixing with the people, and thrusting into their hands cards of invitation to their respective resorts. Even the courtesans solicited for the dens at the time they solicited for themselves.

The Quadrant “clubs” have been the ruin of thousands of young men. Finally, the scandal became so great and openly offensive that the public revolted. Some young men turned over the cards of invitation to their parents, the latter in turn passing the invitations to the police. With the cards as a clue the authorities began a determined fight upon the evil, and finally exterminated the infamous resorts. Their doors had opened readily, day and night, Sundays included. Anyone, no matter how high or low in degree and circumstances, was welcome, and all were systematically plucked.

As late as 1844 there were no less than fifteen gambling houses, well known to the police, in the parishes of St. James’, St. George’s, St. Ann’s, and St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, besides the rooms of public houses, billiard rooms and coffee shops, in which gambling was conducted. These latter, known as “copper halls,” usually accepted the lowest stakes, down to a penny or a ha’penny, and were patronized mainly by clerks and servants.

Gambling establishments, pure and simple, and of the lowest order, have generally “followed the races;” that is, have been opened during race week in the town where the courses are located—such as Warwick, Doncaster, etc. Allusion has been made already to the fact that betting on horse races is a favorite species of gambling in England. That subject receives due attention in another part of this work. Reference is proper here, however, to the gambling by those who attend the races. It was said of Doncaster in 1846: “The Eldorado, or grand source of income and wealth to the proprietors, arises from the prolific revenue of the play of gaming tables, of which there are usually six in constant nightly operation during the racing week. The proprietors of the Subscription Betting Rooms are not ostensibly connected in the co- partnership of the banks, or in the business of the tables, but they are, nevertheless, largely interested in the successful issue of the week, as will be shown. In the first instance it should be stated that the sum of £350 or £400 is paid down to them by the party contracting for the tables, and for the privilege of putting down the banks. This is all clear profit, paid for in advance, and without any contingency, and in addition to this large sum so paid, for the mere privilege of finding capital, there is a stipulation also on the part of the proprietors of the room, that they shall receive a considerable part or share of the clear profits or gains of the week, accruing from the tables, and this without the risk of a single shilling by them under any unlooked-for reverse of fortune.”

Doncaster, at an earlier period, often harbored fully thirty or forty gambling establishments during race week, which were conducted in the most open manner. Men were stationed in front to hand to passers by cards bearing such inscriptions as, “Roulette, £1,000 in the bank.” A former magistrate of Warwick certified that once during the races nearly every house in a certain street was utilized for gambling purposes, and that the windows were wide open so that those who were passing could see what was transpiring within. Though the sporting gentry had usually to pay large fees for the privilege of running race week “hells,” they could well afford to do so in view of their enormous profits. The games usual at such places were roulette and hazard. Both French and English hazard were in favor, the latter to accommodate the older generation of “sports,” with whom it was a favorite. French hazard is a quiet game; English hazard a noisy one. In the former, the players have simply to place their stakes in particular positions on the table; as they wish to bet, and await the result of the cast. They need not utter a word. At the English game, on the contrary, every player is usually shouting at the top of his voice, and the scene is not unlike that in the wheat pit of a Board of Trade or in the Stock Exchange in New York. “The caster’s in for five pounds!” “done;” “I’ll bet fifteen to ten!” “What’s the main and chance?” “Seven to five;” “I’ll take on doublets!” “The caster throws before the five for ten pounds.” These are samples of the exclamations made by those who are offering and taking bets. The players in the English game bet against each other and not against the banks as in the French game. Wranglings, disputes and hot words are frequent, owing to misunderstandings and the efforts of sharpers to impose upon those whom they take to be inexperienced and susceptible to bravado.

An English hazard game is superintended by a “groom-porter,” as he is called, who presides at the table to regulate the bets made between the “caster,” or thrower of the dice, and the “setter,” or person opposed to him. The proprietor does not get a percentage of the money staked as in the French game, but derives his profit from a stipulated amount from all the players who are fortunate enough to throw on three mains, or win three times successively. Such winnings, it has been estimated, occur eight times an hour. Accordingly the proprietor gets about $40 an hour for each table, or $400 a night on the basis of ten hours. Of course, the amount varies with the number engaged in playing. But the amount, whatever it is, is clear profit, for the use of the table only is involved. The “groom porter” has very arduous duties to perform, and must, of necessity, be quick and determined, in order to keep track of all the bets made and to defeat the frequent attempts at fraud by knaves and scoundrels who sometimes stake less than their proportion, or endeavor to escape their “obligations.”(?) In return for this protective vigilance he receives a gratuity of a guinea or more from every one who throws six mains, or wins six times successively. When betting is large his “doucers” are generally increased, and sometimes he receives as much as five or ten pounds.

In these “dens” the roulette tables are usually more numerous than those devoted to hazard, and they prove more remunerative to the proprietors, as the percentage against the players is about five and a half, or more than three times what it is in hazard. The profits during race week averaged, some times, £2,500 each.

Of the low gambling resorts in London, early in this century, Fraser’s Magazine, of August 1833, gives this interesting account: “On an average, during the last twenty years, about thirty ‘hells’ have been regularly open in London for the accommodation of the lowest and most vile set of hazard players. The game of hazard is the principal one played at the low houses, and is, like the characters who play it, the most desperate and ruinous of all games. The wretched men who follow this play are partial to it, because it gives a chance, from a run of good luck, to become possessed speedily of all the money on the table. No man who plays hazard ever despairs making his fortune at some time. Such is the nature of this destructive game, that I can now point out several men, whom you see daily, who were in rags and wretchedness on Monday, and, before the termination of the week, they rode in a newly purchased stanhope of their own, having several thousand pounds in their possession. The few instances of such success, which unfortunately occur, are generally well-known, and consequently encourage the hopes of others who nightly attend these places, sacrificing all considerations of life to the carrying their all (if it be only a few shillings) every twenty-four hours to stake in this great lottery, under the delusive hope of catching Dame Fortune at some time in a merry mood. Thousands annually fall, in health, fame and fortune, by this mad infatuation, while not one in a thousand finds an oasis in the desert. The inferior houses of play are always situated in obscure courts, or other places of retirement, and most frequently are kept shut up during the day, as well as at night, as if unoccupied; or some appearance of trade is carried on as a blind. A back room is selected for all operations, if one can be secured sufficiently capacious for the accommodation of forty or fifty persons at one time. In the centre of the room is fixed a substantial circular table, immovable to any power of pressure against it by the company who go to play, a circle of inlaid white hollywood is formed in the middle of the table, of about four feet diameter, and a lamp is suspended immediately over this ring. A man, designated the “groom porter,” is mounted on a stool, with a stick in his hand, having a transverse piece of wood affixed at its end, which is used by him to rake in the dice, after having been thrown out of the box by the caster, (the person who throws the dice). The avowed profits of keeping a table of this kind is the receipt of a piece for each box-hand—that is, when a player wins three times successively, he pays a certain sum to the table, and there is an aperture in the table made to receive these contributions. At the minor establishments, the price of a box-hand varies from one shilling to half-a-crown, according to the terms on which the house is known to be originally opened. If there is much play, these payments produce ample profits to the keeper of the house, but their remuneration for running the risk of keeping an unlawful table of play, is plunder. At all these houses, as at the better ones, there is always a set of men who hang about the table like sharks for prey, waiting for those who stay late, or are inebriated, and come in towards morning to play when there are but few lookers-on. Unfair means are then resorted to with impunity, and all share the plunder. About eleven o’clock, when all honest and regular persons are preparing for rest, the play commences, the adventurers being seated around the table, one takes the box of dice, putting what he is disposed to play for into the ring marked on the table, as soon as it is covered with a like sum, or ‘set,’ as it is termed, by another person, the player calls ‘a main,’ and at the same moment throws the dice, if the call comes up, the caster wins, but if any other ‘main’ comes uppermost on the dice, the thrower takes that chance for his own, and his adversary has the one he calls, the throwing then continues, during which bets are made by others, on the event, until it is decided. If the caster throws deuces or aces, when he first calls ‘a main,’ it is said to be ‘crabbed,’ and he loses, but if he throws the number named, he is said to have ‘nicked it,’ and thereby wins. Also, if he should call six or eight, and throws double sizes, he wins, or if seven be the number called, and eleven is thrown, it is a ‘nick,’ because those chances are ‘nicks’ to these ‘mains,’ which regulation is necessary to the equalization of all the chances at this game when calling a ‘main.’

“The odds against any number being thrown against another number varies from two to one, to six to five, and consequently keeps all the table engaged in betting. All bets are staked, and the noise occasioned by proposing and accepting wagers is most uproarious and deafening among the low players, each having one eye on the black spots marked on the dice, as they land from the box, and the other on the stake, ready to snatch it if successful. To prevent the noise being heard in the street, shutters closely fitted to the window frames are affixed, which are padded and covered with green baize. There is also invariably an inner door placed in the passage, having an aperture in it, through which all who enter the door from the street may be viewed. This precaution answers two purposes, it deadens the sound of the noisy voices at the table, and prevents surprise by the officer of justice. The generality of the minor houses are kept by prize fighters, and other desperate characters, who bully and hector the more timid out of their money, by deciding that bets have been lost when in fact they have been won. Bread, cheese, and beer are supplied to the players, and a glass of gin is handed when called for, gratis. To these places thieves resort, and such other loose characters as are lost to every feeling of honesty and shame. A table of this nature in full operation is a terrific sight, all the bad passions appertaining to the vicious propensities of mankind are portrayed on the countenances of the players. An assembly of the most horrible demons could not exhibit a more appalling effect, recklessness and desperation overshadow every noble trait, which should enlighten the countenance of a human being. Many, in their desperation, stripped themselves on the spot of their clothes, either to stake against money, or to pledge to the table-keeper for a trifle to renew the play, and many instances occur of men going home half naked, after having lost their all. They assemble in parties of from forty to fifty persons, who probably bring on an average each night of from one to twenty shillings to play with. As the money is lost the players depart, if they can not borrow or beg more, and this goes on some times in the winter season for fourteen or sixteen hours in succession, so that from 100 to 150 persons may be calculated to visit one gambling table in the course of a night; and it not unfrequently happens that, ultimately, all the money brought to the table gets into the hands of one or two of the most fortunate adventurers, save that which is paid to the table for box-hands, whilst the losers separate, only to devise plans by which a few more shilling may be secured for the next night’s play.

“Every man so engaged is destined either to become by success a more finished and mischievous gambler, or to appear at the bar of the ‘Old Bailey’ where, indeed, most of them may be said to have figured already.

“The successful players, by degrees, improve their external appearance, and obtain admittance to the houses of higher play, where 2s. 6d., or 3s. 4d. is demanded for box-hands. At these places silver counters are used, representing the aliquot parts of a pound; these are called ‘pieces,’ one of which is a box-hand.

“If success attends them, in the first step of advancement, they next become initiated into pound-houses, and associate with gamblers of respectable exterior, where, if they show talent, they either become confederates in forming schemes of plunder, and in aiding establishments to carry on their concerns in defiance of the law, or fall back to their old station of playing chicken-hazard, as the small play is designated.

“The half-crown, or third rate houses, are not less mischievious than the lower ones. These houses are chiefly opened at the west end of the town, but there are some few at the east. In the parish of St. James, I have counted seven, eight and nine, in one street, which were open both day and night.

“One house in Oxenden street, Coventry, had an uninterrupted run of sixteen or seventeen years. Thousands have been ruined there, while every proprietor amassed a large fortune. The man who first opened the house (G. S.) has resided at Kentish Town for years past, in ease and affluence, keeping his servants and horses, although he rose from the lowest of the low.

“Several others who have followed him have had equal success. The watchmen and Bow street officers were kept in regular pay, and the law openly and expressly set at defiance, cards being handed about, on which were written these words: ‘Note, the house is insured against all legal interruptions, and the players are guaranteed to be as free from officious interruptions as they are at their own homes.’

“At another of these medium houses, known by the numerals ‘77,’ the proprietor, (a broken down Irish publican, formerly residing in the parish of St. Anne’s) accumulated in two years so much money that he became a large builder of houses and assembly rooms at Cheltenham, where he was at one time considered the most important man of the place, although he continued his calling to the day of his death. ‘Alas! J. D. K., hadst thou remained on earth thou wouldst ere this have been honored with the title of Grand Master of all the Blarney Clubs throughout the United Kingdom. Many a coroner hast thou found employ, and many a guinea hast thou brought into their purses, and many a family hast thou cast into the depths of sorrow.’ So runs the world. Fools are the natural prey of knaves, nature designed them so, when she made lambs for wolves. The laws that fear and policy framed, nature disclaims; she knows but two, and those are force and cunning. The nobler law is force, but then there’s danger in’t; while cunning, like a skillful miner, works safely and unseen.

“The subject of these remarks was not only subtle, wily, and in some measure fascinating, but most athletic and active in person. He was part proprietor of No. —, Pall Mall, for many years, where he would himself play for heavy stakes. And it was a favorite hobby of his to go into St. James’ Square, after having been up all night, to jump over the iron railings and back again, from the enclosure to the paved way.

“The average number of these third-rate houses in London, open for play, may be calculated at about twenty-five. If there were not a constant influx of tyro-gamblers this number would not be supported. Their agents stroll about the town, visiting public house parlors, and houses where cribbage-players resort, whist clubs, also billiard and bagatelle tables, experience having taught them that the man who plays at one game, if the opportunity be afforded him, is ever ready to plunge deeper into the vice of gambling on a large scale. Junior clerks, and the upper class of gentlemen’s servants are the men whom they chiefly attack.

“It is an extraordinary and uncomfortable fact that no set of men are more open to seduction than the servants of the nobility, and the menials of club-houses, an instance of which occurred a few months since, in the case of a servant of the Athenæum Club, who was inveigled into a house in the Quadrant, where he lost, in two or three days, a considerable sum of money belonging to his employers.

“The sum annually lost by the servants of the present day may reasonably be laid at one million and a half sterling. At most of the middle class gambling houses, play is going on from three o’clock, p. m. to five or six o’clock a. m. In the afternoon, from three to seven, it is called morning play, being generally rouge-et-noir or roulette.

“As soon as the proprietor of a ‘crown-house’ amasses money enough to appear on the turf, and becomes known at Tattersall’s as a speculator on horse-racing, he is dubbed a gentleman. Associating now with another class of men, a high ambitious spirit prompts him to open a superior house of play, where the upper class of gamblers and young nobility may not be ashamed of meeting together. All petty players are excluded. When he has accomplished his object he deems himself in the high road for the acquirement of a splendid fortune, being now master of a concern where money and estate are as regularly bought and sold as any commodity in a public market; one man of fashion betraying another—the most intimate and bosom friends colleaguing with these monsters for the purpose of sacrificing each other to the god Plutus, instances of which occur in this viciated town as often as the sun rises and sets.

“It might be thought invidious to mention names by innuendo, but every man of the world, or rather of the London world (which comprehends some thousand swindlers intermingled with the same number of nobility and gentry), must have a knowledge of those characters who have elevated themselves from the lowest state in society by gambling, to associate on terms of equality with nobles. One married his daughters to peers of the realm, and was treated with respect daily at the table of those who enact laws for the punishment of swindlers, and also of bishops who expatiate daily against all kinds of vice, including that of gambling, and the sin of countenancing those who promote it. Another, whose confederate was executed for poisoning horses, to secure for himself and his honorable employer a large sum of money, now stalks through the halls of our proud Norman, but too susceptible aristocracy, with as much freedom and nonchalance as one who could trace his ancestry back to William the Conqueror, and was possessed of a pure and unblemished reputation. When the history of this individual and that of six others, who, to use their own phraseology, have rowed through life together in the same boat, are before the world, scenes will be developed which will stand as beacons to warn future generations against coming in contact with such characters.

“In accordance with the reigning spirit of the day, such persons having acquired money, no matter how, rank as gentlemen, and are qualified to sit at the tables of the nobility. The company of fashionable or club society is that of black-legs, and it would not be difficult for me to name from twenty to thirty individuals at this moment who associate with, and move among, persons of high life, who were, but a few years back, in low vice and penury, and who have possessed themselves of a sum of money certainly not less than from eight to nine millions sterling.

“Again, there are hundreds of others who have amassed from ten to twenty thousand pounds each. Add to these the two or three thousand who annually make smaller sums of money, or manage to keep themselves and families in comfortable style by ‘hokey-pokey’ gambling ways, as Brother Jonathan would say, some estimate may be made of the evil occasioned to society by the movements of these men in it.”

One of the most deplorable phases of gambling in England is that women have figured prominently. Incredible as it may seem, numerous instances are recorded where the honor of wives and daughters has been staked in the desperation of cowardly men. It may be believed that this occurred only when all else had been swept away, and by persons from whom every vestige of manhood had departed. Ethiopians, it is said, have been known to gamble away their wives and children, and Schouten tells of a Chinaman who lost his family in this manner. A similar story is told of a Venetian, by Paschasius Justus, and in the wicked Paris of Louis XV, debauched nobles played at dice for the favor of a notorious courtesan.

English literature contains many allusions to women gamblers. So far did ladies of fashion carry the vice that certain nights for meeting were set apart in their private mansions, at which young and old, married and single, played with a desperation that must have made their husbands and fathers tremble. Professionals, whose morals were not above reproach, were engaged to conduct the games, and thus the women were thrown into association with bad characters, and their names and reputations bandied about in the mouths of the sporting gentry of London.

In 1820, James Lloyd, a harpy who practiced on the credulity of the lower orders by keeping an illegal lottery, was arrested for the twentieth time to answer for the offense. Lloyd was a Methodist preacher, and on Sundays expounded the gospel to his neighbors; the remainder of the week he instructed them in the gambling vice.

“In the same years,” says a writer of the time, “parties of young persons robbed their masters to play at a certain establishment called ‘Morley’s Gambling House,’ in the city of London, and were there ruined. Some were brought to justice at the Old Bailey, others in the madness caused by their losses, destroyed themselves while some escaped to other countries.”

To the games of faro, hazard, macao, doodle-doo and rouge-et-noir, at this time, more than to horse-racing, may be ascribed the ruin of many London merchants who once possessed fortunes and prosperous business. Thousands upon thousands were thus ruined in the vicinity of St. James; but this was not confined to youths of fortune only, but to decent and respectable merchants, who were engulfed in its vortex.

Of the “South Sea Bubble,” a writer in the Eclectic Magazine for May, 1885, says: “If not the earliest, at least the most remarkable instance of this national spirit of gambling displayed itself in the last century, and was the infatuation which led all classes to commit themselves to the alluring prospects held out to them by the South Sea Company. The public creditor was offered six per cent. interest, and a participation in the profits of a new trading company, incorporated under the style of ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America.’ But, whatever chances of success this company might have had, were soon dispersed by the breaking out of the war with Spain, in 1718, which rendered it necessary for the concoctors of the scheme to circulate the most exaggerated reports, falsify their books, bribe members of the government, and resort to every fraudulent means, for the purpose of propping up their tottering creation. Wonderful discoveries of valuable resources were trumped up, and, by the mystery which they contrived to throw around the whole concern, people’s curiosity was excited, and a general, but vague impression got abroad that one of the South Sea Company’s bonds was talismanic, and there was no reckoning the amount of profit it would bring to the fortunate possessor. The smallest result expected from the enterprise was that in twenty-six years it would pay off the entire amount of the National debt.

“How it was to be done no one knew, or cared to inquire, it was sufficient to know that it was to be done. Trade and business of all kinds was suspended, every pursuit and calling neglected, and the interest of the whole nation absorbed by this enchanting dream. Money was realized in every way, and at every sacrifice and risk, to be made available in the purchase of South Sea stock, which rose in price with the demand from £150 to £325. Fresh speculators came pouring in, and the price went up to £1,000. This was at the latter end of July, but alas, a whisper went forth that there was something wrong with the South Sea Company. The chairman, Sir John Blunt, and some of the directors had sold their shares. There was a screw loose somewhere, and on the 2nd of September it was quoted at £700. An attempt to allay the panic was made by the directors, who called a meeting on the 8th, at Merchant Tailors’ Hall, but in the evening it fell to £640, and next day stood at £540. The fever had been succeeded by a shivering fit, and it was rapidly running down to zero. In this emergency, the king, who was at Hanover, was sent for, and Sir Robert Walpole called in, when the case was desperate. He endeavored to persuade the Bank of England to circulate the company’s bonds, but in vain. The stock fell to £135, and the bubble burst. The duration of this public delirium, as Smallett has truly called it, may be estimated when we state that the bill enabling the company to raise the subscription received the royal assent on the 7th of April, 1720, with the stock at £150; that the price subsequently ran up to £1,000; and that, on the 27th day of September it had again sunk to £150, and the delusion was over, and the nation in a state of panic, with public credit shaken to its center. Investigations were now made into the conduct of the managers of this marvelous fraud. A bill was first passed through parliament to prevent the escape of the directors from the kingdom, and then a Committee of Secrecy appointed to examine into their accounts. It then came out that the books had been destroyed, or concealed, entries erased and altered, and accounts falsified; that the king’s mistress, even, the Duchess of Kendal, had received stock to the amount of £10,000; another favorite, the Countess of Platen, £10,000; Mr. Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, £70,000; Mr. Graggs, father of the Secretary of State, £659,000; the Duke of Sutherland, £160,000; Mr. Graggs, Jr., £30,000; and Mr. Charles Stanhope, Secretary of the Treasury, two amounts, one of £10,000, and another of £47,000. The manner in which these worthies, who were in the secret, could anticipate and influence the markets, is obvious. Poor Gay had received an allotment of stock from Mr. Secretary Graggs which was at one time worth £20,000, but he clung fast to the bubble, refused to sell at that price, and waited till it was worthless, when he found himself hugging the shadow of a fortune. The amount of the company’s stock, at the time of the inquiry, was found to be £37,800,000, of which £24,500,000 belonged to individual proprietors. As some compensation to these rash and ruined speculators, the estates of the directors were confiscated. Sir George Caswell was expelled from the House of Commons, and made to disgorge £250,000; Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expelled, and committed to the Tower; Sir John Blunt, the chairman, was stripped of all but £5,000, and the excitement and popular resentment was so intense that it is marvelous that they escaped with their lives.

“The South Sea frenzy was not sufficient to engross the gambling spirit that it had generated, simultaneously there oozed up a crowd of smaller bubbles, of which Malcom counted 156. The titles to some of them were sufficient to illustrate the madness which had seized upon the nation. There were companies for carrying on the undertaking business and furnishing funerals, capital £1,200,000 at the ‘Fleece Tavern’ (ominous sign,) Cornhill; for discounting pensions, 2,000 shares at the Globe Tavern; for preventing and suppressing thieves, and insuring all persons’ goods from the same (?), capital £2,000,000, at Cooper’s; for making Joppa and Castile soap, at the Castile Tavern; for sweeping the streets, for maintaining bastard children; for improving gardens and raising fruit trees, at Carraway’s, for insuring horses against natural death, accident or theft, at the Brown Tavern, Smithfield, another at Robin’s, of the same nature, capital £2,000,000; for introducing the breed of asses; an insurance company against the thefts of servants, 3,000 shares of £1,000 each, at the Devil Tavern; for perpetual motion, by means of a wheel moving by force of its own weight, capital £1,000,000 at the Ship Tavern,” etc., etc. The Prince of Wales became governor of a Welsh Copper Company. The Duke of Chandos was Chairman of the York Building Company, and of another Company for building houses in London and Westminster.

“Many of these speculators were jealously prosecuted by the South Sea Company, but they all succeeded, in a greater or less degree, in spreading the general panic. The amount of capital proposed to be raised by these countless schemes was three hundred million sterling—exceeding the value of all the lands in England. The most amusing instance of the blind credulity of the public was in the success which attended one wary projector, who, well knowing the value of mystery, published the following proposal:

“‘This day, the 28th inst., at Sam’s Coffee-house, behind the Royal Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened for entering into a joint co-partnership for carrying on a thing that will turn to the advantage of all concerned.’

“The particulars of this notable scheme were not to be revealed for a month, and, ‘in the meantime’ says Smallet, he declared that every person paying two guineas should be entitled to a subscription of one hundred pounds, which would produce that sum yearly.’ In the forenoon, the adventurer received a thousand of these subscriptions, and, in the evening, set out for another kingdom.

“Some curious satires on these several schemes are preserved in the British Museum, in the shape of a book of playing-cards. Thus, one is a caricature of York-buildings, with the following lines beneath it:

‘You that are blessed with wealth by your Creator, And want to drown you money in Thames water, Buy but York-buildings, and the cistern there Will sink more pence than any fool can spare.’

“A ship-building company is thus ridiculed:

‘Who but a nest of blockheads to their cost Would build new ships for freight when trade is lost? To raise fresh barques must surely be amusing, When hundreds rot in dock for want of using.’

“The Pennsylvania Land Company comes in for a share of the satire:

‘Come, all ye saints, that would for little buy Great tracts of land, and care not where they lie, Deal with your Quaking friends—They’re men of light, The spirit hates deceit and scorns to bite.’

“The Company for the insurance of horses’ lives against death, or accident, is thus dealt with:

‘You that keep horses to preserve your ease, And pads to please your wives and mistresses, Insure their lives, and, if they die we’ll make Full satisfaction—or be bound to break.’

“Smallett gives us a more dismal picture. ‘The whole nation,’ he says, ‘was infested with a spirit of stock-jobbing, to an astonishing degree. All distinctions of party, religion, sex, character, and circumstances were swallowed up. Exchange-alley was filled with a strange concourse of statesmen and clergymen, churchmen and dissenters, Whigs, and Tories, physicians, lawyers, tradesmen, and even with females. All other professions and employments were utterly neglected.’

“It is not to be wondered at that various lottery schemes were started and prospered immensely at a time when the public mind was in the state indicated above. They were launched by the State, by private companies and by individuals. These institutions played no small part in the general debasement of the public mind and the ruin of fortunes and families.” This will appear more fully in the treatment accorded to lotteries elsewhere in this book.

The history of anti gambling legislation in England, and the various efforts which have been made to suppress or regulate the vice forms an interesting phase of the subject, and also suggests how the evil was regarded from time to time in the public mind. The earliest legislation on the subject appears to have been based on the idea, not that gambling was immoral and degrading, but that it interfered with the usefulness of servants and employes, induced idleness, and diverted attention from archery. “The first statute (12 R. 2, c. 6) in England (1388) prohibiting gambling, applied only to servants of husbandry, artificers, and victuallers—not to servants of gentlemen—and commanded such to refrain from ‘hand and foot ball, quoits, dice, throwing of stone kayles, and such other importune games.’ The next statute (1409) enforced the above, with a penalty of six days imprisonment for such offence. The next act (17 Ed. 4, c. 3, 1477,) after naming in a preamble the foregoing games, says, ‘Contrary to such laws, games called kayles, half-bowles, hand-in-hand-out, and queckeborde, from day to day are used in divers parts of the land,’ then provides that no occupier or master of a house shall voluntarily permit any prohibited person to play at any such game in said house, under pain of three years’ imprisonment and forfeiture of £20 for each offense. No prohibited person could play under pain of two years’ imprisonment and £10 default. Another act (11 H. 7, c. 2, 1494,) provided that no artificer, laborer or servant should play any unlawful game except at Christmas, while the law (19 H. 7, c, 12) of 1503, absolutely prohibited certain persons named therein from playing at any game. In 1511, (3 H. 8, c. 3) unlawful games were again prohibited, and a still more stringent law enacted in 1535 (22 H. 8, c. 35).

“In 1541, (33 H. 8, c. 25) the manufacturers and dealers in archery petitioned Parliament to prohibit all games and enforce the practice of archery. Accordingly, in 1542, a most stringent act was passed, obliging all able-bodied men, between the ages of 17 and 60 years, except ministers and judges, to own bows and arrows, and to practice with the same. Masters were required to see that their servants were provided with bows and arrows and instructed in their use; if not provided, the master must furnish the same, and was empowered to deduct the price from the servant’s wages. This act repeals all other laws concerning gaming, and then prohibits the keeping of any ‘common house, or place of bowling, coytinge, cloyshe, cayles, half-bowle, tannys, dysing table, or cardianage, or any other unlawful new game hereafter to be invented,’ under a penalty of 40s. for each offense. Magistrates, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and head officers of cities, boroughs and towns, were required and authorized to enter all such places, at any time, and arrest offenders; they must also search at least once a month to discover such places, and suppress the same under a monthly penalty of 40s. for every default.”

Section 16, of this act then provided that “No manner of artificer, craftsman, husbandman, apprentice, laborer, servant at husbandry, journeyman, or servant of artificer, mariner, fisherman, waterman, or servingman shall play at the tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowles, clash, coyting, logating, or any other unlawful game, out of Christmas, under pain of 20s. for each offense.” At Christmas, this class could play only in their master’s house or presence. This act made no game in itself unlawful. It only became unlawful by being used by certain persons at certain times, or certain places. The keeping of a common gambling house for any unlawful game, for lucre or gain was prohibited, but no game was made unlawful unless played in such common house. Faro and rouge et noir were not then considered unlawful games.

In 1745, faro, bassett, ace of hearts, hazard, passage, roly-poly, roulette, and all games of dice, except backgammon, were prohibited under a penalty to the “setter-up,” of £200, and £50 fine for players. A subsequent act repealed so much of the act of 1542 as prohibited bowling, tennis and other games of mere skill.

Justices of the Peace, at their annual licensing meetings, were empowered to grant license to persons to keep a room for billiards, bagatelle-boards, and the like, but these were prohibited between the hours of 1 and 8 A. M., and on Sundays, Christmas, Good Friday, or any public feast, or Thanksgiving day. Gambling was not then indictable at common law. In England, at common law, it was held, “a common gambling house kept for lucre or gain, was per se a common nuisance, as it tends to draw together idle and evil-disposed persons, to corrupt their morals and ruin their fortunes, being the same reasons given in the case of houses of common prostitution.” (King vs. Rogers and Humphrey.)

The following curious piece of evidence is probably an extract from the Journal of the House of Lords, although there is no reference to the subject in the published debates.

“DIE LUNÆ, 29 DEGREES, APRILIS, 1745—GAMING.”

“A bill for preventing the excessive and deceitful use of it having been brought from the Commons and proceeded on, so far as to be agreed to in the committee of the whole house with amendments, information was given to the house that Mr. Burdus, Chairman of the Quarter Session for the sitting and liberty of Westminster; Sir Thomas Deveil, and Mr. Lane, Chairman of the Quarter Session for the County of Middlesex, were at the door. They were called in and at the bar severally gave an account that claims of the privilege of peerage were made and insisted on by Ladies Mordington and Cassilis, in order to intimidate the peace officers from doing their duty in suppressing the public gaming houses kept by said ladies. And the said Burdus thereupon delivered the instrument in the written hand of said Lady Mordington, containing the claim she made of privilege for her officers and servants employed by her in her said gambling house; and then they were directed to withdraw, and the said instrument was read as follows: ‘I, Dame Mary, Baroness of Mordington, do hold a house in the great plaza Covent Garden for, and as an assembly, where all persons of credit are at liberty to frequent and play at such diversions as are used at other assemblies, and I have hired Joseph Dewbery, William Horsely, Ham Croper, and George Sanders as my servants or managers under me. I have given them orders to direct the management of other inferior servants, namely, John Bright, Richard Davids, John Hill, John Vandevoren as book-keepers, Gilbert Richardson as house-keeper; John Chaplin, William Stanley, and Henry Huggins, servants that wait on the company of the said assembly, and all the above named persons I claim as my domestic servants, and demand all those privileges that belong to me as a peeress of Great Britain pertaining to my said assembly. M. Mordington. Dated, 8th of January, 1744.’ Resolved and declared that no person is entitled to the privilege of peeress against any prosecution or proceeding for keeping any public gaming house, or any house, room, or place, for play at any game or games prohibited by any law now in force.”

In the time of Queen Anne gambling ran riot to such an extent that it commanded the attention of Parliament, and resulted in the following act: “Whereas, divers low and dissolute persons live at great expense, having no visible establishment, profession, or calling to maintain themselves, but support these expenses by gaming only, it is hereby enacted that any two justices may cause to be brought before them all persons within their limits whom they shall have just cause to suspect of having no visible establishment, profession, or calling, to maintain themselves by, but do, for the most part, support themselves by gaming; and if such persons shall not make the contrary appear to such justices, they are to be bound to their good behavior for a twelve-months, and in default of sufficient security, to be committed to prison until they can find the same, and if security be given it will be forfeited on their betting or playing for—at any one time—more than the value of twenty shillings.”

This act was further enforced and its deficiencies supplied during the reign of George I and George II, and the forfeiture under that act could be recovered in a court of equity; and, moreover, if any man were convicted, upon information or indictment, of winning or losing, at any one sitting, ten pounds, or twenty pounds, within twenty-four hours he forfeited five times that sum. Another statute also inflicted pecuniary penalties as well upon the master of any public house wherein servants were permitted to gamble, as upon the servants who were found in the act of gaming. Nor were the statutes against their masters less severe. During these reigns the games of faro and hazard were by law declared to be lotteries, subjecting those persons in whose houses they were played to the penalty of £200, and all who played at them to that of £50.

The records of Marlborough street police-court show that in 1797 information was laid against Lady Elizabeth Lutterell and others, for having, on the night of the 30th of January last, played at faro at Lady Buckingham’s house in St. James square, and a Mr. Martindale, then living in Broad street, was charged with being the proprietor. The defendants appeared by their counsel. Witnesses were called to support this information, whose evidence went to prove that the defendants charged had a game at their houses by rotation; that is, that they played at faro, rouge et noir, etc., meeting at different houses upon certain days of the week; that Mr. Martindale acted as master of the tables, generally, and that they began to play about eleven or twelve o’clock at night and continued to play until three or four o’clock in the morning. Martindale’s penalty was £200 fine, as proprietor of a faro table, and the Countess of Buckingham, Lady Lutterell and Mrs. Sturt were fined £50 each for playing. A Mr. Mathias O’Brien was subsequently brought in. He was also fined for participating in these same games.

In 1817 a prosecution occurred at Brighton which elicited a queer array of facts, illustrating the gambling methods of that day. A warrant was sworn out by one William Clarke against William Wright and James Ford, on the charge of feloniously stealing one hundred pounds. But Clarke did not appear to prosecute, and when the magistrate issued a warrant to compel his attendance he hastily decamped. The prisoners were discharged, but very shortly afterward Wright was summoned before the magistrate to give evidence in an examination against one Charles Walker, of the Marine Library, for keeping an unlawful gaming house. Wright testified that Clarke engaged him about five weeks previously as a punter, or decoy player, to a game called “noir, rouge, tout les deux,” and that at the game was a gentleman who lost £125. Clarke asked witness if he thought the gentleman was rich, and being answered in the affirmative, told witness to invite the gentleman to dinner, let him have all the wine he wanted, and to spare no expense to get him drunk. This was done, and the gentleman returned to play again. As he had nothing but large bills he was induced to go to London with witness to change them, witness being enjoined to be sure to bring him back. One of the firm, which was composed of Clarke, O’Mara, Pollett and Moreley, gave the gentleman a letter to certain London Brokers to enable him to change his bills. On their way back to Brighton witness told the gentleman that he suspected the firm would substitute a false table during their absence. However, the gentleman returned to play, and witness and another decoy named Ford were given £100 each with which to play and to lead the gentleman on, and if possible to fulfil the expectations of the firm, which were to fleece the gentleman of five or six thousand pounds. As they entered the library, Walker accosted them and wished them better success, but he trembled visibly and seemed ill at ease. The game was carried on in a room over the library, for which the firm paid rent of twelve guineas a week. As the gentleman ascended the stairs a porter locked the door, by Walker’s order, and when he came into the gaming room he became alarmed at the appearance of the men there, and hastily descending the stairs and giving a plausible excuse to the porter, was allowed to pass out and thus escaped. Witness had not returned the £100 to Clarke, and it was on that account that Clarke had sworn out a warrant against him. Afterward Clarke had visited him and offered him £100 if he would not tell what he knew to the magistrate.

Ford and the gentleman substantiated Wright’s testimony, and the latter said that he went to Walker and demanded back the £125 which he had been cheated out of at play at the start. Walker was very much confused and nervous, and finally offered to return £100 of the sum, which offer was refused; and thereupon he laid the whole matter before the magistrate. Walker was found guilty and sentenced to several years imprisonment.

Messrs. Houlditch, the coach makers of Long Acre, had a traveling salesman whom they sent to the Continent to dispose of their goods. Like thousands of other employes, holding responsible positions of trust, he fell a victim to the vice of gambling, and soon found himself a defaulter and reduced to the utmost desperation. While in this frame of mind he wrote the following letter to his employer, which was read in subsequent court proceedings, and is given here to illustrate how frightfully ruinous the passion for play becomes when once it gains possession of a young man. The letter reads:

“Sir:—The errors into which I have fallen have made me so hate myself that I have adopted the horrible resolution of destroying myself. I am sensible of the crime I commit against God, my family and society, but have not courage to live dishonored. The generous confidence you placed in me I have basely violated. I have robbed you, and though not to enrich myself, the consciousness of it destroys me. Bankruptcy, poverty, beggary and want I could bear—conscious integrity would support me; but the ill-fated acquaintance I formed led me to those earthly hells, gambling houses, and then commenced my villainies and deceptions to you. My losses were not large at first, and the stories that were told me of gain made me hope they would soon be recovered. At this period I received the order to go to Vienna, and, on settling at the hotel, I found my debts trebled what I had expected. I was in consequence compelled to leave the two carriages as a guarantee for part of the debt, which I had not in my power to discharge. I had hoped success at Vienna would enable me to reinstate all to you, but disappointment blasted every hope, and despair, on my return to Paris, began to generate the fatal resolution which, at the moment you read this, will have matured itself to consummation. I feel that my reputation is blasted, no way left of reimbursing the money wasted, your confidence in me totally destroyed, and nothing left to me but to see my wife and children and die. Affection for them holds me in existence a little longer. The gaming table again presented itself to my imagination as the only possible means of extricating myself. Count Montoni’s 3,000 francs, which I received before you came to Paris, furnished me the means—my death speaks the result.”

The legal aspects of gambling in London early in this century are well treated in an article in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1833, which says: “The officers of justice are regularly kept in the pay of the proprietors of the gaming houses, through whom timely notice is always given of any information laid against the establishment, and the intended attack guarded against. If this be doubted the same can be attested on oath, and otherwise proved beyond disputation. The expense of some of the gaming houses in London during the season (seven months) exceed £10,000. What, then, must be the gains to support this advance and profusion of property? Elegant houses are superbly fitted up, the most delicate viands and the choicest wines, with every other luxury, are provided to lure and detain those for whom the proprietors’ nets are spread. It is almost an impossibility to convict these wicked men under the present law; their enormous wealth is applied to the corruption of evidence, always unwilling, because the witnesses expose their own habits and culpability in attending these notorious dens of infamy. The sleeping partners are ever ready to advance money to oppose prosecutions, and often come forward to give evidence in opposition to the witnesses’ and to blacken the character of those who offer their testimony. Then there is always money to support those who may chance, once in ten years, to be convicted. Many practicing attorneys, too, are connected with these establishments, who threaten to prosecute for conspiracies, and not unfrequently, fictitious debts are sworn to, and arrests for large amounts made, to keep witnesses from appearing at court on the day of trial. One professional man in the parish of St. Anne has, to my knowledge, supported himself for thirty-five years by lending himself in this way to the middle-rate gambling houses, at the west end of town. His method is either to suborn or intimidate the parties, by threatening to indict them for perjury or otherwise persecute them to utter destruction.

“When it is considered that those who are competent to give evidence calculated to produce convictions well know the characters with whom they have to contend, and the phalanx of scoundrels there is always arrayed against them, it is not to be wondered at that they should be deterred from coming forward at the last moment, when even their persons are not free from danger, particularly as all minacious tricks are backed with a bribe, thus bringing fear and interest to bear against their antagonists. As every one who comes forward to give evidence against a gambling house must himself have been a participator in the offence of play, no man who has been the cause of a conviction has ever yet escaped ruin; no matter the motive which influenced him, whether it be remorse, pique, or public good, the conspiracy against him will be so powerful and ramified, through the leading men’s numerous emissaries and dependants, that his future course in life will be tracked, and his character blasted in every neighborhood where he may take up his abode. In one instance a young man who had laid information against a house, although no conviction followed, was hunted out of no fewer than eight situations. The clique of gamblers he had made his enemies contrived to find out in whose employ he was engaged, and then daily assailed his master with anonymous letters, defaming the young man’s character to such a degree that few could well retain him in their service, especially as the fact of having himself gambled at a public table could never be gotten rid of.

“When all other means of deterring a witness are exhausted, personal threats are used by ruffians, who are employed to cross him in whatever public company he may join, seeking every occasion to insult and quarrel with him until he is intimidated, and all other would-be witnesses, through fear of similar persecution, are prevented from offering any obstruction to their establishments.

“By these confederacies, backed as they are with enormous capital, notwithstanding the existing laws, houses have been kept open for the indiscriminate mixture of all grades, from the well bred gentlemen, the finished sharper, the raw and inexperienced flat, to the lowest description of pickpockets and other wretches of public nuisance, and, where all the evils the acts of Parliament were intended to annihilate, have for years past been in full activity. But in no period of our history have misery, distress—and crime, been so conspicuous, and the cause so manifestly and decidedly traced to the gambling habit of the community, as in the present day.

“As before observed, the incompetency of the magistracy, as now armed by law, to oppose the growing evil, is mainly attributable to the methodized system of confederacy and partnership concerns, wherein capitals are embarked by a large number of individuals, who have, (with a very few exceptions) sprung originally from the very scum of society. Now suppose one or more magistrates, employed especially as guardians of the public morality, whose peculiar duty it should be, acting on private information, to direct their officers to adopt any lawful mode of obtaining evidence to convict offenders against the law; could anything be more easy than to send two well-dressed men, under the authority of a magistrate, into the town with money in their pockets, who might in a short time, with very little tact, mix with gambling characters, and in a few weeks have free ingress and egress to all the hells in London, as amateur players? Nor can the keepers of these places ever by possibility guard themselves against this mode of attack, as the persons so employed might always be kept behind the curtain, introducing others of their friends, who could again, (as many as were needed) continue to introduce others, until every player and keeper of a gambling house was identified, and ample testimony for their conviction be prepared, when the blow might be struck against all in one day, and the fullest penalty of the law enforced on each offender.”

A writer in Bentley’s Magazine, speaking of the warfare that had been made on the gambling houses in England in 1838, said: “Hence arose appeals to the law and indictments against the parties which, in their success, gave encouragement to similar proceedings by others, and in the course of time this system was discovered to afford a fine source of profit to the prosecuting attorneys in the shape of costs, and they were, in consequence, frequently gotten up by some of the riff-raff of the profession, in the name of fictitious parties and with the sole view of extracting from the different houses large sums of money in settlement of the matter, without proceeding to trial. This was finally discovered, by the keepers of the houses, and after turning the tables on the prosecutors, and, indeed, convicting several for perjury, gambling houses went on again more vigorously than ever.”

The prosecution of gamblers and gambling house-keepers, in London, has been more thorough during the last quarter of a century than ever before and in these days there appears to be, on the part of the authorities, a sincere desire to exterminate the evil of common gambling, so far as they may be able to effect it. Every week, almost, the police raid one or more of the “dens,” which, though run solely as gambling resorts, assume to be “clubs,” in order to increase their chances of being unmolested. Usually, the proprietors are fined heavily. Yet, these “hells” resume business, or start up in a new place. The profits are so large that the proprietors willingly take all risks of being prosecuted. Gambling is indulged in, in the aristocratic west end clubs, but the authorities assume to know nothing of it.

The noted Englishmen who were addicted to gambling are very numerous, and many of the incidents related of them, in connection with the vice, are most interesting. Sir Arthur Smithouse, once possessed of a very valuable estate, and considerable ready money, lost everything at play and died in extreme want. Sir Humphrey Foster lost the greater part of his possessions, but by a fortunate run of luck, won them back, and could thereafter never be induced to jeopardize them again. The celebrated Mr. Hare meeting at Bath one day the well known Major Brereton, who was an habitual and heavy player, asked how the world went with him. “Pretty well,” replied Brereton, alluding to his success at the gaming table, “but I have met with a sad misfortune lately, I have lost Mrs. Brereton.” “At hazard or quine?” asked Hare. Major Aubrey was not only a great lover of gaming, but was very skillful. He won and lost three fortunes at play, and early in his career had the foresight to place a comfortable annuity for himself beyond danger of being swept away by any ill run of luck. He once lost £25,000 at billiards. It is related that he was once heard to say: “Play is like the air we breathe; if we have it not we die.” His life was a most eventful one. In early life he went to India, and the ship took fire. He jumped overboard and floated on a hen coop until picked up by another ship. “I was completely surrounded by sharks,” he said, “just as I have been ever since.”

Lord Barrymore and Sir John Lade, who had fine estates, lost them to sharpers. Mathias O’Brien, an ignorant Irish adventurer, yet a very shrewd man, succeeded in gaining the confidence of the high-born sportive gentry, of the latter part of the last century, to such an extent that he dined at the tables of the great, and entertained them at his own house in return. He boasted that he had at one time sitting around his table, two princes of the blood, four dukes, three duchesses and several counts, besides others of distinction of both sexes. One night he won at picquet £100,000 from a titled gentleman. Knowing perfectly well that his antagonist could not pay this immense sum, and suspecting that if he could not pay it all he would not pay any of it, he purposely allowed him to win back all but £10,000, which amount the gentleman paid. This incident caused Mr. Hare to give him the name of “Zenophon O’Brien,” on account of his “retreat with ten thousand.”

Fox, the celebrated statesman, was an inveterate and desperate gambler. A few evenings before he moved the repeal of the marriage act, in February, 1772, he went to Brompton on two errands, one to consult Justice Fielding on the penal laws, and the other to borrow £10,000 with which to continue his gambling. He was a most skillful whist and picquet player, and one of his contemporaries said that if he had confined himself to those games Fox could easily have won £4,000 a year. But he could not let faro and hazard alone, and he almost invariably lost heavily. He reduced himself many times to extreme want, and lacked such small amounts as were necessary to defray little daily expenses of the most pressing nature. He was often obliged to borrow a few shillings of the waiters at Brooks’. He had lodgings in St. James street, close by Brooks’ Club, at which he spent almost every hour that was not devoted to the House of Commons.

It is said by Lord Tankerville that Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick, at Brooks’, from ten o’clock at night until near six o’clock the next afternoon, a waiter standing by to tell them whose deal it was, they being too sleepy to know. Fox once won about £8,000, and one of his bond creditors, who soon heard of his good luck, presented himself and asked for payment. “Impossible, sir,” replied Fox, “I must first discharge my debts of honor.” The bond creditor remonstrated. “Well, sir, give me your bond,” said Fox. The bond was produced and Fox tore it in pieces and threw it in the fire. “Now, sir,” said Fox, “my debt to you is a debt of honor,” and immediately paid him. Amidst the wildest excesses of youth, even while a perpetual victim of his passion for play, Fox cultivated his taste for letters, especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets, and he found solace in their works under the most severe depressions occasioned by ill success at the gaming table. One morning, after he had passed the whole night with Topham Deauclere at faro, the two friends were about to separate. Fox had lost throughout the night, and was in a frame of mind bordering on desperation. Deauclere’s anxiety for the consequences which might ensue led him to be early at Fox’s lodging, and on arriving he inquired, not without apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant replied that Mr. Fox was in the drawing room. Deauclere walked up stairs and cautiously opened the door, expecting to find a frantic gamester stretched on the floor bewailing his losses, or plunged in moody despair, but he was astonished to find him reading Herodotus. “What would you have me do?” said Fox, “I have lost my last shilling.” Upon other occasions, upon staking all that he could raise upon faro, instead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head upon the table, and retaining his place, but exhausted by mental and bodily fatigue, almost immediately fall into a profound slumber.

Fox’s love of play was frightful. His best friends are said to have been half ruined in annuities given by them as securities for him to the Jews. “£500,000 a year of such annuities of Fox and his estates were advertised to be sold at one time.” Walpole further notes that in the debate on the 39 Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine, nor can it be wondered at. He had sat up playing at hazard at Almack’s from Tuesday evening the 4th, until 5 in the afternoon of Wednesday the 5th. An hour before he had recovered £12,000 that he had lost, and by dinner, which was at 5 o’clock, he had ended by losing £11,000. On Thursday he spoke in the above debate, he went to dinner at half past eleven at night, and from thence to White’s where he drank until seven the next morning, thence to Almack’s where he won £6,000, and, between three and four in the afternoon, he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost £2,000 two nights afterwards and Charles £10,000 more on the 13th.

Monsieur Chevalier, Captain of the Grenadiers in the first regiment of foot Guards, in the time of Charles II., was one of the most remarkable gamesters known in history. He was a native of Normandy, and in his youth was a page to the Duchess of Orleans. Going to England to seek his fortune, he soon became an ensign in the first regiment of foot Guards. He took to gaming and met with such success that he very quickly was enabled to live in a style far above his station. He once won from a nobleman a larger sum than the latter could pay down, and upon being asked for time, granted it in such a courteous and obliging manner that the nobleman, a fortnight later, wishing to show him that he appreciated his kindness, went to him and told him that he had a company of foot to dispose of and that, if it was worth his while, it should be at his service. Chevalier gladly accepted it, and got his commission signed the same day, well knowing that it was immensely to his advantage to have a visible position and income, for without them, one who lives like a gentleman and makes gaming his sole occupation would naturally be suspected of not playing merely for diversion, if, indeed he was not charged with resorting to sharp practices.

“Chevalier once won 20 guineas from ‘Mad Ogle,’ the Life Guardsman, who understanding that the former had bitten him, called him to account, demanding his money back, or satisfaction on the field. Chevalier chose the latter alternative. Ogle fought him in Hyde Park, wounded him in the sword arm and was returned his money. After this they were always good friends.”

It is said that Chevalier was so skillful at “cogging” dice and throwing that he could chalk a circle the size of a shilling on the table, and standing a short distance away, could throw a die within it and have it show an ace, tray, six, or whatever he pleased. Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, had a consuming desire to rival Chevalier in dice throwing, but, though he practiced for days and weeks, Chevalier always worsted him, and won large amounts from him. Chevalier, it is said, was a thorough sharper, and knew all the tricks of gaming, such as loaded dice, etc. Occasionally he was detected, and was obliged to fight several duels to square the injury done his antagonist. He was severely wounded a number of times, and got so that he would avoid fighting whenever it was possible to do so. How he did this on two occasions is thus related: “Having once ‘choused,’ or cheated a Mr. Levingstone, page of honor to King James II, out of fifty guineas, the latter gave the captain a challenge to fight him next day, behind Montague House, a locality long used for the purpose of duelling. Chevalier seemingly accepted the challenge, and next morning, Levingstone, going to Chevalier’s lodgings, and finding him in bed, put him in mind of what he was come about. Chevalier, with the greatest air of courage imaginable, rose, and having dressed himself, said to Levingstone, ‘Me must beg de favor of you to stay a few minutes, sir, while I step into my closet dere, for, as me be going about one desperate piece of work, it is very requisite for me to say a small prayer or two.’ Accordingly, Mr. Levingstone consented to wait whilst Chevalier retired to his closet to pray, but hearing the conclusion of his prayer to end with these words: ‘Me verily believe spilling man’s blood is one ver’ great sin, wherefore I hope the saints will intercede with the virgin for my once killing Monsieur de Blotieres, at Rochelle; my killing Chevalier de Comminge, at Brest; killing Major de Tierceville, at Lyons; killing Lieutenant du Marché Falliere at Paris, with half a dozen other men in France, so, being also sure of killing him I’m now going to fight, me hope his forcing me to shed his blood will not be laid to my charge.’ Quoth Levingstone to himself, ‘and are you then so sure of me? But I’ll engage you sha’nt, for if you are such a devil at killing men, you shall go and fight yourself and be ——.’ Whereupon he made what haste he could away, and shortly Chevalier coming out of the closet and finding Levingstone not in the room, was very glad of his absence.”

When King James ascended the throne, the Duke of Monmouth raised a rebellion in the west of England where, in a skirmish between the Royalists and Rebels, he was shot in the back, and the wound was believed to be given by one of his own men, to whom he had always been a most cruel, harsh officer, whilst a captain of the Grenadiers of the Foot Guard. He was sensible himself of how he came by his misfortune, for when he was carried to his tent, mortally wounded, and the Duke of Albermarle came home to visit him, he said to his Grace, “Dis was none of my foe dot shot me in the back.” “He was none of your friends that shot you,” the Duke replied. He died a few hours afterwards, and was buried in a field near Philip Norton Lane, as the old chronicler says, “Much unlamented by all who knew him.”

Monsieur Germain, born of low parentage in Holland in 1688, is celebrated for having introduced into the gambling circles of London a game called Spanish whist, by which those familiar with the tricks of the game won great amounts. He was also noted for his expertness in playing ombre, which Pope describes entertainingly in his “Rape of the Lock.” Germain became intimate with Lady Mary Mordaunt, wife of the Duke of Norfolk, whom he first met at a private gambling party. The Duke obtained a divorce from her, in consequence, and thereafter she lived openly with Germain until her death.

Tom Hughes was a London gambler whose life well illustrated the ups and downs of the profession. He was born in Dublin and when a young man became a London sport. He played heavily and skill and good luck enabled him to win a great deal of money which he spent as fast as he made it, chiefly at a resort for frail females in the Piazza, Covent Garden. He was for a time proprietor of E. O. tables, in a house in Pall Mall, kept by a Dr. Graham, and was often to be found also at Carlisle House, in Soho Square. He once won £3,000 from a young man, just of age, who made over to him a landed estate for the amount. Being admitted a member of the Jockey Club, he was quite prosperous for a time but, his luck changing, he fell into the clutches of “Old Pope,” the money lender, and was obliged to give up to him the estate he had won. He fought several duels over disputes arising at the gaming table and finally died in a debtor’s cell leaving not enough to pay for his coffin.

It is narrated of Whig Middleton, who was wealthy, handsome and dressed in extreme fashion, that, after losing a thousand guineas one night, to Lord Montford, he was asked by the latter, in gambler’s parlance, what he would do, or would not do, to get home? “My Lord,” said he, “prescribe your own terms;” “Then” replied Lord Montford, “dress directly opposite to the fashion for ten years.” Middleton accepted the terms and lived up to them “dying nine years afterward,” as the narrator expresses it, “so unfashionably that he did not owe a tradesman a farthing, left some playing debts unliquidated; and his coat and wig were of the cut of Queen Anne’s reign.”

Wrothesly, Duke of Bedford, fell amongst a party of sharpers, including a manager of a theatre and Beau Nash, master of ceremonies, who had conspired to bleed him. After he had lost £70,000 the Duke rose in a passion and pocketed the dice, declaring that he intended to inspect them and see if they were crooked. He then threw himself on a sofa and fell asleep. The sharpers held a consultation, as to what they had best do, and it was finally decided that they would cast lots to see who should pick the Duke’s pocket of the loaded dice and put fair ones in their place. The lot fell on the theatre manager, and he performed the feat without being detected. The Duke examined the dice when he awoke and, being satisfied that they were all right, returned to playing and lost £30,000 more.

The sharpers had received £5,000 of the money they had won, and when they came to dividing it got to quarreling. Beau Nash was so dissatisfied that he went to the Duke and exposed the whole scheme of robbing him. The Duke believed this was done purely through friendship and, accordingly, made Nash a handsome present and patronized him ever afterward.

Beau Nash, as is well known, was an immense favorite with the aristocratic society of his time. He was both homely and clumsy, yet his wit, flattery and fine clothes made him a pet of the ladies. “Wit, flattery and fine clothes are enough to debauch a nunnery,” he was wont to say. Nash was a barrister and lived in Middle Temple, where, when still a young man, he organized and directed the grand “revel and pageant,”—the last of its sort—upon the accession of King William. This he did so successfully that the King offered to knight him, which Nash declined, saying: “Please your Majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish it may be one of your poor knights of Windsor and then I shall have a fortune at least able to support my title.”

It is said of Nash, that when he submitted his accounts to the Masters of the Temple, this item was among them: “For making one man happy, £10.” Being asked to explain it, Nash said that he overheard a poor man declare to his wife and large family that £10 would make him happy, and that he could not resist the temptation to give him the sum. He offered to refund the money, if the item was not allowed. The Masters, struck with such good nature, not only allowed the bill but thanked him for his generosity and doubled the allowance.

Nash became subsequently Master of the Ceremonies, at Bath, then the popular fashionable summer resort, where he ruled with such undisputable authority that he was styled “King of Bath.” Gambling was deep and furious at Bath, and, in consequence of disputes over the table, swords were frequently resorted to in settling matters. Thereupon Nash commanded that no swords should be worn at Bath, and the order was obeyed. Nash’s later years were spent chiefly in gambling in a small way. He died at Bath, in 1761, and was buried with great ceremony in the Abbey Church, three clergymen preceding the coffin, aldermen acting as pall-bearers, the Masters of the Assembly Rooms following as chief mourners and the streets and housetops being thronged with people anxious to do honor to him, whom they regarded as “the venerable founder of the prosperity of the City of Bath.”

Richard Bennett is an example of a gambler, who, through a long life, enjoyed almost uninterrupted prosperity. He was of the unscrupulous sort, and rose from being a billiard sharper in Bell Alley, to be partner in several of the aristocratic “houses” or “clubs” in St. James street. He brought up and educated a large family. He was finally indicted for keeping several gaming houses, and sentenced to imprisonment until he should pay fines aggregating £4,000. He remained in prison for some time, but managed to effect his release without paying his fines.

A circumstance almost identical to the one related of the Duke of Bedford, is told of another noble duke. “The late Duke of Norfolk,” says the author of “Rouge et Noir,” writing in 1823, “one evening lost the sum of seventy thousand pounds in a gaming house, on the right side of St. James street, and, suspecting foul play, he put the dice in his pocket, and, as was his custom when up late, took a bed in the house. The blacklegs were all dismayed, until one of the worthies, who is believed to have been a principal in poisoning the horses at Newmarket, for which Dan Dawson was hanged, offered, for five thousand pounds, to go to the Duke’s room with a brace of pistols and a pair of dice, and if the Duke was awake to shoot him, if asleep to change the dice. Fortunately for the gang the Duke ‘snored,’ as the agent stated, ‘like a pig,’ and the dice were changed. His Grace had them broken in the morning, when, finding them good, he paid the money, and left off gambling.”

The Earl of March, better known as the Duke of Queensberry, who lived in the middle of the last century, was one of the most famous and genial “sports” that England ever produced. He was an adept, not only at all card games, but also at dice and billiards. And in the mysteries of the turf, and in all knowledge—practical and theoretical—connected with the race course, he was perhaps never surpassed. He won 2,000 Louis ($8,000) once of a German, at billiards, and time and again won thousands of pounds betting on the races, his intimate knowledge of all horse flesh and race track conditions giving him advantages which few possessed.

Dennis O’Kelly, if accounts of him may be credited, was a Napoleon of the turf and the gaming table, devoting his whole time to the former by day and the latter by night. He was accustomed to carry a great number of bank notes, crumpled up loosely in his waistcoat pocket. On one occasion he was seen turning over and over again a great pile of them, and, being asked what he was doing, replied, “I am looking for a little one—a fifty or something of that sort, just to set the caster.” At another time he was standing at play, at the hazard table, when some one opposite perceived a pickpocket in the act of drawing a couple of notes from O’Kelly’s pocket. The alarm was given, and many wanted to take the offender before a magistrate, but O’Kelly seized him by the collar and kicked him down stairs, exclaiming as he returned: “He’s punished enough by being deprived of the pleasure of keeping company with gentlemen.” A large bet was once offered to O’Kelly at the gaming table and accepted, whereupon the proposer asked him where lay his estates which would be surety for the amount if he lost. “My estates?” cried O’Kelly, “Oh, if that’s what you mean, I’ve a map of them here.” And he opened his pocket book and showed bank notes to ten times the amount of the wager, to which he soon afterward added the contribution of his opponent.

Dick England, one of O’Kelly’s associates, was also a notorious gambler. These two and several others plundered a clerk of the Bank of England, who robbed the bank of an immense sum with which to pay his “debts of honor.” Dick England and fourteen others once conspired to beat a Jew at dice, and upon their entry one of them laid a wager of £10, calling “seven the main.” Six was the cast, whereupon the player with great effrontery declared that he had called six instead of seven. After the matter had been disputed for a time, it was agreed to leave it to a majority of those present, whereupon Dick England and the twelve others in the conspiracy declared in favor of “six,” and then they went out and divided the plunder. This same Dick England, with two or three associates, once made a bold attempt to plunder a rich young man named D——, from the country, at Scarborough. They got into his company and set to drinking with a view of getting him drunk so that he could be bled more easily. They succeeded so well in this that the young man became so stupidly drunk that he could not play at all. Not to be frustrated, however, the conspirators played for a short time and then proceeded to make out three “I. O. U’s.,” two of which read: “D—— owes me eighty guineas;” and “D—— owes me one hundred guineas;” and the third, which Dick England had, read, “I owe D—— thirty guineas.” The next day Dick England and the young man met and the latter apologized for becoming intoxicated and hoped he had given no offense. Dick assured him that he had not and then producing the evidence of indebtedness, proceeded to discharge it by handing the young man thirty guineas. The young man declared that he had no recollection at all of playing, but finally took the thirty guineas, and paid Dick a high compliment for acting in such an honorable manner. Meeting the holders of the other papers shortly afterward he renewed his apologies and again complimented Dick England for having paid to him a bet which he had no remembrance of making. At this juncture the two produced their papers which purported to show that the young man owed them 100 and 80 guineas respectively. He was astonished, of course, and protested that he did not think he had played at all, but he had compromised himself by accepting his thirty guineas, and finally, he decided to make the best of a bad matter by paying the claims. Before he could do so, however, his friends interfered, and, after a little investigation, exposed the whole fraud, and saved him his money. At another time, Dick England won £40,000 from the son of an Earl, who was so broken up at the loss, that he went to Stacia’s hotel and shot himself, almost at the very hour that his father sent his steward to pay the debt, though being convinced that his son had been cheated out of the amount. Dick England is known to have fought eleven duels and to have ruined about forty persons at play.

The Gentlemen’s Magazine published the following account of a tragic occurrence in the life of Dick England.

“Mr. Richard England was put to the bar at the Old Bailey, charged with the ‘willful murder’ of Mr. Rowlls, brewer, of Kingston, in a duel at Cranford Bridge, June 18, 1784.”

“Lord Derby, the first witness, gave evidence that he was present at Ascot races; when in the stand upon the race course, he heard Mr. England cautioning the gentlemen present not to bet with the deceased, as he neither paid what he lost, nor what he borrowed; on which Mr. Rowlls went up to him, called him rascal or scoundrel, and offered to strike him, when Mr. England bid him stand off, or he would be obliged to knock him down, saying at the same time, ‘We have interrupted the company sufficiently here, and if you have anything further to say to me, you know where I am to be found.’ A further altercation ensued, but his Lordship being at the other end of the stand, did not distinctly hear it, and then the parties retired.

“Lord Dartrey, afterward Lord Cremorne, and his lady, with a gentlemen, were at the inn at the time the duel was fought. They went into the garden and endeavored to prevent the duel. Several other persons were collected in the garden. Mr. Rowlls said, if they did not retire, he must, though reluctantly, call them impertinent. Mr. England at the same time stepped forward, took off his hat, and said, “Gentlemen, I have been cruelly treated, I have been injured in my honor and character, let reparation be made, and I am ready to have done this moment.” Lady Dartrey retired. His Lordship stood in the bower of the garden until he saw Mr. Rowlls fall. One or two witnesses were called, who proved nothing material. A paper, containing the prisoners defense, being read, the Earl of Derby, the Marquis of Hertford, Mr. Whitbred, Jr., Col. Bishopp, and other gentlemen were called as to his character. They all spoke of him as a man of decent gentlemanly deportment, who, instead of seeking quarrels, was studious to avoid them. He had been friendly to Englishman when abroad and had rendered some service to the military at the siege of Newport.

”Mr. Justice Rooke summed up the evidence, after which the jury retired for about three quarters of an hour, when they returned a verdict of ‘manslaughter’ The prisoner having fled from the laws of his country for twelve years, the Court was disposed to show no lenity. He was therefore sentenced to pay a fine of ten shillings, and be imprisoned in Newgate twelve months.”

Dick England died in 1792 from a cold caught in jail, where he had been sent in consequence of having been arrested at a gaming table.

The celebrated Selwyn was a devoted patron of the gaming table, and often played high. In 1765 he lost £1,000 to a Mr. Shafto, and it is said, was frequently the victim of sharpers. Late in life he gave up his ruinous diversion. Lord Carlisle, who was second cousin of Lord Byron, was a victim of the infatuation of play and his losses brought him to financial straits. In his letters he reproaches himself deeply for yielding to the vice and shows that he fully appreciated the degrading effects of indulging in it. Like Selwyn he finally succeeded in emancipating himself from his terrible master. Pitt, the celebrated statesmen, was another eminent Englishman who, at one time, in his career, was an inveterate gambler, and who subsequently reformed. “We played a good deal at ‘Goosetree’s’”, wrote Wilberforce, “and I well remember the intense earnestness which Pitt displayed when joining in these games of chance. He perceived their increasing fascination, and soon after abandoned them forever.” Wilberforce once lost 500 pounds at the faro table. At another time he was at the club and, the regular dealer being absent, a gentleman jokingly offered him a guinea if he would take his place. He accepted the challenge and quit the table £600 winner.

“On my first visit to Brooks’” wrote Wilberforce, “scarcely knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the faro tables, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend, who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, called to me—‘What, Wilberforce is that you?’ Selwyn quite resented the interruption, and, turning to him, said in his most expressive tone, ‘Oh, sir, don’t interrupt Mr. Wilberforce, he could not be better employed.’” And again: “The first time I went to Boodle’s I won twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged, at this time, to five clubs, Miles’ and Evans’, Brooks’, Boodle’s, White’s and Goosetree’s.”

Sir Philip Francis, who many believe was the author of the famous “Junius Letters,” was much addicted to gambling and was a boon companion of Fox. The career of the Rev. Caleb C. Colton is an interesting one. He was educated at Eton, graduated at King’s College, Cambridge, as a Bachelor of Arts, in 1801, received the degree of Master of Arts in 1804 and held a curacy at Tiberton. He speculated heavily in Spanish bonds and yielded to the ruling passion of gaming, and his financial affairs becoming involved, he absconded. Subsequently, he reappeared in order to retain his living, but he lost it in 1828. After some time spent in the United States, he returned to Europe and became a frequenter of the gaming resorts in the Palais Royal in Paris, where, it is said, he won in a year or two £25,000. Part of his wealth he devoted to establishing a picture gallery.

Upon Lord Byron’s death he composed and printed for private distribution an ode on that event. Having become afflicted with a disease which necessitated a painful surgical operation, he blew out his brains rather than submit to it. This occurred at Fontainbleau in 1832.

Beau Brummell was even a greater gambler than was Beau Nash, and his end was far more sad. He frequented “Wattier’s,” where the play was so high that the club and almost every one connected with it, were ruined. One night in 1814, it is related, Pemberton Mills entered the club just in time to hear Beau Brummell, who had lost heavily for five successive nights, exclaim that he had lost his last shilling and that he wished some one would bind him never to play again.

“I will,” said Mills, and taking out a ten-pound note he offered it to Brummell on condition that he should forfeit a thousand if he played at White’s within a month from that evening. The beau took it, and for a few days discontinued coming to the club, but about a fortnight after, Mills happened to go in, and saw him hard at work again. Of course the thousand pounds was forfeited, but his friend, instead of claiming it, merely went up to him, and touching him gently on the shoulder, said, “Well, Brummell, you may at least give me back the ten pounds you had of me the other night.”

One night at Brook’s club, Alderman Combe, the brewer, then Lord Mayor of London, was busily playing at hazard in company with Brummell and others. “Come, Mash-tub,” said Brummell, who was the caster, “What do you set?” “Twenty-five guineas,” answered the alderman. “Well, then,” returned the beau, “have at the mare’s pony” (a gaming expression for twenty-five guineas). He continued to throw until he won twelve ponies of the Lord Mayor, and then, getting up and making him a low bow, whilst pocketing the cash, he said, “Thank you, alderman; for the future I shall never drink any porter but yours.” “I wish, sir,” replied the brewer, “that every other blackguard in London would tell me the same.”

Brummell was concerned in an incident which occurred at Wattier’s club one night which threw all present into consternation. One of the players was a Mr. Bligh, whom every one knew to be a mad-man, but did not think especially dangerous. The incident is thus told by Mr. Raikes:

“One evening at the maco table, when the play was very deep, Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out, ‘Waiter, bring me a flat candle-stick and a pistol.’ Upon this, Bligh, who was sitting opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat pocket, which he placed upon the table, and said, ‘Mr. Brummell, if you are really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer you the means without troubling the waiter.’ The effect upon those present may easily be imagined at finding themselves in the company of a known mad-man who had loaded weapons about him.”

Brummell lost all of his money and a large amount beside, which he succeeded in borrowing of the money-lenders on bills signed by himself and several friends. Serious trouble over the division of one of these loans caused Brummell to flee to France. He used to say that up to a particular time in his life he prospered in everything, and that he attributed his good fortune to the possession of a silver sixpence with a hole in it, which a friend had given him “for luck.” One day he gave it to a cabman by mistake and from that time nothing but disaster had attended him in everything. One person to whom he told this asked him why he did not advertise for his lost sixpence. “I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the reward, but mine was not amongst them.” “You never afterwards ascertained what became of it?” “Oh, yes,” he replied, “no doubt that rascal, Rothschild, or some of his set got hold of it.”

Beau Brummell died at Caen, in 1840, at the age of 62, having long been in great poverty, and for some time in a demented condition.

Tom Duncombe was one of the high-flyers of his day. He was heir to an income of more than £12,000 a year but he anticipated the whole of it before he was thirty. His father, at one time, intending to pay off the debts contracted by his reckless son, caused a schedule of them to be made and it was found that they aggregated £135,000. He increased them to a still larger amount before he finished his career.

The cases of Lords Halifax, Anglesey and Shaftesbury, and hundreds of others might be referred to were it necessary, to show how great havoc the passion for play has caused in the English aristocracy. But it is not necessary. Enough has been said to point a moral, it would seem, that all cannot but heed.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

I. GAMBLING IN THE NEW WORLD

It may be questioned whether any other country on the globe affords a more striking illustration of the prevalence and the power of the gambling mania than does the great Republic of the North American Continent. Nor are the reasons far to seek. Hereditary titles of nobility are not recognized by the American constitution. In the general scramble for position and power, wealth counts for more in the United States than in any other land under the blue vaulted dome of Heaven.

At the same time it should not be supposed that an insane desire to accumulate fortunes lies at the root of American gaming. The hard, practical common sense of the average Yankee convinces him that he is not likely to win a competence at the green cloth. A large majority of American gamesters (i. e., local, as distinguished from professional) gamble because their brains are in a constant whirl of excitement. Rest has no charms for them; they seek recreation in the substitution of one form of mental stimulant for another. The “operator” on the exchange, whose days are spent in watching the rise and fall of commodities purely speculative, finds the ordinary paths of life too quiet, too monotonous, to elicit more than a passing thought. From the moment when he leaves “the floor” until he returns to it next day, his brain is in a mad whirl of excitement. What more natural than that he should seek relief for an overtaxed mind through exchanging one avenue of activity for another?

The application of these remarks, however, cannot be confined to “stock- jobbers” and manipulators of “corners.” The same spirit pervades all classes of society. This accursed thirst for gold—sacra auri fames—enters every American home, as the serpent insinuated his wiles into the Garden of Eden, and destroys at once domestic happiness and individual peace. The mechanic stakes and loses his week’s wages; the clerk risks his month’s salary; the husband and father ventures upon the turn of a card the money which should be devoted to the support of wife and children. Yet, as has been said, this reckless improvidence cannot be ascribed solely to a hope of acquiring rapid gains. The feeling of dissatisfaction with his condition which lurks in the breast of the average American, leads him, insensibly to himself, into all sorts of rash excesses, among which is gambling at cards.

American gambling, however, presents some distinctively characteristic features. In the first place it is mainly conducted on the floor of the exchange, rather than in public gaming rooms. The Stock and Produce Exchanges are sapping the very vitals of the country’s morality. For “stakes” are substituted “margins;” for “winnings” read “profits;” while the designation of “players” is changed into the more euphonious appellation of “speculators.” With these changes in nomenclature, the game is the same in principle; the same in the method of its manipulation; the same in its demoralizing results. Even “suckers” are known, but they are termed “lambs.”

Professional gamblers have not been slow to recognize this fact, nor have they scrupled to avail themselves of it. From this circumstance has sprung into existence the “bucket shops,” those preparatory schools for the penitentiary in which the young, the poor and the unsophisticated are incited to avarice, duplicity, embezzlement and actual theft. The school boy, the artisan and the bootblack read or hear of colossal fortunes, accumulated on the “floors” of commercial exchanges. To operate a “corner” is beyond their means; but the conviction is not slow in forcing itself upon their minds that they may at least follow humbly in the footsteps of men whose faults the public is willing to condone in view of their success. Herein lies the chief danger—to the perpetuity of the Nation—in those marble halls wherein gambling is conducted upon a scale in comparison with which that at Monaco and Monte Carlo is dwarfed into insignificance, and where one man rides triumphantly into wealth and power upon a sea whose bottom is strewn with wrecks.

Yet another form of gambling which prevails in the United States more than in any other civilized nation on the globe is the mania for lottery speculation and particularly for “policy playing,” by which latter term—as is elsewhere more fully explained—is meant betting on the particular numbers which will win a prize at any given drawing. These forms of gaming are confined to neither sex, nor do they know the limitation of age, occupation or social rank. The official list of drawings is scanned with equal solicitude by the leaders of society and the outcasts of the slums; by the reckless young “blood,” who “takes a flyer” by day and leads the german at night and by the decrepted old negro, who risks his last dime upon “4-11-44;” by the veteran and the school-boy, by the philosopher and the proletaire. That the general sentiment of the country as voiced by the exponents of public opinion has uniformly and unhesitatingly condemned the practice is unquestionable. While the vice is peculiarly American, in the number and character of its devotees, it is totally un-American in so far as the moral countenance of the Nation is concerned. Minor principalities of Europe have sought to replenish treasuries drained by the extravagance or debauchery of their rulers through the institution and legal authorization of lottery schemes, whose world-wide advertisement might draw to the country English pounds, French Napoleons and American Eagles. It has remained, however, for the State of Louisiana to bring disgrace upon the Republic by accepting, through her law-makers, a direct pecuniary bribe to consummate her public shame. Even the new State of North Dakota with its farmers crying for seed wheat showed the moral courage to resist the fastening into its vitals of the delicate, but deadly tendrils of the octopus which saps the morals of the commonwealth which tolerates its embrace as does its physical prototype the very life blood of the individual victim on which it fastens its fangs. Louisiana prides itself on its cognomen of the “Pelican” State. What a misnomer! While the pelican robs her breast to minister to her young, her mistaken namesake robs her own young to feed the vulture which first whets its appetite on her own offspring and later gorges its distended veins and arteries on the very vital fluid of other States and Territories. Out upon the indifference to public morals which recognizes, in this matter, a mere question of sectional lines. Shame upon the venality which would bring a nation into disrepute before the whole world in order that a purchasable Syndicate of corrupt law-makers might be enriched. The remedy for such a state of public morals is not easy to find. It is idle for any given community to insist that their chosen representatives do not represent the average morals of the district which places the latter in positions of responsibility. And yet the commonwealth of Louisiana would consider its character impugned should the palpable inference be drawn. It remains to be hoped that the legislators of the future may be able to devise some method by which the escutcheon of this great State may be relieved of the shadow which just now dims its brightness. This sort of dissertation, however, is hardly in place in the present connection. Gambling on the exchange and in the bucket-shops is discussed elsewhere. The history of the Louisiana lottery, from its inception, is given in another chapter. Nevertheless in an introduction to the general subject of American gambling, it is impossible to avoid these allusions although they are, perforce, of a somewhat desultory character.

What we are particularly considering in this section of the volume, Part II, is gaming as practiced in the halls, the club room and private houses in the United States. For those who, from poverty or other causes, are unable to gratify their taste for public gambling in rooms devoted to the purpose there is a multiplicity of devices, found upon fair grounds and at various other localities at which large crowds are wont to gather, which offer to the casual gamester an opportunity for gratifying his thirst for excitement at an expense sometimes trifling and sometimes costly.

At the gaming houses proper, the preference is given to what are known as “banking games.” By this term is meant games where the deal never passes from hand to hand, and where all players bet against one central fund, known as the “bank,” which is owned and operated by the proprietors of the resort. Of this class of games, faro, roulette and rouge et noir, are by far the most popular, the star of the former being decidedly in the ascendant. Another game of this description which holds a high place in public favor is keno (a full explanation of which may be found in Chapter IV) the popularity of which is due, primarily, to the small capital necessary to play, and, secondarily, to the belief that the legitimate percentage in favor of the bank is so great that the temptation to fraud is reduced to a minimum, if not an infinitesimal quantity.

Next to the banking games in the estimation of the bettors comes poker, both “draw” and “stud.” The former is played according to recognized rules, but the “house” exacts a percentage from the holders of certain winning hands. This percentage is technically known as the “rake-off,” and insures the proprietors of the establishment a handsome royalty on all winnings. In “stud” poker the dealer always represents the “house.” The players are never permitted to handle the cards. To quote Tennyson’s poem of The Brook, the “man in the chair might say—

‘Men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.’”

In the public gambling rooms, also, many of the gaming devices seen upon fair and circus grounds are to be found, notably the wheel of fortune. These various contrivances are fully explained in subsequent chapters.

Public American gaming resorts are ordinarily classified under two general headings—“square” and “brace.” Under the former caption are included those where the “occasional player” is supposed to enjoy an opportunity of laying a wager with some possible chance of winning. “Brace” games, as the term is understood among the fraternity, are veritable “hells,” into which a victim is enticed for purposes of downright robbery under the pretence of a game of “chance.” The dupe who enters a room of this character, seals his own doom by the mere fact of entrance. The proprietors, from that moment, mark him as their own peculiar prey. If he has but little cash, he is promptly and incontinently relieved of it. If he is a “pigeon” whose future “plucking” promises a rich harvest, his mentors are merciful, and he is encouraged to “call again.” “Luck” appears variable, although, as a matter of fact, in a “brace” house—otherwise yclept a “skin game”—“luck” is dependent solely upon the will of the dealer.

In regard to American gambling houses generally, it may be remarked that there exists a popular misapprehension as to the relative proportion of “square” and “brace” resorts. It is unquestionably of no small value to any resort that it should enjoy the reputation of being “square,” and it cannot be denied that there are those where, under ordinary circumstances, the “bank” contents itself with its legitimate (?) percentage. Yet, as a matter of fact, it may be doubted whether there is a “square” hell (what a contradiction in terms!) in the country which has not conveniently at hand and ready for use, all the fraudulent contrivances so dear to the heart of the “brace” dealer. Not always are they brought into requisition, but, like the reserves of an army, are always at hand, and always ready to be brought into action.

The fact that the statutes of nearly every State prohibit gambling, necessitates a sort of sub-rosa activity. At Monaco, Baden-Baden and Monte Carlo gaming is carried on, not only under the very eyes, but even under the sanction and patronage of the government. Not so in the United States. The genius of American institutions has stamped upon gambling the seal of its statutory condemnation. Two elements have combined, incidentally, against any action which would enforce the will of the people. The first is the half-heartedness of the war waged against gambling by municipal authorities; the second is the assistance which proprietors receive from outside confederates. The latter “goes without saying.” Every habitue of a gaming house knows that there are “cappers.” Equally thorough is the knowledge enjoyed by every proprietor that some sort of satisfactory arrangement can be made with the municipal authorities. What is the result? Each of the operating causes produces its own effects. Guests at the hotels of every large town are persecuted by solicitations to gamble, while the Mayor and Common Council of the average city indulge in raids at a set time, for the simple reason that the officers of the law exact and receive a percentage on the profits of every game which they tolerate.

Outside of “banking” games, however, there is one which is almost as peculiarly American as is base ball. “Poker” seems to be, for some unexplainable reason, looming up as a National pastime. Some reference has already been made to gambling at the fashionable club house and in the family circle. Under such circumstances poker is the game par excellence. Stakes ordinarily run high, no matter how small the introductory ante may be. As a matter of fact there is scarcely a club house in any prominent commercial center of the Union in which there is not an apartment curtained from the vulgar gaze, where play is not carried on for high stakes. And these very gentlemen who play a friendly game rarely suspect that into their midst there is sometimes introduced a professional, who not only wins a handsome stake for himself, but also assists in recouping losses sustained by the gentlemen who introduced him. This statement may seem incredibly absurd upon its face, yet the author knows whereof he speaks.

There is still another distinctive feature of American gambling which deserves notice. Men who know that they cannot be admitted as members of any recognized club form an association by themselves, also known as clubs, which are organized for gambling purposes, pure and simple. Associations of this character are primarily conducted for the convenience of players, yet the keeper of the room rarely fails to “earn a profit” through selling liquid refreshments and the manipulation of the “rake-off,” which is conducted in a manner similar to that followed in public houses.

The interference by the municipal authorities with the “hells” is regarded by the proprietors as a contingency too remote to be worth seriously considering. There are various reasons for the excellent understanding which usually exists between the gamblers and the “powers that be.” Political influence sometimes lies at the bottom of the friendliness. It is also a sad truth that too often the explanation is to be found in actual venality on the one hand and corruption on the other. Yet there is one circumstance which should not be lost sight of. The “fraternity” not infrequently renders valuable assistance to the officers of the law by disclosing the habits, haunts, and sometimes the whereabouts of criminals who are being sought for by the authorities. Not that they are anxious to serve the ends of justice, but that they look upon the rendering of such assistance in the light of a quid pro quo for the “protection,” otherwise immunity, which they enjoy. The reader who will thoughtfully peruse chapter X of this part of the book will gather much interesting information on this point which will afford him food for no little serious reflection.

Another pronounced feature of American gaming is the number of itinerant gamblers who wander about the country, infesting railway trains and steamboats, invading the summer resorts, and coming down upon country towns after the manner of a wolf upon the sheep fold. These peripatetic sporting men are adepts at all card games and thoroughly versed in every fraudulent device. They combine the arts of the card sharp and the confidence man. For them honor is a by-word and virtue a mockery. They are destitute alike of conscience and of pity, and ill fares the luckless wight who falls a victim to their blandishments.

Hitherto, except in a few comparatively isolated localities, legislation has proved powerless to repress gambling in the United States. The “Johnson law,” so called from the name of its author, the Hon. Charles P. Johnson, of Missouri, making gambling a felony, operated to check it in that State and brought about a positive hegira of the men who had been thriving upon the gullibility of a too confiding public. Similar results have followed its adoption and enforcement in other States. But it is idle to encumber the statute book of any commonwealth with laws whose enforcement is not demanded by public sentiment. The vice of gaming, like its twin relic of barbarism, drunkenness, will be suppressed only when an outraged nation rises in its righteous wrath and forever stamps out of existence the viper which has buried its fangs deep in the very vitals of the body politic.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

II. FARO GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS

The general belief that cards were invented in the fourteenth century to amuse the imbecile Charles VI. of France is one of those popular errors which, despite the proofs arrayed against them by modern research, seem destined to be perpetual truth, though booted and spurred, seldom overtakes a plausible historical fable if the latter has the advantage of a start of three or four centuries, and therefore the idea that cards were originated by Gringonneur, a Parisian portrait painter, to tickle the fancy of a royal idiot, will probably continue to exist in the public mind for centuries to come. The public journals, in their answers to correspondents, reiterate the same old stereotyped tale, which seems destined to have an immortal lease of life.

The truth, however, is that cards, like chess, originated in the Orient, and were first introduced into Southern Europe by gypsies toward the close of the thirteenth century. How long they had been in use in the East is a matter of conjecture, pure and simple, but there is ground for the belief that they are as old as the Pyramids. This is a question for archaeologists to settle, and the answer to it does not fall within the scope of the present work. It is certain that they rapidly grew in public favor. During the seventeenth century the passion for card- playing became a veritable mania among the nobility and gentry, royalty itself setting the example. Louis XIV., in whom were united the incongruous characteristics of a gambler and a miser played nearly until the day of his death. During the regency, and throughout the dissolute reign of Louis XV., under the influence of Madame de Pompadour and the infamous Dubarry, the court gambled from morning till night and from night till morning, while the nation followed suit. So in England, substantially the same state of affairs existed, Charles II., with his courtiers and favorites, setting the fashion. In a word, all Europe was card-mad.

America’s turn came later. With prosperity came a taste for sumptous amusements—the legitimate offspring of wealth and leisure—and it may be questioned whether there is any country in the world where card-playing is so universal, or where so much money is staked upon the issues as in the United States.

The origin of the game of faro, like that of most games of cards, is obscure. There is a tradition that it emanated from the shores of the Nile, and that its antiquity is as venerable as that of the pyramids. Perhaps this rather fanciful theory has grown in favor from the fact that its name is sometimes spelled “pharo,” the name of the founder of the great Egyptian dynasty, whose head is said, in ancient times, to have been depicted upon one of the cards. Be this as it may, it is certain that centuries ago it was popular among the gamesters of France and other countries of Europe, whence it crossed the channel to the British isles and later was brought across the Atlantic to America. In the United States, it is a game par excellence at every gambling establishment, being at once the most absorbingly fascinating to players and the most profitable to the bank. Across the green cloth which separates the former from the latter, fortunes are hourly lost and won. The monotonous, droning call of the dealer, falling upon the ears of players, whose interest is breathless in its intensity, has proved to thousands the knell of doom to wealth, honor, integrity, and happiness. With its allurement of excitement and its tempting bait of gain, it woos its votaries to shipwreck equally certain and no less terrible than that which befell the mariner of old, whose charmed senses drank in the intoxicating music of the siren’s song. Faro has been happily likened to the “tiger,” which, crafty, treacherous, cruel and relentless, hides under cover waiting, with impatient eagerness, for the moment when it may bury its velvet covered claws within the vitals of its unsuspecting victim and slake its fiery, unquenchable thirst with his life blood.

The principles of the game as fairly played to-day do not materially differ from those laid down by Hoyle a hundred years ago. Be it understood, however, that this remark applies to modern faro, as played in the “hells” of this year of grace, only in the abstract. The principles (sic) upon which it is practically conducted by the dealers of to-day are of a sort calculated to astound that eminent authority on the doctrine of chances. In order, however, that the reader may thoroughly comprehend to how great an extent the player is at the mercy of the banker, it will be necessary to explain first the method of legitimate playing (i. e., if any gambling can be properly called legitimate) and then some of the devices whereby the dealer may transform his naturally overwhelming chances of winning to a practical certainty.

As preparatory to a discussion of the first branch of the subject, it may be remarked that faro is pre-eminently a game of chance. Even when played with absolute fairness, success or failure, fortune or misfortune, depend—not upon the skill of the player, but upon the caprice of blind chance. It is true that mathematical science has attempted to reduce this chance to some sort of law, and has formulated a theory as to the inherent probability or improbability of certain events happening or failing to happen, and there are devotees of faro who play upon what they believe—with a faith which approaches the sublime—to be an infallible “system.” But the doctrine of chance is, after all, but an approximation to accuracy, and the only certainty about any system, however cunningly devised, is the certainty that at the supreme moment it will prove a delusion and a snare.

But, to return to the method of playing: Any number of persons may participate in the game, which requires a full pack of fifty-two cards. The dealer acts as “banker,” and may, at his discretion, limit the sums to be played for, according to the amount of his capital. At public games, this functionary, assisted by one or more persons known as “lookers-out,” whose duty it is to watch the table, the players and the bets, with a view to seeing that the bank’s winnings are promptly gathered in, and that the interests of “the house” are properly guarded. In order to facilitate the making of bets, players purchase checks, usually made of ivory or bone or composition, though sometimes of paste- board, from the banker, who redeems them at the option of the holder. Their value is denoted either by their color, or figures stamped upon them. The banker usually limits the sums that may be bet in accordance with his capital, and the limit may be of two kinds, known as the plain and the running limit. The plain limit is usually twice as much for double, treble or quadruple cards as for single cards. That is to say, if a player may bet fifty dollars on either or all of the latter, he may bet $100 on all or any of the double. The running limit is any sum named and its multiple of four. To illustrate, the running limit may be 50 and 200; in that case, the player may bet fifty dollars, and if he wins, may suffer the original stake and its increase (which would amount to $100) to be where it is or move it to another place, where he may win another $100, thus giving him with his first stake $200, which is the limit. This is known as parleeing a bet, and if the first bet is five, the second will be ten, the third twenty, the fourth forty, and so on. Almost all bankers will allow a player to “parlee,” as the percentage is largely in favor of the bank.

Each banker is provided with a “board” about three by one and one-half feet in dimensions, which is placed on a table about four by two and one-half feet. This “board” is covered with green cloth, on which one suit of thirteen cards of the ordinary pack are portrayed in the order shown in the foregoing illustration.

In the centre of the cut given above, the arrangement of the cards in the “lay-out” is shown. The outer line of the parallelogram represents the table. Letter “G” indicates the seat of the dealer; “I” that of the “lookout;” “F” that part of the table on which the “case keeper” (the use of which will be explained later) is placed; and “H” shows where sits that important functionary who operates the “case keeper.” The players sit or stand all around the table. “A” represents the dealing box, and “B” and “C” the two piles into which the cards are divided as they issue from the box. “D” shows the “check-rack,” or the apparatus for holding the “checks,” and “E” shows the position of the money drawer.

The ace, deuce, queen and king are called the big square; the deuce, tray, queen and jack the second square, and so on; the six, seven and eight are called the pot. The players select their cards upon which they wish to bet, and lay upon them their checks.

All preliminaries being settled, before any bets are made the dealer shuffles and cuts the cards and places them face upward in a metal box, containing an aperture at the top, sufficiently large to allow the full faces of the cards to be seen. Originally, the cards while being dealt, were held in the dealer’s hands, and in Germany they are nailed to the table and torn off one by one. For many years, however, it has been the practice to deal from an uncovered metal box, a little longer than the pack, in which are placed the “pasteboards” faces upward, so that the top card is always exposed to view. Near the top of one end of this receptacle is a horizontal slit, wide enough to admit the passage of a single card, and at the bottom are four springs, which, pressing upward, automatically force the pack toward the top of the box, thus keeping one card always opposite the slit. The top card, called the “soda,” having been seen, is not used for betting, and is laid aside. The card immediately below is the banker’s card, and it wins for him all stakes placed upon it in the “lay-out,” provided it has not been “coppered,” as explained below. The next is the player’s card and wins for him in the same manner. Each pair of cards taken from the box and exposed constitute what is denominated a “turn.” It may happen, however, that the player may wish to bet that a certain card may lose. In that case he places a copper (which is provided for the purpose) upon the top of his stake. This is called “coppering,” because originally old fashioned copper cents were employed for this purpose instead of the wooden checkers.

Whenever two cards of the same denomination appear in the same “turn,” the dealer takes half the money found upon such card. This is called a “split,” and is, in effect, a percentage taken by the bank. If a player wins his bet and allows both stake and winnings to remain on the same card for another “turn,” he is said to play a paroli or parlee. At the end of a “turn” a pause is made, to permit the paying of bets already determined and the making of new ones. And the same routine is followed until the pack is exhausted, when a fresh deal is made and the process repeated. It will be seen that there are twenty-five “turns” in every deal. The dealer may close the game at the end of any deal when he may see fit. The last card remaining in the box at the end of each deal neither wins nor loses, although originally it was claimed by the dealer, who took all the money staked upon that card. The bank thus had the certainty of winning such stakes, with no possibility of loss; hence, that card came to be called “hock” or “hockelty,” which means certainty, and by that name it is known.

A player may avoid risking his stake on any particular turn by saying to the dealer, “I bar this bet for the turn”—pointing to it—in which case it can neither lose nor win, but remains barred until he says “it goes.” Again, he may reduce his stake one-half, by saying to the dealer, “one- half this bet goes,” and this, unless the order is revoked, will be understood to be his intention until the close of the deal.

When there is but one turn left in the box, the player may “call the last turn;” that is, guess the order in which the cards will appear. If he guesses correctly, he receives either two or four times the value of his stake, according to the advantage which he enjoys through the character of the turn. If the three cards are three denominations, they may come out in any one of the six different ways; if, on the other hand, two of the three cards are of the same denomination, only three arrangements are possible. Hence, in the former case, if he guess correctly, the banker pays him four times the amount of his wager; in the latter (which is technically called a “cat hop”) he wins double its value.

As has been shown, there is a multiplicity of methods of betting open to the player, but it remains to explain one of the most common, as well as fascinating, modes in vogue among the patrons of the “green cloth,” a method, too, which more than any other has been prolific of disputes. It consists of placing bets not only upon any card or cards, but upon the margin of the “lay-out.” These are called “string bets,” an explanation of which would tend rather to confuse than to enlighten the inexperienced reader.

It being of the utmost importance to both dealer and player that the cards remaining on the box should be known, an effort is made to keep an accurate record of the deal in such a way that its every phase may be seen at a glance. For this purpose a printed card, known as a “cue card,” is given to each player if he desires it, with the characters A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, arranged in a perpendicular row, “A” representing the ace, the numbers indicating the spots, and the letters “J, Q, K” standing for the court cards. As each card is dealt the player denotes the denomination on his “cue card” by placing in the proper line a zero (0) if it lose, and a straight perpendicular mark (I) if it wins, the last or “hock” card being indicated by a double dagger ([++]).

THE CHANCES OF THE GAME.

The following statement of the odds against winning any number of times consecutively is applicable to faro or any other game of chance. The computation is that of Mr. Hoyle, who, as an honest man, had not forecast the devices of the modern sharper.

Champions of this game, however, claim that when fairly conducted, the percentage of the bank against the player is less in faro than in any known game; and it is probable that the fact of this belief being wide spread accounts for its wonderful popularity in the United States. In fact, when fairly dealt, the only percentages in favor of the game are the “splits” and “calls.” Mr. Hoyle gives the following computation of the odds at the game.

The chances of doublets vary according to the number of similar cards remaining among those undealt. The odds against the player increase with every “turn” that is dealt.

When only eight cards are remaining, it is five to three in favor of the bank:

When only six cards, it is 2 to 1 When only four cards, 2 to 1 That the player does not win his first stake is an equal bet. That he does not win twice following, is 3 to 1 Three times following, is 7 to 1 Four ditto, is 15 to 1 Five ditto, is 31 to 1 Six ditto, is 63 to 1

Having briefly outlined the method of playing, and shown how even when fairly played there is a very large percentage of odds in favor of the bank, it remains to point out some of the practices resorted to by those professional gamblers known as “advantage players,” “brace dealers,” etc., to take advantage of the gullible and unwary, called among the fraternity “chumps,” or by the still less euphonius term of “suckers.”

These practices may be grouped under three different heads: First, the cards themselves; second, the dealing box; and third, a system of confederates. These will be taken up in the order given.

1st. The cards themselves. The “skin gambler” never deals a game of faro without making use of cards known as “strippers,” or “humps.” These may be bought from dealers in gambling implements, or may be prepared by the gambler himself by using “trimming shears,” a tool devised for this special purpose, and costing from forty to seventy-five dollars per pair. “Strippers” are ordinary playing cards of the same size and form as the “square” ones used in dealing faro, from the edge of which a very little “strip” has been trimmed, thus making them a fraction narrower at one end than at the other. The “strip” cut off does not exceed one thirty-second part of an inch at one end and runs to a point at the other. These are used that certain cards may be reversed and known; that is, the narrow ends of some turned with the wide ends of others. Thus, the dealer may take all the cards under seven, and turn their narrow ends with the wide ends of the rest of the pack, thus greatly increasing the chances for “splits,” on which the banker wins half the stakes; moreover, the cards are used more in bunches, whereby the odds in his favor are still further increased. When the wide ends of such a pack are all together, it is difficult to detect them; but when a part only is reversed they are more easily distinguished, since if the pack be taken by opposite ends all those turned opposite ways will easily come out if pulled by the ends.

The cards just described are known as “side strippers.” Another variety, which has some advantage over these is called “end strippers,” or “rakes.” As their name implies, they are cut on the end instead of the sides, but are arranged, sanded, and used as are the others. Before making a deal, the cards are “pulled” and “run in” endwise, after which they may be shuffled any number of times without changing their relative positions. They will apparently change their positions, but owing to the manner in which they are cut and their being sanded, they adhere in pairs all through the pack. When the cards are trimmed on the side, displacement during shuffling is unavoidable; hence, the advantage of using “rakes.”

Other prepared cards are called “hollows” and “rounds.” These are cut in plates made for the purpose, and a portion of the pack is wider across the middle, and tapers a very little toward the ends. The rest of the pack is hollowed out a little in the middle and broader at the ends. Strippers of this sort are used for the same purpose as those first described, but are used by taking hold of the pack at the middle and one end instead of at both ends.

The very closest observation is necessary to detect cards prepared in either of these ways, and soft, smooth hands are necessary to use them advantageously. The advantages resulting to the skillful dealer from their use, however, are too palpable to call for further elucidation, except in connection with the explanation of fraudulent, or “fake” dealing boxes, which will be given below. Sometimes the odd spot cards, the jack and king are trimmed differently from the remainder and then reversed. They are then “run in,” an odd against an even, and can be told through the difference in their size. This stratagem insures, at the pleasure of the dealer, the effectual bankruptcy of the man who plays upon a “system.”

“Squares and rounds” are made in much the same way. They are cut to pull from the ends like “rakes.” Like “hollows and rounds” they can be turned around without producing any effect upon them; and, like both, when properly “sanded” (which process is explained below), they can be shuffled without changing their relative positions. They are used in the same way as common “strippers.”

Another process to which the cards of the “skin” faro gambler are subjected is the preparation of them in such a way that they will adhere together. This is accomplished by rubbing them, sometimes with sandpaper, sometimes with rosin and glass, and sometimes with pumice stone. If, however, the surface be too much scratched, the abrasion will become visible when the cards are held up to the light. To accomplish the result desired most effectually, and at the same time with the least possible risk of detection, a powder composed of fish bone and rosin is sprinkled over them. When it is remembered that the dealing cards are extremely thin and smooth, the ease with which this device can be carried into successful operation can be imagined. Sometimes the backs of certain cards are roughened and the faces of others; the adhesion is then rendered very close and the added thickness so slight as absolutely to defy detection. To facilitate the use of cards thus prepared, a special dealing box, known as the “sand tell” box, has been devised, a description of which may be found in its proper place.

Still another resource, however, remains to the dealer of a “fake” game. He marks his cards along the edges on the faces, by which simple but effective plan he can always tell, with approximate accuracy, the denomination of any card below the top. This is accomplished by putting dots on the edges and it is absolutely essential to the successful operation of most of the “faked” boxes described below. Similar dots may be seen along the left hand edge of the card shown in the accompanying cut of the dealing box.

2nd. THE DEALING BOX.—When the dealing box was first introduced, more than half a century ago, it was claimed in its behalf that it insured absolute protection against fraud on the part of either dealer or players. Practically, as years have passed and new features have been engrafted upon it, it has become the most effective agency for unlimited fraud that the most nefarious dealer could desire. Indeed it may be questioned whether the original object of its introduction was not to render more easy the task of completely stripping every man who should venture to play against the bank. Hoyle points out that the odds, even in legitimate play are always in favor of the banker, and it seems hardly probable that he would himself suggest an innovation which might in any degree lessen his chances. The first boxes were made of brass, a very little larger than the pack, and about half an inch wider, with one side left open for the admission of the pack. The side opposite had an opening, close to the top, large enough to allow a single card to slip out, and in the top of the case was another of sufficient size to permit the insertion of the end of the finger to slip off the top card. At the bottom were springs to keep the pack constantly pressed up to the top of the box. That such a contrivance might be used with perfect fairness in dealing faro cannot be disputed. The fact remains, however, that almost every American gambling den to-day has at hand boxes which are cunningly contrived devices to facilitate the fleecing of the ignorant, to convert chance into certainty, to transform the unsuspicious player into the victim and the dealer into the harpy.

In order to have a thorough comprehension of the following description of some of the “fake” boxes now in use, it may be well that the reader understand the object sought to be gained through them. The rules of the game require that but one card shall be dealt at a time. To a dealer determined to win, it is of the utmost importance to know, before the card issues from the box, what that card is going to be. In this, he is greatly aided by the preparation of the cards as described above. Still, he needs some mechanical device through which he may put this knowledge into practical operation, either by failing to deal any certain card at a moment when its issuance from the box means loss to the bank, or by putting out a card which is sure to win for himself. To give him this advantage he uses a box so constructed that he can control its operations at will. It will thus be seen that his cards and his box supplement each other. To know the cards would avail him nothing unless he might use those which he needed; to be able to deal fraudulently would be of no possible advantage, unless he knew precisely which card to deal. Taken together, they form a combination so strong as to be impregnable to the dupe who fancies that he and his crafty opponent meet on a fair field in open, even if not honorable, combat.

At the present time, the “fraternity” generally use one of three varieties of boxes, known respectively as the “lever,” or “end squeeze movement,” the “needle movement,” and the “sand tell” box. Of these, the former is the most common, and the second the most expensive, while the third is commonly employed for a special purpose, which will be explained.

The accompanying cut shows the mechanism of the “screw box,” at one time very popular with gamblers, and still used in some houses.

The front side of this box, “A,” is provided with three thin perpendicular plates, of which two are stationary, but all of which seem to be solidly joined together. Between the stationary plates “B” and “D,” whose inner surfaces are so highly polished as to reduce friction to a minimum, slides another and invisible plate, marked “C,” and which is adjustable and highly sensitive to the secret manipulation of the practiced dealer. This centre piece “C,” when properly placed and at rest, presents an upper edge a trifle above the two stationary plates, leaving an aperture so narrow that the dealer can take but one card from the box at a time.

“F” is a screw which operates a secret lever, “E C,” between the two plates “B” and “D.” This lever hangs on a pivot, and by slightly pressing the screw with the thumb the adjustable plate “C” quickly responds, and drops until its edge is even with those of the stationary plates “B” and “D,” thereby enabling the dealer to take two cards from the box at one time without observation.

Upon removing the thumb pressure from the screw “F,” the adjustable plate “C” rises to its original position.

There is a flat metal piece in the inside of the box at the bottom, which, when pushed forward, instantly and securely locks the box, preventing the discovery of its mechanism, should any of the players request permission to examine it. Such permission is always cheerfully, and usually courteously given.

Finally, inside of the box, as in all others, is a thin plate the size of the cards, which is placed in a level or horizontal position, upon which the cards rest, and which is supported by four steel springs, that force the cards up to the top of the box so that they may always be ready for dealing.

The “lever,” or “end squeeze” box—the one which is perhaps just now most in favor among “skin” gamblers—is operated on the same principle as is the “screw” box. The screw, however, is replaced by a mechanical contrivance which enables the dealer to raise the middle plate (lettered C in the illustration) by means of pressure or “squeezing” applied at the end of the box. The “lever” box also differs from the “screw” in the manner of locking the secret mechanism. In the essential principles of the “fake,” however, the two closely correspond. The underlying fraud in both consists of the manipulation of a concealed middle plate, substantially in the manner already explained.

The “needle” movement box is so called from the fact that at one end, on the inside, is a small spring, lying the thickness of three cards from the top, and having a fine point, like that of a needle, which catches on the edges of the cards. The dealer remembers which cards are round—which, as has been said, may be the odd numbers or may be those having a less number of spots than seven; the remainder of the pack is, of course, cut hollow at the ends. By the aid of the spring, the dealer is enabled to tell whether the first card is round or hollow, and also what the second card is; as when the round card comes in contact with the spring, it pushes it in, and as the latter slips it makes a slight noise, similar to the grating of the finger nails. He can thus tell whether it is for his interest to take the second card or not, and—thanks to his previous preparation of the cards—it is as easy for him to take one as the other. An incidental advantage of this box is, that in case any of the players object to the apparently undue advantage in favor of the bank, it is possible for the dealer to offer to permit any player thus dissatisfied to deal in his stead, while he himself bets against the bank. Should his offer be accepted and a player open a bank, the latter, of course, not being acquainted with the secret spring of the box, will derive no benefit from the grating noise even should he notice it; while by reason of the professional dealer understanding the sound made by the secret spring, the latter is able to tell very nearly, if not absolutely, what card is coming next.

The “sand tell” box is particularly designed for the use of gamblers who desire to induce a player to deal the game. As its name implies, the cards used in it are “sanded,” while the “tell” consists of a small extra perpendicular plate near the front of the box on the inside, a trifle below its mouth, which causes the top card to stand slightly in advance of the deck, so that the gambler can readily distinguish the card underneath.

A record of the game is kept by means of an implement known as a “case- keeper,” which is usually placed in care of an employe of the establishment. This device is a miniature “lay-out,” with four buttons attached to each wire as shown in the illustration. These buttons run on wires, one of which extends from the end of each card. When the deal begins, all the buttons are shoved up close to the cards; as soon as a “turn” is made, the two buttons opposite the cards dealt are shoved to the opposite ends of their respective wires. This enables anyone around the table to see, at a glance, how many cards of each denomination remain in the dealer’s box. When all four cards of any one denomination have been dealt, that is said to be “dead.” When three cards of any one denomination have been dealt, the one remaining in the box is called the “case,” or “single card.”

It may sometimes happen that the tally of a player will not agree with that of the case keeper, owing to the fact that the dealer has withdrawn two cards where he should have taken one. In such a case, a trick known as the “put back” is employed. A confederate of the dealer attracts the attention of the players while the extra card or cards taken from the box are adroitly returned to it by the dealer. Of course, there must be a perfect understanding between the latter and the case keeper, so that when two cards are dealt at once a signal may be given showing the denomination of the second card.

In case a player making a bet finds that he has been misled by the incorrectness of the record kept by the cue keeper, the invariable rule is that the bet must be determined by the cards remaining in the dealing box, a regulation which is, to say the least, not at all to the disadvantage of the bank.

But the cheating is not all on one side, and a device called a hair “copper” is sometimes employed by players to guard against a possible loss on a certain description of bets. This hair “copper” consists of a piece of shoemaker’s wax, the color of the check, a horse hair, and a string of rubber attached to a band around the wrist, secreted in the sleeve. The wax adheres to the copper at one end of the horse hair, which is invisible, the other end being fastened to the rubber string which is extended in the hand to the tops of the fingers. Placing this copper on a bet, if the turn comes in favor of the dealer the player quickly and without observation loosens the rubber which jerks the “copper” into his sleeve, causing the dealer to pay the bet he may have fairly won.

Another scheme for beating the dealer is not infrequently resorted to by professional gamblers. It is technically known among them as “snaking” the card. This consists of “ringing in” upon the proposed victim of certain prepared cards, which are placed among the other dealing cards in some secret manner, and at a time when he is not aware of it. Sometimes, when no other opportunity presents itself, the faro dealer’s room is entered by false keys during his absence, and his cards are so operated upon that the operator can, to a certainty, break the bank at the first opportunity. There are gamblers who travel through the country for the purpose of “snaking” games, seldom engaging in any other species of gaming, and it often happens that many professionals are badly bled through this means without suspecting it. Sometimes the services of some person who is a stranger to the dealer are secured to play against the bank in order to allay suspicion.

The modes of “snaking” are various. One of the earliest consists of placing an extra plate in the dealing-box, in connection with a piece of steel not larger than a cambric needle. The cards are then cut on the edges in such a way that the appearance and disappearance of this piece of steel tells whether the next card will win or lose. This steel point, in the rapidity of its motion, was compared to a snake’s tongue, and it is probable that the origin of the term “snaking” is to be found in this fancied resemblance.

Another method of “snaking” cards is as follows: The deck is prepared. Let us suppose that the “pot” cards—the six, seven and eight—are the ones selected. A pack of cards is taken, and the sixes, sevens, and eights sanded on the backs and the remainder of the pack on the faces. Small dots are then made on the face of each card in the deck, near the edge. The position of these dots is determined by measuring on the card with the plate which belongs to the dealing box. Now, when a sanded deck of cards is placed in a “sand tell” dealing box, every time a card is taken from the box the card next to the one taken moves a little forward in consequence of the card taken from the box pressing on the one underneath it. But, with these “snaked” cards, the case is somewhat different; while dealing with these cards, should a smooth one be next to the one drawn from the box, it would be drawn a little forward, i. e., if there is not one of these “sanded” cards underneath this smooth one. If there should be one of the sanded cards under the smooth one, the card left on the top, after making a turn, will be held back by the sanded card which is underneath it, and it will not be pulled forward at all. Now, when a card which is left on the top, after making a turn, is pulled forward, these dots (above mentioned) are visible on the face of the card, denoting that neither of the pot cards can lose on the first turn; consequently the pot cards are played to win as long as this dot is visible on the face of the top card. But, in case, after a turn is made, the top card should not move forward, then the dot on the face of the card underneath could not be seen, which shows that one of the pot cards (which are the six, seven or eight) will certainly lose on that turn; of course the pot is instantly coppered, that is, betting that these cards will lose.

Another and simpler plan is to perforate all the cards of a certain description, perhaps of either dark suit, from the two to the ten, with an instrument known as the “card punch,” of which the accompanying illustration will enable the reader to form a fair conception.

It is made of the finest steel, and is employed to puncture cards at the center. A “deck” thus prepared is substituted for that which the banker intends to place in the box. Sometimes, however, in this “diamond cut diamond” game, an entrance is effected to the dealer’s room and the “punch” is employed on his own cards. The substitution of the prepared pack for that of the banker is the fundamental point to be attained, and occasionally resort is had to desperate expedients. A fight is raised, and in the melee which ensues the dealer’s box is thrown upon the floor and the substitution quickly accomplished.

This shameless trick is played by one gambler upon another without the slightest compunction. What a commentary does this afford upon the hollowness of the old adage regarding “honor among thieves.” The author having never been guilty of larceny, as defined by either the common law or the criminal code, cannot speak for “thieves” technically defined as such. As to those greater thieves known as gamblers, however, he does not hesitate to say that among them “honor” is a word as unmeaning as the mirage of the desert is illusory.

But to return to the punctured cards. The holes made by the punch are so small that the player is often “beaten” by it. Whenever a white surface is seen through this small hole, the player is perfectly certain that the card underneath is the deuce, four, six, seven, eight or ten, and may accordingly back these cards to win for himself with absolute certainty. If a colored surface is discerned, he is equally certain that the next card will be of another denomination.

Yet another method is to sandpaper the edges of one-half the cards. Then, as the edge of the under card is seen through the slit in the dealing box, the outside player can tell in which half it belongs by noticing whether it is bright or dull. Of course, to practice this successfully, the player must remember correctly the cards making up each half; but when the division is made upon a system, this is an easy matter.

Besides the methods of cheating already described, which relate more particularly to the preparation of the cards and the construction and operation of the dealing box, there are other methods well known to professionals, which may be employed with comparative immunity and great success against the unsuspecting.

A favorite stratagem is to use a prepared deck containing fifty-three cards, one more than the legitimate pack contains, known among the fraternity as the “odd.” The odd card is never seen by the player; and as the cues come out correct, there is nothing of which he can complain. The advantage of its use to the gambler is that it gives him one sure turn during each deal, and he usually prefers to employ it on the last turn. In such a case, it is impossible for the bettor to win on the call, and he is equally certain to lose on any bet which he may make on that turn. The advantage of such a large additional percentage in favor of the game is palpable. A large proportion of players are fond of calling the “last turn,” because of the greater odds given by the bank; they are also more disposed to bet high on single cards at this stage of the deal, for the reason that a “split” is impossible. This is called playing cases. The manner in which a deck of fifty-three cards may be manipulated to the certain loss of such bettors may be best shown by means of an illustration. The denomination of the extra card is a matter of no importance, but we will suppose it to be an ace; its introduction would then make five aces in the pack. All the cards are then sanded except these five aces, which are marked on the edges with one or two dots, so as to be instantly recognized. The deck, having been thus prepared, is played in the following manner: The cards are first shuffled a few times from bottom to top, the dealer not then knowing the position of any card. The latter then commences finding the aces, which is easily accomplished, inasmuch as they are the only cards not sanded and are marked on the edges. While shuffling he places one ace on the top of the deck, over this he places a card of some other denomination, and on this another ace, and over this again yet another card. A false cut (which is accomplished in various ways, and is really no cut at all) is then given to the cards, which are next placed, faces upward, in the dealing box, the arranged cards being of course now at the bottom. Let us suppose that when the last turn is reached it consists of an ace, king and queen. Of course there are really two aces in the box, though only one is shown. If the dealer wishes to make the ace lose, all that he need do is to turn one card and then take two cards instead of one, through the aid of his “faked” box, the bottom one of these two cards being one of the aces, this leaves one card in the box, as there should be. Should he desire to make the ace win, he draws two on the first pull, and only one afterward, which results in one of the aces never being seen, making the cues on the last turn come out correct. Sometimes the cards are cut fairly, and the extra card comes in the middle of the deck; in such a case, when the dealer arrives where the aces are arranged, he is aware of it and acts in the same manner as has been already described when they are placed so as to fall in the last turn. Sometimes two odd cards are added to the deck, making the pack consist of fifty-four cards. When properly manipulated, the dealer has the advantage of being able to manage two turns instead of one.

Even when both cards and dealing box are perfectly “square,” it is still in the power of the professional gambler to take such advantages of persons not posted as to be morally certain of winning their money. For instance, should a player select certain favorite cards on which to bet (as is often the case), on the next deal the dealer may easily cause such cards to win or lose all the way through as he may desire, the bettor never suspecting that the run was not a matter of pure chance. As these favorite cards come out of the box, the dealer—at a moment when the bettor is not observing—places them at the bottom at the end of the deal, where they are not disturbed while shuffling. The deck is then “run in” endwise, and these cards being separated, will either win or lose throughout the game.

“Faked” dealing boxes are not always the “thing of beauty” and perennial source of joy which their manipulators would like to see them. They occasionally “get out of order;” a little sand works its way between the plates, and even an expert “brace” dealer finds it more or less difficult so to use the device that its employment cannot be detected. At Laredo, Texas, a few years ago, a “professional,” who is now dealer at a famous house in a Western city, encountered a difficulty of this sort. He “pulled” two cards, but so clumsily that the “sucker” observed it. “What’s the matter with your box?” the player asked. “O, it’s a little old, and don’t work just right,” was the answer. “Well, see here,” said the Texan, “that was an almighty short deal, somehow. Reckon I’m going to lose money any way; but hadn’t you better go a little slower and make one of them long deals? I’d like to take a little more time.” The game progressed and the stranger rose from the table a loser to the amount of three hundred dollars. “Look here,” he remarked to the dealer, “I reckon you’d better give me back the money you’ve cheated me out of.” The gambler, with an air of the utmost nonchalance, replied that he would be blanked if he gave back any of it. “Well,” remarked the countryman, as he drew down his slouch hat over his eyes and left the room, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” No sooner had he left than one of the employes of the establishment took the proprietor aside and advised him either to return the money or close the place at once, if he did not want the victim to return and shoot him “on sight.” The proprietor was a capital “brace” dealer, but physical courage was not his chief characteristic. He lost no time in acting on his subordinate’s suggestion. Hastily raising the window he called out to the victim—whose rapidly vanishing form was still in sight—“I say, you! Come back here a minute; I want to see you.” The “sucker” came back; the gambler greeted him cordially. “You old idiot,” said he, “can’t you take a little joke? Of course I knew that you were ‘capping,’ (i. e. acting as ‘capper’) for the game. Here’s your money old man.” He handed him a roll of currency, which the stranger pocketed with a grim smile of satisfaction. But subsequent events proved that the proprietor “had builded better than he knew.” Sitting around the room were other men who had lost money and seen a fellow sufferer receive back his losses, it did not take long for the crowd to extinguish the lights, and in the darkness the unlucky dealer was “held up” for every dollar that he had with him.

3rd. The third adjunct to success in a “brace” faro game is by no means the least important. Confederates on the outside are considered sine qua non in every “skin” gaming hell. They are technically known as “ropers” or “steerers.” This euphonious appellation sufficiently indicates at once their character and the nature of the duties with which they are charged. The man who for a percentage and under the guise of friendship lures a man to loss is, if possible, morally lower than the scoundrel who robs him.

To be a good “steerer,” a man should possess some education and be endowed with a courteous and affable demeanor. The more polished his manners, the greater the value of his services. Men of this stamp hang about the depots, infest the corridors of hotels of every grade, and patrol the streets with far more watchfulness than does the average policeman. Their methods do not vary, in any marked respect, from those employed by “cappers” and “steerers” in other games, which are fully disclosed under other head lines. About the same qualifications are expected of faro and “bunko steerers,” and those required of the latter are plainly indicated in Chapter VIII.

There is, however, a class of “ropers” who do rather more than “dirty” work. These men hang about the entrances to houses which are alleged and believed to be “square,” turn out the gas in the stairway, and when a would-be player presents himself, assure him that “the house is closed for the night, but that they (or he) can ‘show him where a game is running.’” Should the verdant dupe be sufficiently gullible to believe the story, one of these miscreants “steers” him to a “brace” house, sees that he is “plucked,” and then claims and receives his percentage on the amount which the victim has lost.

Among broken-down gamblers who have lost the last vestige of self- respect, another game is popular. Individuals of this sort will hang about the side-walk in front of a “hell.” When a player goes up-stairs into the rooms, they watch him. If they can gain access to the house they watch his play; if they are too disreputable in appearance to be allowed inside the doors, they await his return. In either event, they ascertain whether he has lost or won. If the former, they promptly present themselves before the proprietor and claim the usual percentage paid to a “steerer,” and usually receive it. This sort of scamp is known among the fraternity as a “gutter snipe.”

Once in a while one of them proves himself of some service. On a certain evening, two young men had been playing faro at a “skin” house on the Bowery, in New York. They had pooled their resources and one of them had been doing all the betting. Their losses footed up about eighty dollars. After coming down stairs they stood upon the corner, bewailing their hard luck, when they were accosted by an individual who, although decidedly seedy, presented the appearance of being the wreck of what was once a gentleman. He told them that he had overheard their conversation and asked them if they would like to get a part of their money back. Being answered in the affirmative, he went on to say that he himself did not dare to go up into the rooms, but that if the man who had not done the betting would return alone and claim to have been acting as a “steerer,” he would receive from the proprietor a “capper’s” percentage of the house’s winnings. The advice was acted upon; one of the two again mounted the stairs, entered the apartment, demanded his forty-five per cent. of the money lost and received it without objection. The stranger was made happy by receiving a five dollar bill, and the friends walked away considerably wiser, if somewhat poorer, than when they first entered the den.

While speaking of “steerers” there is one fact which should not be overlooked. Not a few of the proprietors of the so-called “square” houses run “brace” games at other localities, “on the quiet.” These men keep “ropers” at the foot of the stairways leading up to their respectable (?) establishments, whose duty it is to inform any particularly verdant “sucker” that there is “no game being played here to-night,” and then “steer” him to the place where he can be fleeced with more ease and expedition. The same tactics are employed at times when public sentiment compels the closing of the gaming hells. The “reputable” gamblers shut their doors, and open a room either at a hotel or in some out of the way location, whither their “steerers” guide victims, thus partially at least, recouping their losses resulting from the closing of their regular rooms. Where they do not open other places they sometimes “stand in” with the keepers of “skin” rooms, to have their employes “steer” their patrons to the latter resorts, the “square” players, of course, receiving a percentage of the winnings.

The better class of houses of play close at about two o’clock in the morning, when the cards, dealing boxes and other paraphernalia are given a few hours rest. Others are open all night, and at Pueblo, Colorado, there is a resort whose doors are never closed. At all establishments, however, there are at least two sets of employes, known respectively as the “day” and “night-watch.” The day men arrive about nine in the morning, the dealer having the combination of the safe. He takes out the money, chips, cards, etc.; the “house is ready for business,” or to state it more accurately, the trap is set and baited for fresh game.

It is generally during the earlier hours of the day-watch that the game is “thrown off,” if at all. This term is a bit of gambler’s slang, and always means that some one is victimized through a gross breach of good faith, in other words, the victim is “thrown” to a confederate as a bone to a dog. The “throwing off a game” is usually worked as follows: Suppose that A, B and C enter into partnership to conduct a gaming house. A and B secretly agree to defraud C of the capital which he has advanced. C closes the house at night and A opens in the morning. B arranges with an outside party to come to the house in the morning while C is absent, and by collusion with the dealer, A, “win out the roll,” as it is technically termed, that is, win the money of the firm so that C’s share may be divided among the two scoundrels. Of all dastardly confidence games this may be probably set down as the meanest, and the fact that it is ever done shows how far the maxim “honor among thieves” applies to professional blacklegs.

A UNIQUE ESTABLISHMENT.

The establishment at Pueblo to which reference has been made above, is probably the largest in the United States. It contains six faro tables, four roulette wheels, four hazard tables, two “stud” poker tables, two “draw” poker tables, one “short faro” table, one vingt-un table, one hieronymus bowl, and one table for playing a game known as “high suit.” They are all in one large room, which opens directly off the street, without any pretense of concealment, and contains, besides, a bar and a lunch counter. Back of this is an apartment in which occur two drawings daily, and yet farther in the rear is a keno room, where a game is run every night. This mammoth hell never closes its doors. Three sets of employes relieve each other, each “shift” (a designation for the alternate “watches,” borrowed from the phraseology of the Colorado miners) being on duty eight hours. As may be imagined, the cost of running such an establishment is enormous, and the fact that the proprietors continue to prosper financially shows that dupes are found in abundance.

There is one feature in the management of this Pueblo resort peculiar to itself. It is a very common thing in all gambling houses for a player who “has lost his roll” to ask a donation—or a “loan,” as he prefers to call it—of a small sum, wherewith to get a drink, procure a meal, or pay for a night’s lodging. Only in the lowest dives is such a request refused. In the Pueblo den, however, a different system is pursued. The proprietors never give money to any man, for the reason that they apprehend that the beneficiary might use it in playing against the house. At the same time no sober applicant (unless a chronic “dead beat”), whether player or stranger, is ever refused a drink, a cigar, a square meal, or a night’s lodging. Instead of cash, however, he is given a brass check which, while not receivable at the tables as stakes, is good at the bar, the lunch counter, or at a lodging house owned and run by the establishment, for refreshments of whatever kind he may desire.

SHORT FARO.

This is a vastly simplified modification of the game of faro. The lay- out consists of six cards—ace, king, queen, jack, ten, and nine. The dealer commonly uses two or more packs, which he shuffles and usually deals from his hand, though sometimes from a box. The first three cards run off are for “the house,” and are dealt faces down and not exposed. The second three cards are for the player and are shown. Bettors place their stakes on the card or cards in the lay-out which they may select before the deal begins. The mode of play may be best shown by an illustration: Suppose a player wagers a dollar on the queen. If one of the three cards exposed happens to be a queen he wins one dollar; if two are queens he receives double the amount of his stake; if all three should prove to be queens the dealer returns him his original stake augmented by three times the amount; if no queen is shown the “house” gathers in the stake. It does not require a particularly erudite mathematician to discover that the odds at this game are enormously in favor of the bank. In the first place the player can win only should one of six cards out of fifty-two turn up. Moreover, of the six cards dealt he is allowed to see only three, thus reducing his already insignificant chances by one half. Even when fairly played the game, like roulette, is little short of downright robbery by the dealer, and when to this preponderance of chances one adds the numerous advantages which a professional “brace” dealer has over a greenhorn it is easy to foretell who will have the money at the end of the game.

POLICE PROTECTION TO GAMBLING.

The attentive reader will find, at various parts of this volume, allusions to the tacit understanding which often exists between the fraternity of black-legs and the police. The personal experience of the author is referred to and the chapter devoted to local gambling is replete with recitals of facts which afford food for reflection.

It may not be out of place here, however, to describe briefly the methods adopted for rendering ineffective even a carefully planned and honestly executed raid, if undertaken or managed by inexperienced or incompetent officers. The latter on gaining entrance to a room do not find any gambling in progress and are therefore unable to capture any property or make any arrests. The outer doors of the resorts are usually constructed of ponderous oak timbers, from four to ten inches thick, fastened together by means of heavy iron bolts. Of late years steel has been substituted for wood, and it is said that at one of the Chinese gambling hells in San Francisco the doors are made of thick rubber, resembling car springs in texture, the elasticity of which repels the blows of a sledge hammer as a marble pavement gives a rebound to a rubber ball. The object of making such doors is, of course, to prevent forcible intrusion. It is not of the employment of violence, however, that I am about to speak, but of those raids where the officers are given admission. It should be added that not infrequently entrance is granted, after a short delay, because the hospitable proprietors have been privately warned of the intended visit.

A small aperture in the door enables the door-keepers, one of whom is always in attendance, to inspect applicants for admission before undoing the bolts. If the custodian is in doubt as to the character of the callers, the proprietor is summoned. If the visitors are recognized as officers, an electric bell sounds a note of warning, and a parley between the blue-coats and the Cerebus at the portal follows. In the twinkling of an eye the cards, boxes, chips, lay-out, case-keeper, and money disappear into the safe. The table is at once transformed into an ordinary round-topped affair, covered with a crimson cloth. Scattered around the room are well dressed, quiet mannered gentlemen engaged in reading the newspapers, in discussing politics, or in general conversation. The police see nothing, and after apologizing for their intrusion, withdraw. Often the proprietor accompanies them to the stairway, and, cordially shaking hands, leaves in the honest (?) palm of the one in command a substantial token of his readiness to “bury the hatchet.” Scarcely have they reached the sidewalk before the table is placed in position, the safe unlocked, the money and paraphernalia taken out, the players resume their seats, and the game goes on as before. Is it surprising that the man who witnesses such a farce as this should entertain a contempt for the very name of law?

REMINISCENCES AND INCIDENTS.

From what has been said, some unsophisticated reader may be led to suppose that running a faro bank is a short and easy road to fortune. No more fatal mistake could be made. Professional gamblers, almost without exception, die paupers. Nor is the reason far to seek. The gambler “on the inside,” is likely to win, even if the game is fairly played; and the skin dealer never loses, even by accident. But the curse of Heaven seems to attach to money thus accumulated. The winners rarely keep it long. The terrible fascination of the mania for gaming is no less potent with professionals than amateurs. The author might multiply illustrations, drawn from his own experience. A successful proprietor of a faro game will often draw from his safe thousands of his nefariously won money to drop it on the table in another house. Even Morrissey, the gambling king of the country, twice a member of the New York State Senate and later of the United States House of Representatives, owner of the most luxuriously appointed gambling house of the American metropolis and of the world famed “club house” at Saratoga, which vied with Monaco and Monte Carlo in its elegance—even Morrissey, the “prince of good fellows,” the idol of his friends, the once millionaire, died insolvent. The history of American gambling abounds in incidents scarcely less striking. Ephemeral success, debauchery, drunkenness, poverty, suicide or death from violence—this is the epitome of the career of the average blackleg. O! young men of America, you who are upon the very threshold of life, you who are in doubt as to “which way” you will direct your steps, you in whom are centered the fondest affections of so many hearts, you before whom so bright a future is opening, you upon whom depends the future of this great country, listen to the advice which comes from a heart that would avert from you the pangs which it has suffered. Believe one who has drained the cup to its very dregs, that at the bottom you will find only a serpent!

William Close, one of the best known and most expert manipulators of a brace box known to American gamblers, who won heavily and bet as freely, died a pauper.

John Timmins, a successful dealer, “went broke” and in a fit of desperation, ended his miserable existence with a bullet.

Sam Cade, a “faro bank fiend” and one of the best poker players known in the “hells” was buried by a fund to which I was myself a subscriber.

These are but a tithe of the many instances that I might adduce in corroboration of the truth of what has been said.

An illustration of the well-nigh irreclaimable depravity of the case- hardened professional happened not many years ago in a St. Louis gambling house. A well dressed young man entered, sat down at the faro table, and in a very short time lost $500. His money gone, he hurriedly rose and left the room without a word. After his departure one of the “profession,” who was sitting in the room, looked toward the door and remarked, “Well, he dropped his little roll rather sudden.” Then he added, with a pensive air, “but it comes easy?” “What is he?” asked the dealer. “Why don’t you know?” was the inquiry of the first speaker. “He’s one of the finest ‘dips’ in the country.” “What’s a dip?” was the next conundrum of the proprietor. “Why, you driveling idiot,” replied his confrere, “a dip’s a pick-pocket.” “Well,” answered the winner, with a yawn, “I don’t care. Glad he makes money so easily. Hope he’ll ‘dip’ some more. A dip’s money is just as good to run bank with as any other.” And with this remark he wheeled about in his chair and was soon immersed in the newspaper, awaiting the arrival of another victim.

I cannot close this chapter on faro without a passing reference to an old gambler who at one time was a prominent figure all along the Mississippi valley, and whose face was as familiar to patrons of the river steamers as were the sand-bars which blocked the channel. I refer to “Colonel” Charles Starr. His long yarns were proverbial. According to his own story he owned half the plantations skirting the river. Occasionally some one would “pick him up” by telling him that he (the skeptic) was the owner of those broad acres. No such trifling circumstance as this abashed the “Colonel” in the least. Like Banquo’s ghost, he peremptorily and perennially refused to “down.”

Stories about him were as plentiful as “pickaninnies” about a negro cabin. It is said that once, at an Arkansas watering place, he was approached by an itinerant blackleg who asked for half a dollar with which to get something to eat. The “Colonel” surveyed him leisurely, from head to foot, before either granting or refusing his request. Finally he said: “How long did you say it was, young man, since you had anything to eat?” “Two days, Colonel.” “Well,” drawled Starr, “I reckon I don’t want to give you a half a dollar, but if you go without eating two days longer, I’ll give you a hundred dollars for your appetite.”

Starr was a gourmand, though a dyspeptic, and withal rather selfish. He went into a restaurant in New Orleans one day and ordered a sumptuous repast. A hungry, penniless gambler entered while he was eating, and approaching him, said: “Colonel, I’m awful hungry and I’m dead broke. Can’t you ‘stake’ me with some of that?” “Oh, no,” answered Starr, “you see, I’m a capper for the house, and my play doesn’t go.”

He accumulated a fair competence, but gambling and dissipation reduced him to poverty, and he died a pauper. The evening of the day preceding his death he entered a fashionable restaurant and ordered a dinner costing some seven or eight dollars. The proprietor called him on one side, and told him frankly that he did not feel disposed to “carry” him any longer, that he must pay cash for his order or it would not be filled. Starr said nothing, but went out and borrowed five dollars from a friend; returning, he threw it on a table and ordered the best meal obtainable for that sum. When it was set before him he deliberately turned every dish upside down upon the cloth, and walked out of the place. The following morning he died.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us