'The king, who, as it chanced, had detected the theft, burst out laughing, not only at the astonishment of the gentlemen present, who were at a loss to account for the sound, but also at the originality of the stunning event. At length Monsieur le Baron, by his own blushes half-convicted of larceny, fell on his knees before the king, humbly saying:—"Sire, the pricks of gaming are so powerful that they have driven me to commit a dishonest action, for which I beg your mercy." And as he was going on in this strain, the king cut short his words, exclaiming:—"The PASTIME which you have contrived for us so far surpasses the injury you have done me that the clock is yours: I give it you with all my heart."'(44)

(44) Duverdier, Diverses Lecons.

HENRY III.—In the latter part of the sixteenth century Paris was inundated with brigands of every description. A band of Italian gamesters, having been informed by their correspondents that Henry III. had established card-rooms and dice-rooms in the Louvre, got admission at court, and won thirty thousand crowns from the king.(45)

(45) Journal de Henri III.

If all the kings of France had imitated the disinterestedness of Henry III., the vice of gaming would not have made such progress as became everywhere evident.

Brantome gives a very high idea of this king's generosity, whilst he lashes his contemporaries. Henry III. played at tennis and was very fond of the game—not, however, through cupidity or avarice, for he distributed all his winnings among his companions. When he lost he paid the wager, nay, he even paid the losses of all engaged in the game. The bets were not higher than two, three, or four hundred crowns—never, as subsequently, four thousand, six thousand, or twelve thousand—when, however, payment was not as readily made, but rather frequently compounded for.(46)

(46) Henry III. was also passionately fond of the childish toy Bilboquet, or 'Cup and Ball,' which he used to play even whilst walking in the street. Journal de Henri III., i.

There was, indeed, at that time a French captain named La Roue, who played high stakes, up to six thousand crowns, which was then deemed exorbitant. This intrepid gamester proposed a bet of twenty thousand crowns against one of Andrew Doria's war-galleys.

Doria took the bet, but he immediately declared it off, in apprehension of the ridiculous position in which he would be placed if he lost, saying,—'I don't wish that this young adventurer, who has nothing worth naming to lose, should win my galley to go and triumph in France over my fortune and my honour.'

Soon, however, high stakes became in vogue, and to such an extent that the natural son of the Duc de Bellegarde was enabled to pay, out of his winnings, the large sum of fifty thousand crowns to get himself legitimated. Curiously enough, it is said that the greater part of this sum had been won in England.(47)

(47) Amelot de la Houss. Mem. Hist. iii.

HENRY IV.—Henry IV. early evinced his passion for gaming. When very young and stinted in fortune, he contrived the means of satisfying this growing propensity. When in want of money he used to send a promissory note, written and signed by himself, to his friends, requesting them to return the note or cash it—an expedient which could not but succeed, as every man was only too glad to have the prince's note of hand.(48)

(48) Mem. de Nevers. ii.

There can be no doubt that the example of Henry IV. was, in the matter of gaming, as in other vices, most pernicious. 'Henry IV.,' says Perefixe, 'was not a skilful player, but greedy of gain, timid in high stakes, and ill-tempered when he lost.' He adds rather naively, 'This great king was not without spots any more than the sun.'(49)

(49) Hist. de Henri le Grand.

Under him gambling became the rage. Many distinguished families were utterly ruined by it. The Duc de Biron lost in a single year more than five hundred thousand crowns (about L250,000). 'My son Constant,' says D'Aubigne, 'lost twenty times more than he was worth; so that, finding himself without resources, he abjured his religion.'

It was at the court of Henry IV. that was invented the method of speedy ruin by means of written vouchers for loss and gain—which simplified the thing in all subsequent times. It was then also that certain Italian masters of the gaming art displayed their talents, their suppleness, and dexterity. One of them, named Pimentello, having, in the presence of the Duc de Sully, appealed to the honour which he enjoyed in having often played with Henry IV., the duke exclaimed,—'By heavens! So you are the Italian blood-sucker who is every day winning the king's money! You have fallen into the wrong box, for I neither like nor wish to have anything to do with such fellows.' Pimentello got warm. 'Go about your business,' said Sully, giving him a shove; 'your infernal gibberish will not alter my resolve. Go!'(50)

(50) Mem. de Sully.

The French nation, for a long time agitated by civil war, settled down at last in peace and abundance—the fruits of which prosperity are often poisoned. They were so by the gambling propensity of the people at large, now first manifested. The warrior, the lawyer, the artisan, in a word, almost all professions and trades, were carried away by the fury of gaming. Magistrates sold for a price the permission to gamble—in the face of the enacted laws against the practice.

We can scarcely form an idea of the extent of the gaming at this period. Bassompierre declares, in his Memoirs, that he won more than five hundred thousand livres (L25,000) in the course of a year. 'I won them,' he says, 'although I was led away by a thousand follies of youth; and my friend Pimentello won more than two hundred thousand crowns (L100,000). Evidently this Pimentello might well be called a blood-sucker by Sully.(51) He is even said to have got all the dice-sellers in Paris to substitute loaded dice instead of fair ones, in order to aid his operations.

(51) In the original, however, the word is piffre, (vulgo) 'greedy-guts.'

Nothing more forcibly shows the danger of consorting with such bad characters than the calumny circulated respecting the connection between Henry IV. and this infamous Italian:—it was said that Henry was well aware of Pimentello's manoeuvres, and that he encouraged them with the view of impoverishing his courtiers, hoping thereby to render them more submissive! Nero himself would have blushed at such a connivance. Doubtless the calumny was as false as it was stupid.

The winnings of the courtier Bassompierre were enormous. He won at the Duc d'Epernon's sufficient to pay his debts, to dress magnificently, to purchase all sorts of extravagant finery, a sword ornamented with diamonds—'and after all these expenses,' he says, 'I had still five or six thousand crowns (two to three thousand pounds) left, TO KILL TIME WITH, pour tuer le temps.'

On another occasion, and at a more advanced age, he won one hundred thousand crowns (L50,000) at a single sitting, from M. De Guise, Joinville, and the Marechal d'Ancre.

In reading his Memoirs we are apt to get indignant at the fellow's successes; but at last we are tempted to laugh at his misery. He died so poor that he did not leave enough to pay the twentieth part of his debts! Such, doubtless, is the end of most gamblers.

But to return to Henry IV., the great gambling exemplar of the nation. The account given of him at the gaming table is most afflicting, when we remember his royal greatness, his sublime qualities. His only object was to WIN, and those who played with him were thus always placed in a dreadful dilemma—either to lose their money or offend the king by beating him! The Duke of Savoy once played with him, and in order to suit his humour, dissimulated his game—thus sacrificing or giving up forty thousand pistoles (about L28,000).

When the king lost he was most exacting for his 'revanche,' or revenge, as it is termed at play. After winning considerably from the king, on one occasion, Bassompierre, under the pretext of his official engagements, furtively decamped: the king immediately sent after him; he was stopped, brought back, and allowed to depart only after giving the 'revanche' to his Majesty. This 'good Henri,' who was incapable of the least dissimulation either in good or in evil, often betrayed a degree of cupidity which made his minister, Sully, ashamed of him;—in order to pay his gaming debts, the king one day deducted seventy-two thousand livres from the proceeds of a confiscation on which he had no claim whatever.

On another occasion he was wonderfully struck with some gold-pieces which Bassompierre brought to Fontainebleau, called Portugalloises. He could not rest without having them. Play was necessary to win them, but the king was also anxious to be in time for a hunt. In order to conciliate the two passions, he ordered a gaming party at the Palace, left a representative of his game during his absence, and returned sooner than usual, to try and win the so much coveted Portugalloises.

Even love—if that name can be applied to the grovelling passion of Henry IV., intensely violent as it was—could not, with its sensuous enticements, drag the king from the gaming table or stifle his despicable covetousness. On one occasion, whilst at play, it was whispered to him that a certain princess whom he loved was likely to fall into other arms:—'Take care of my money,' said he to Bassompierre, 'and keep up the game whilst I am absent on particular business.'

During this reign gamesters were in high favour, as may well be imagined. One of them received an honour never conceded even to princes and dukes. 'The latter,' says Amelot de la Houssaie, 'did not enter the court-yard of the royal mansions in a carriage before the year 1607, and they are indebted for the privilege to the first Duc d'Epernon, the favourite of the late king, Henry III., who being wont to go every day to play with the queen, Marie de Medicis, took it into his head to have his carriage driven into the court-yard of the Louvre, and had himself carried bodily by his footmen into the very chamber of the queen—under the pretext of being dreadfully tormented with the gout, so as not to be able to stand on his legs.'(52)

(52) Mem. Hist. iii.

It is said, however, that Henry IV. was finally cured of gambling. Credat Judaeus! But the anecdote is as follows. The king lost an immense sum at play, and requested Sully to let him have the money to pay it. The latter demurred, so that the king had to send to him several times. At last, however, Sully took him the money, and spread it out before him on the table, exclaiming—'There's the sum.' Henry fixed his eyes on the vast amount. It is said to have been enough to purchase Amiens from the Spaniards, who then held it. The king thereupon exclaimed:—'I am corrected. I will never again lose my money at gaming.'

During this reign Paris swarmed with gamesters. Then for the first time were established Academies de Jeu, 'Gaming Academies,' for thus were termed the gaming houses to which all classes of society beneath the nobility and gentility, down to the lowest, rushed in crowds and incessantly. Not a day passed without the ruin of somebody. The son of a merchant, who possessed twenty thousand crowns, lost sixty thousand. It seemed, says a contemporary, that a thousand pistoles at that time were valued less than a sou in the time of Francis I.

The result of this state of things was incalculable social affliction. Usury and law-suits completed the ruin of gamblers.

The profits of the keepers of gaming houses must have been enormous, to judge from the rents they paid. A house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain was secured at the rental of about L70 for a fortnight, for the purpose of gambling during the time of the fair. Small rooms and even closets were hired at the rate of many pistoles or half-sovereigns per hour; to get paid, however, generally entailed a fight or a law-suit.

All this took place in the very teeth of the most stringent laws enacted against gaming and gamesters. The fact was, that among the magistrates some closed their eyes, and others held out their hands to receive the bribe of their connivance.

LOUIS XIII.—At the commencement of the reign of Louis XIII. the laws against gaming were revived, and severer penalties were enacted. Forty-seven gaming houses at Paris, which had been licensed, and from which several magistrates drew a perquisite of a pistole or half a sovereign a day, were shut up and suppressed.

These stringent measures checked the gambling of the 'people,' but not that of 'the great,' who went on merrily as before.

Of course they 'kept the thing quiet'—gambled in secret—but more desperately than ever. The Marechal d'Ancre commonly staked twenty thousand pistoles (L10,000).

Louis XIII. was not a gambler, and so, during this reign, the court did not set so bad an example. The king was averse to all games of chance. He only liked chess, but perhaps rather too much, to judge from the fact that, in order to enable him to play chess on his journeys, a chessboard was fitted in his carriage, the pieces being furnished with pins at the bottom so as not to be deranged or knocked down by the motion. The reader will remember that, as already stated, a similar gaming accommodation was provided for the Roman Emperor Claudius.

The cup and ball of Henry III. and the chessboard of Louis XIII. are merely ridiculous. We must excuse well-intentioned monarchs when they only indulge themselves with frivolous and childish trifles. It is something to be thankful for if we have not to apply to them the adage—Quic-quid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi—'When kings go mad their people get their blows.'

LOUIS XIV.—The reign of Louis XIV. was a great development in every point of view, gaming included.

The revolutions effected in the government and in public morals by Cardinal Richelieu, who played a game still more serious than those we are considering, had very considerably checked the latter; but these resumed their vigour, with interest, under another Cardinal, profoundly imbued with the Italian spirit—the celebrated Mazarin. This minister, independently of his particular taste that way, knew how to ally gaming with his political designs. By means of gaming he contrived to protract the minority of the king under whom he governed the nation.

'Mazarin,' says St Pierre, 'introduced gaming at the court of Louis XIV. in the year 1648. He induced the king and the queen regent to play; and preference was given to games of chance. The year 1648 was the era of card-playing at court. Cardinal Mazarin played deep and with finesse, and easily drew in the king and queen to countenance this new entertainment, so that every one who had any expectation at court learned to play at cards. Soon after the humour changed, and games of chance came into vogue—to the ruin of many considerable families: this was likewise very destructive to health, for besides the various violent passions it excited, whole nights were spent at this execrable amusement. The worst of all was that card-playing, which the court had taken from the army, soon spread from the court into the city, and from the city pervaded the country towns.

'Before this there was something done for improving conversation; every one was ambitious of qualifying himself for it by reading ancient and modern books; memory and reflection were much more exercised. But on the introduction of gaming men likewise left of tennis, billiards, and other games of skill, and consequently became weaker and more sickly, more ignorant, less polished, and more dissipated.

'The women, who till then had commanded respect, accustomed men to treat them familiarly, by spending the whole night with them at play. They were often under the necessity of borrowing either to play, or to pay their losings; and how very ductile and complying they were to those of whom they had to borrow was well known.'

From that time gamesters swarmed all over France; they multiplied rapidly in every profession, even among the magistracy. The Cardinal de Retz tells us, in his Memoirs, that in 1650 the oldest magistrate in the parliament of Bordeaus, and one who passed for the wisest, was not ashamed to stake all his property one night at play, and that too, he adds, without risking his reputation—so general was the fury of gambling. It became very soon mixed up with the most momentous circumstances of life and affairs of the gravest importance. The States-general, or parliamentary assemblies, consisted altogether of gamblers. 'It is a game,' says Madame de Sevigne, 'it is an entertainment, a liberty-hall day and night, attracting all the world. I never before beheld the States-general of Bretagne. The States-general are decidedly a very fine thing.'

The same delightful correspondent relates that one of her amusements when she went to the court was to admire Dangeau at the card-table; and the following is the account of a gaming party at which she was present:—

'29th July, 1676.

'I went on Saturday with Villars to Versailles. I need not tell you of the queen's toilette, the mass, the dinner—you know it all; but at three o'clock the king rose from table, and he, the queen, Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle, all the princes and princesses, Madame de Montespan, all her suite, all the courtiers, all the ladies, in short, what we call the court of France, were assembled in that beautiful apartment which you know. It is divinely furnished, everything is magnificent; one does not know what it is to be too hot; we walk about here and there, and are not incommoded anywhere:—at last a table of reversi(53) gives a form to the crowd, and a place to every one. THE KING IS NEXT TO MADAME DE MONTESPAN, who deals; the Duke of Orleans, the queen, and Madame de Soubise; Dangeau and Co.; Langee and Co.; a thousand louis are poured out on the cloth—there are no other counters. I saw Dangeau play!—what fools we all are compared to him—he minds nothing but his business, and wins when every one else loses: he neglects nothing, takes advantage of everything, is never absent; in a word, his skill defies fortune, and accordingly 200,000 francs in ten days, 100,000 crowns in a fortnight, all go to his receipt book.

(53) A kind of game long since out of fashion, and now almost forgotten; it seems to have been a compound of Loo and Commerce—the Quinola or Pam was the knave of hearts.

'He was so good as to say I was a partner in his play, by which I got a very convenient and agreeable place. I saluted the king in the way you taught me, which he returned as if I had been young and handsome—I received a thousand compliments—you know what it is to have a word from everybody! This agreeable confusion without confusion lasts from three o'clock till six. If a courtier arrives, the king retires for a moment to read his letters, and returns immediately. There is always some music going on, which has a very good effect; the king listens to the music and chats to the ladies about him. At last, at six o'clock, they stop playing—they have no trouble in settling their reckonings—there are no counters—the lowest pools are five, six, seven hundred louis, the great ones a thousand, or twelve hundred; they put in five each at first, that makes one hundred, and the dealer puts in ten more—then they give four louis each to whoever has Quinola—some pass, others play, but when you play without winning the pool, you must put in sixteen to teach you how to play rashly: they talk all together, and for ever, and of everything. "How many hearts?" "Two!" "I have three!" "I have one!" "I have four!" "He has only three!" and Dangeau, delighted with all this prattle, turns up the trump, makes his calculations, sees whom he has against him, in short—in short, I was glad to see such an excess of skill. He it is who really knows "le dessous des cartes."

'At ten o'clock they get into their carriages: THE KING, MADAME DE MONTESPAN, the Duke of Orleans, and Madame de Thianges, and the good Hendicourt on the dickey, that is as if one were in the upper gallery. You know how these calashes are made.

'The queen was in another with the princesses; and then everybody else, grouped as they liked. Then they go on the water in gondolas, with music; they return at ten; the play is ready, it is over; twelve strikes, supper is brought in, and so passes Saturday.'

This lively picture of such frightful gambling, of the adulterous triumph of Madame de Montespan, and of the humiliating part to which the queen was condemned, will induce our readers to concur with Madame de Sevigne, who, amused as she had been by the scene she has described, calls it nevertheless, with her usual pure taste and good judgment, l'iniqua corte, 'the iniquitous court.'

Indeed, Madame de Sevigne had ample reason to denounce this source of her domestic misery. Writing to her son and daughter, she says:—'You lose all you play for. You have paid five or six thousand francs for your amusement, and to be abused by fortune.'

If she had at first been fascinated by the spectacle which she so glowingly describes, the interest of her children soon opened her eyes to the yawning gulf at the brink of the flowery surface.

Sometimes she explains herself plainly:—'You believe that everybody plays as honestly as yourself? Call to mind what took place lately at the Hotel de la Vieuville. Do you remember that ROBBERY?'

The favour of that court, so much coveted, seemed to her to be purchased at too high a price if it was to be gained by ruinous complaisances. She trembled every time her son left her to go to Versailles. She says:—'He tells me he is going to play with his young master;(54) I shudder at the thought. Four hundred pistoles are very easily lost: ce n'est rien pour Admete et c'est beaucoup pour lui.(55) If Dangeau is in the game he will win all the pools: he is an eagle. Then will come to pass, my daughter, all that God may vouchsafe—il en arivera, ma fille, tout ce qu'il plaira a Dieu.'

(54) The Dauphin.

(55) 'It is nothing for Admetus, but 'tis much for him.'

And again, 'The game of Hoca is prohibited at Paris UNDER THE PENALTY OF DEATH, and yet it is played at court. Five thousand pistoles before dinner is nothing. That game is a regular cut-throat.'

Hoca was prodigiously unfavourable to the players; the latter had only twenty-eight chances against thirty. In the seventeenth century this game caused such disorder at Rome that the Pope prohibited it and expelled the bankers.

The Italians whom Mazarin brought into France obtained from the king permission to set up Hoca tables in Paris. The parliament launched two edicts against them, and threatened to punish them severely. The king's edicts were equally severe. Every of offender was to be fined 1000 livres, and the person in whose house Faro, Basset, or any such game was suffered, incurred the penalty of 6000 livres for each offence. The persons who played were to be imprisoned. Gaming was forbidden the French cavalry under the penalty of death, and every commanding officer who should presume to set up a Hazard table was to be cashiered, and all concerned to be rigorously imprisoned. These penalties might show great horror of gaming, but they were too severe to be steadily inflicted, and therefore failed to repress the crime against which they were directed. The severer the law the less the likelihood of its application, and consequently its power of repression.

Madame de Sevigne had beheld the gamesters only in the presence of their master the king, or in the circles which were regulated with inviolable propriety; but what would she have said if she could have seen the gamblers at the secret suppers and in the country-houses of the Superintendent Fouquet, where twenty 'qualified' players, such as the Marshals de Richelieu, de Clairembaut, &c., assembled together, with a dash of bad company, to play for lands, houses, jewels, even for point-lace and neckties? There she would have seen something more than gold staked, since the players debased themselves so low as to circumvent certain opulent dupes, who were the first invited. To leave one hundred pistoles, ostensibly for 'the cards,' but really as the perquisite of the master of the lordly house; to recoup him when he lost; and, when they had to deal with some unimportant but wealthy individual, to undo him completely, compelling him to sign his ruin on the gaming table—such was the conduct which rendered a man recherche, and secured the title of a fine player!

It was precisely thus that the famous (or infamous) Gourville, successively valet-de-chambre to the Duc de la Rochefoucault, hanged in effigy at Paris, king's envoy in Germany, and afterwards proposed to replace Colbert—it was thus precisely, I say, that Gourville secured favour, 'consideration,' fortune; for he declares, in his Memoirs, that his gains in a few years amounted to more than a million. And fortune seems to have cherished and blessed him throughout his detestable career. After having made his fortune, he retired to write the scandalous Memoirs from which I have been quoting, and died out of debt!(56)

(56) Mem. de Gourville, i.

France became too narrow a theatre for the chevaliers d'industrie and all who were a prey to the fury of gambling. The Count de Grammont, a very suspicious player, turned his talents to account in England, Italy, and Spain.

This same Count de Grammont figured well at court on one occasion when Louis XIV. seemed inclined to cheat or otherwise play unfairly. Playing at backgammon, and having a doubtful throw, a dispute arose, and the surrounding courtiers remained silent. The Count de Grammont happening to come in, the king desired him to decide it. He instantly answered—'Sire, your Majesty is in the wrong.' 'How,' said the king, 'can you decide before you know the question?' 'Because,' replied the count, 'had there been any doubt, all these gentlemen would have given it in favour of your Majesty.' The plain inference is that this (at the time) great world's idol and Voltaire's god, was 'up to a little cheating.' It was, however, as much to the king's credit that he submitted to the decision, as it was to that of the courtier who gave him such a lesson.

The magnanimity of Louis XIV. was still more strikingly shown on another gambling occasion. Very high play was going on at the cardinal's, and the Chevalier de Rohan lost a vast sum to the king. The agreement was to pay only in louis d'ors; and the chevalier, after counting out seven or eight hundred, proposed to continue the payment in Spanish pistoles. 'You promised me louis d'ors, and not pistoles,' said the king. 'Since your Majesty refuses them,' replied the chevalier, 'I don't want them either;' and thereupon he flung them out of the window. The king got angry, and complained to Mazarin, who replied:—'The Chevalier de Rohan has played the king, and you the Chevalier de Rohan.' The king acquiesced.(57)

(57) Mem. et Reflex., &e., par M. L. M. L. F. (the Marquis de la Fare).

As before stated, the court of the Roman Emperor Augustus, in spite of the many laws enacted against gambling, diffused the frenzy through Rome; in like manner the court of Louis XIV., almost in the same circumstances, infected Paris and the entire kingdom with the vice.

There is this difference between the French monarch and the Roman emperor, that the latter did not teach his successors to play against the people, whereas Louis, after having denounced gaming, and become almost disgusted with it, finished with established lotteries. High play was always the etiquette at court, but the sittings became less frequent and were abridged. 'The king,' says Madame de Sevigne, 'has not given over playing, but the sittings are not so long.'

LOUIS XV.—At the death of Louis XIV. three-fourths of the nation thought of nothing but gambling. Gambling, indeed, became itself an object of speculation, in consequence of the establishment and development of lotteries—the first having been designed to celebrate the restoration of peace and the marriage of Louis XIV.

The nation seemed all mad with the excitement of play. During the minority of Louis XV. a foreign gamester, the celebrated Scotchman, John Law, having become Controller-General of France, undertook to restore the finances of the nation by making every man a player or gamester. He propounded a SYSTEM; he established a bank, which nearly upset the state; and seduced even those who had escaped the epidemic of games of chance. He was finally expelled like a foul fog; but they ought to have hanged him as a deliberate corrupter. And yet this is the man of whom Voltaire wrote as follows: 'We are far from evincing the gratitude which is due to John Law.(58) Voltaire's praise was always as suspicious as his blame. Just let us consider the tendency of John Law's 'system.' However general may be the fury of gambling, EVERYBODY does not gamble; certain professions impose a certain restraint, and their members would blush to resort to games the turpitude of which would subject them to unanimous condemnation. But only change the NAMES of these games—only change their FORM, and let the bait be presented under the sanction of the legislature: then, although the THING be not less vicious, nor less repugnant to true principle, then we witness the gambling ardour of savages, such as we have described it, manifesting itself with more risk, and communicated to the entire nation—the ministers of the altar, the magistracy, the members of every profession, fathers, mothers of families, without distinction of rank, means, or duties.... Let this short generalization be well pondered, and the conclusion must be reached that this Scotch adventurer, John Law, was guilty of the crime of treason against humanity.

(57) Nous sommes loin de la reconnoissance qui est due a Jean Law. Mel. de Litt., d'Hist., &c. ii.

John Law, whom the French called Jean Lass, opened a gulf into which half the nation eagerly poured its money. Fortunes were made in a few days—in a few HOURS. Many were enriched by merely lending their signatures. A sudden and horrible revolution amazed the entire people—like the bursting of a bomb-shell or an incendiary explosion. Six hundred thousand of the best families, who had taken PAPER on the faith of the government, lost, together with their fortunes, their offices and appointments, and were almost annihilated. Some of the stock-jobbers escaped; others were compelled to disgorge their gains—although they stoutly and, it must be admitted, consistently appealed to the sanction of the court.

Oddly enough, whilst the government made all France play at this John Law game—the most seductive and voracious that ever existed—some thirty or forty persons were imprisoned for having broken the laws enacted against games of chance!

It may be somewhat consolatory to know that the author of so much calamity did not long enjoy his share of the infernal success—the partition of a people's ruin. After extorting so many millions, this famous gambler was reduced to the necessity of selling his last diamond in order to raise money to gamble on.

This great catastrophe, the commotion of which was felt even in Holland and in England, was the last sigh of true honour among the French. Probity received a blow. Public morality was abashed. More gaming houses than ever were opened, and then it was that they received the name of Enfers, or 'Hells,' by which they were designated in England. 'The greater number of those who go to the watering-places,' writes a contemporary, 'under the pretext of health, only go after gamesters. In the States-general it is less the interest of the people than the attraction of terrible gambling, that brings together a portion of the nobility. The nature of the play may be inferred from the name of the place at which it takes place in one of the provinces—namely, Enfer. This salon, so appropriately called, was in the Hotel of the king's commissioners in Bretagne. I have been told that a gentleman, to the great disgust of the noblemen present, and even of the bankers, actually offered to stake his sword.

'This name of Enfers has been given to several gaming houses, some them situated in the interior of Paris, others in the environs.

'People no longer blush, as did Caligula, at gambling on their return from the funeral of their relatives or friends. A gamester, returning from the burial of his brother, where he had exhibited the signs of profound grief, played and won a considerable sum of money. "How do you feel now?" he was asked. "A little better," he replied, "this consoles me."

'All is excitement whilst I write. Without mentioning the base deeds that have been committed, I have counted four suicides and a great crime.

'Besides the licensed gaming houses, new ones are furtively established in the privileged mansions of the ambassadors and representatives of foreign courts. Certain chevaliers d'industrie recently proposed to a gentleman of quality, who had just been appointed plenipotentiary, to hire an hotel for him, and to pay the expenses, on condition that he would give up to them an apartment and permit them to have valets wearing his livery! This base proposal was rejected with contempt, because the Baron de —— is one of the most honourable and enlightened men of the age.

'The most difficult bargains are often amicably settled by a game. I have seen persons gaming whilst taking a walk and whilst travelling in their carriages. People game at the doors of the theatres; of course they gamble for the price of the ticket. In every possible manner, and in every situation, the true gamester strives to turn every instant to profit.

'If I relate what I have seen in the matter of play during sleep, it will be difficult to understand me. A gamester, exhausted by fatigue, could not give up playing because he was a loser; so he requested his adversary to play for him with his left hand, whilst he dozed off and slept! Strange to say, the left hand of his adversary incessantly won, whilst he snored to the sound of the dice!

'I have just read in a newspaper,(59) that two Englishmen, who left their country to fight a duel in a foreign land, nevertheless played at the highest stakes on the voyage; and having arrived on the field, one of them laid a wager that he would kill his adversary. It is stated that the spectators of the affair looked upon it as a gaming transaction.

(59) Journal de Politique, Dec. 15, 1776.

'In speaking of this affair I was told of a German, who, being compelled to fight a duel on account of a quarrel at the gaming table, allowed his adversary to fire at him. He was missed.

He said to his opponent, "I never miss. I bet you a hundred ducats that I break your right or left arm, just as you please." The bet was taken, and he won.

'I have found cards and dice in many places where people were in want of bread. I have seen the merchant and the artisan staking gold by handfuls. A small farmer has just gamed away his harvest, valued at 3000 francs.'(60)

(60) Dusaulx, De la Passion du Jeu, 1779.

Gaming houses in Paris were first licensed in 1775, by the lieutenant of police, Sartines, who, to diminish the odium of such establishments, decreed that the profit resulting from them should be applied to the foundation of hospitals. Their number soon amounted to twelve; and women were allowed to resort to them two days in the week. Besides the licensed establishments, several illegal ones were tolerated, and especially styled enfers, or 'hells.'

Gaming having been found prolific in misfortunes and crimes, was prohibited in 1778; but it was still practised at the court and in the hotels of ambassadors, where police-officers could not enter. By degrees the public establishments resumed their wonted activity, and extended their pernicious effects. The numerous suicides and bankruptcies which they occasioned attracted the attention of the Parlement, who drew up regulations for their observance, and threatened those who violated them with the pillory and whipping. The licensed houses, as well as those recognized, however, still continued their former practices, and breaches of the regulations were merely visited with trivial punishment.

At length, the passion for play prevailing in the societies established in the Palais Royal, under the title of clubs or salons, a police ordinance was issued in 1785, prohibiting them from gaming. In 1786, fresh disorder having arisen in the unlicensed establishments, additional prohibiting measures were enforced. During the Revolution the gaming-houses were frequently prosecuted, and licenses withheld; but notwithstanding the rigour of the laws and the vigilance of the police, they still contrived to exist.

LOUIS XVI. TILL THE PRESENT TIME.—In the general corruption of morals, which rose to its height during the reign of Louis XVI., gambling kept pace with, if it did not outstrip, every other licentiousness of that dismal epoch.(61) Indeed, the universal excitement of the nation naturally tended to develope every desperate passion of our nature; and that the revolutionary troubles and agitation of the empire helped to increase the gambling propensity of the French, is evident from the magnitude of the results on record.

(61) It will be seen in the sequel that gambling was vastly increased in England by the French 'emigres' who sought refuge among us, bringing with them all their vices, unchastened by misfortune.

Fouche, the minister of police, derived an income of L128,000 a year for licensing or 'privileging' gaming houses, to which cards of address were regularly furnished.

Besides what the 'farmers' of the gaming houses paid to Fouche, they were compelled to hire and pay 120,000 persons, employed in those houses as croupiers or attendants at the gaming table, from half-a-crown to half-a-guinea a day; and all these 120,000 persons were SPIES OF FOUCHE! A very clever idea no doubt it was, thus to draw a revenue from the proceeds of a vice, and use the institution for the purposes of government; but, perhaps, as Rousseau remarks, 'it is a great error in domestic as well as civil economy to wish to combat one vice by another, or to form between them a sort of equilibrium, as if that which saps the foundations of order can ever serve to establish it.'(62) A minister of the Emperor Theodosius II., in the year 431, the virtuous Florentius, in order to teach his master that it was wrong to make the vices contribute to the State, because such a procedure authorizes them, gave to the public treasury one of his lands the revenue of which equalled the product of the annual tax levied on prostitution.(63)

(62) Nouv. Heloise, t. iv.

(63) Novel. Theodos. 18.

After the restoration of the Bourbons, it became quite evident that play in the Empire had been quite as Napoleonic in its vigour and dimensions as any other 'idea' of the epoch.

The following detail of the public gaming tables of Paris was published in a number of the Bibliotheque Historique, 1818, under the title of 'Budget of Public Games.'

STATE OF THE ANNUAL EXPENSES OF THE GAMES OF PARIS.

These 20 Tables are divided into nine houses, four of which are situated in the Palais Royal.

To serve the seven tables of Trente-et-un, there are:—francs 28 Dealers, at 550 fr. a month, making . . . . 15,400 28 Croupiers, at 380. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,640 42 Assistants, at 200. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,400

SERVICE FOR THE NINE ROULETTES AND ONE PASSE-DIX.

80 Dealers, at 275 fr. a month . . . . . . . . 22,000 60 Assistants, at 150. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,000

SERVICE OF THE CRAPS, BIRIBI, AND HAZARD, 12 Dealers, at 300 fr. a month. . . . . . . . . 3,600 12 Inspectors, at 120 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,440 10 Aids, at 100. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,000 6 Chefs de Partie at the principal houses, at 700 fr. a month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,200

3 Chefs de Partie for the Roulettes, at 500 fr. a month. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,500 20 Secret Inspectors, at 200 fr. a month. . . . . .4,000 1 Inspector-General, at . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,000 130 Waiters, at 75 fr. a month. . . . . . . . . . .9,750 Cards a month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,500 Beer and refreshments, a month. . . . . . . . . . .3,000 Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,500 Refreshment for the grand saloon, including two dinners every week, per month . . . . . . . . . 12,000 Total expense of each month . . . .113,930 ————- Multiplied by twelve, is. . . . . . . . . . . .1,367,160 Rent of 10 Houses, per annum. . . . . . . . . . .130,000 Expense of Offices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50,000 ————- Total per annum. . . . . . . . . 1,547,160 If the 'privilege' or license is . . . . . . . 6,000,000 If a bonus of a million is given for six years, the sixth part, or one year, will be . . . . . . . 166,666

————- Total expenditure . . . . . . . .7,713,826 The profits are estimated at, per month,. . . . .800,000 ————- Which yield, per annum, . . . . . . . . . . . .9,600,000 Deducting the expenditure . . . . . . . . . . .7,713,826 ————- The annual profits are. . . . . . . . . . . fr.1,886,174 ————- Thus giving the annual profit at L7860 sterling.

We omit the profits resulting from the watering-places, amounting to fr. 200,000.

One of the new conditions imposed on the Paris gaming houses is the exclusion of females.

Thus, at Paris, the Palais Royal, Frascati, and numerous other places, presented gaming houses, whither millions of wretches crowded in search of fortune, but, for the most part, to find only ruin or even death by suicide or duelling, so often resulting from quarrels at the gaming table.

This state of things was, however, altered in the year 1836, at the proposition of M. B. Delessert, and all the gaming houses were ordered to be closed from the 1st of January, 1838, so that the present gambling in France is on the same footing as gambling in England,—utterly prohibited, but carried on in secret.



CHAPTER VI. THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND.

It seems that the rise of modern gaming in England may be dated from the year 1777 or 1778.

Before this time gaming appears never to have assumed an alarming aspect. The methodical system of partnership, enabling men to embark large capital in gambling establishments, was unknown; though from that period this system became the special characteristic of the pursuit among all classes of the community.

The development of the evil was a subject of great concern to thoughtful men, and one of these, in the year 1784, put forth a pamphlet, which seems to give 'the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.'(64)

(64) The pamphlet (in the Library of the British Museum) is entitled:—'Hints for a Reform, particularly of the Gaming Clubs. By a Member of Parliament. 1784.'

'About thirty years ago,' says this writer, 'there was but one club in the metropolis. It was regulated and respectable. There were few of the members who betted high. Such stakes at present would be reckoned very low indeed. There were then assemblies once a week in most of the great houses. An agreeable society met at seven o'clock; they played for crowns or half-crowns; and reached their own houses about eleven.

'There was but one lady who gamed deeply, and she was viewed in the light of a phenomenon. Were she now to be asked her real opinion of those friends who were her former PLAY-fellows, there can be no doubt but that they rank very low in her esteem.

'In the present era of vice and dissipation, how many females attend the card-tables! What is the consequence? The effects are too clearly to be traced to the frequent DIVORCES which have lately disgraced our country, and they are too visible in the shameful conduct of many ladies of fashion, since gambling became their chief amusement.

'There is now no society. The routs begin at midnight. They are painful and troublesome to the lady who receives company, and they are absolutely a nuisance to those who are honoured with a card of invitation. It is in vain to attempt conversation. The social pleasures are entirely banished, and those who have any relish for them, or who are fond of early hours, are necessarily excluded. Such are the companies of modern times, and modern people of fashion. Those who are not invited fly to the Gaming Clubs—

"To kill their idle hours and cure ennui!"

'To give an account of the present encumbered situation of many families, whose property was once large and ample, would fill a volume. Whence spring the difficulties which every succeeding day increases? From the GAMBLING CLUBS. Why are they continually hunted by their creditors? The reply is—the GAMBLING CLUBS. Why are they obliged continually to rack their invention in order to save appearances? The answer still is—the GAMBLING CLUBS!

'The father frequently ruins his children; and sons, and even grandsons, long before the succession opens to them, are involved so deeply that during their future lives their circumstances are rendered narrow; and they have rank or family honours, without being able to support them.

'How many infamous villains have amassed immense estates, by taking advantage of unfortunate young men, who have been first seduced and then ruined by the Gambling Clubs!

'It is well known that the old members of those gambling societies exert every nerve to enlist young men of fortune; and if we take a view of the principal estates on this island, we shall find many infamous CHRISTIAN brokers who are now living luxuriously and in splendour on the wrecks of such unhappy victims.

'At present, when a boy has learned a little from his father's example, he is sent to school, to be INITIATED. In the course of a few years he acquires a profound knowledge of the science of gambling, and before he leaves the University he is perfectly fitted for a member of the GAMING CLUBS, into which he is elected before he takes his seat in either House of Parliament. There is no necessity for his being of age, as the sooner he is ballotted for, the more advantageous his admission will prove to the OLD members.

'Scarcely is the hopeful youth enrolled among these HONOURABLE associates, than he is introduced to Jews, to annuity-brokers, and to the long train of money-lenders. They take care to answer his pecuniary calls, and the greater part of the night and morning is consumed at the CLUB. To his creditors and tradesmen, instead of paying his bills, he offers a BOND or ANNUITY. He rises just time enough to ride to Kensington Gardens; returns to dress; dines late; and then attends the party of gamblers, as he had done the night before, unless he allows himself to be detained for a few moments by the newspaper, or some political publication.

'Such do we find the present fashionable style of life, from "his Grace" to the "Ensign" in the Guards. Will this mode of education rear up heroes, to lead forth our armies, or to conduct our fleets to victory? Review the conduct of your generals abroad, and of your statesmen at home, during the late unfortunate war, and these questions are answered.(65)

(65) Of course this is an allusion to the American War of Independence and the political events at home, from 1774 to 1784.

'At present, tradesmen must themselves be gamblers before they give credit to a member of these clubs; but if a reform succeeds they will be placed in a state of security. At present they must make REGULAR families pay an enormous price for their goods, to enable them to run the risk of never receiving a single shilling from their gambling customers.'

Such is the picture of the times in question, drawn by a contemporary; and it may be said that private reckless and unscrupulous political machinations were the springs and fountains of all the calamities that subsequently overflowed, as it were, the 'opening of the seals' of doom upon the nation.

Notwithstanding the purity of morals enjoined by the court of George III., the early part of his reign presents a picture of dissolute manners as well as of furious party spirit. The most fashionable of our ladies of rank were immersed in play, or devoted to politics: the same spirit carried them into both. The Sabbath was disregarded, spent often in cards, or desecrated by the meetings of partisans of both factions; moral duties were neglected and decorum outraged. The fact was, that a minor court had become the centre of all the bad passions and reprehensible pursuits in vogue. Carlton House, in Pall Mall, which even the oldest of us can barely remember, with its elegant open screen, the pillars in front, its low exterior, its many small rooms, its decorations in vulgar taste, and, to crown the whole, its associations of a corrupting revelry,—Carlton House was, in the days of good King George, almost as great a scandal to the country as Whitehall in the time of improper King Charles II.(66) The influence which the example of a young prince, of manners eminently popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm was most disastrous in every way and ruinous to public morality.

(66) Wharton, 'The Queens of Society.' Mem. of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

After that period, the vast license given to those abominable engines of fraud, the E.O. tables,(67) and the great length of time which elapsed before they met with any check from the police, afforded a number of dissolute and abandoned characters an opportunity of acquiring property. This they afterwards increased in the low gaming houses, and by following up the same system at Newmarket and the other fashionable places of resort, and finally by means of the lottery, that mode of insensate gambling; till at length they acquired a sum of money nothing short of ONE MILLION STERLING.

(67) So called from the letters E and O, the turning up of which decided the bet. They were otherwise called Roulette and Roly Poly, from the balls used in them. They seem to have been introduced in England about the year 1739. The first was set up at Tunbridge and proved extremely profitable to the proprietors.

This enormous wealth was then used as an efficient capital in carrying on various illegal establishments, particularly gaming houses, the expenses of a first-rate house being L7000 per annum, which were again employed as the means of increasing these ill-gotten riches.

The system was progressive but steady in its development. Several of these conspicuous members of the world of fashion, rolling in their gaudy carriages and associating with men of high rank and influence, might be found on the registers of the Old Bailey, or had been formerly occupied in turning, with their own hands, E.O. tables in the public streets.

The following Queries, which are extracted from the Morning Post of July the 5th, 1797, throw considerable light upon this curious subject, and show how seriously the matter was regarded when so public a denunciation was deemed necessary and ventured upon:—

'Is Mr Ogden (now the Newmarket oracle) the same person who, five-and-twenty years since, was an annual pedestrian to Ascot, covered with dust, amusing himself with "PRICKING in the belt," "HUSTLING in the hat," &c., among the lowest class of rustics, at the inferior booths of the fair?

'Is D-k-y B—n who now has his snug farm, the same person who, some years since, DROVE A POST CHAISE for T—y, of Bagshot, could neither read nor write, and was introduced to THE FAMILY only by his pre-eminence at cribbage?

'Is Mr Twycross (with his phaeton) the same person who some years since became a bankrupt in Tavistock Street, immediately commenced the Man of Fashion at Bath, kept running horses, &c., secundum artem?

'Is Mr Phillips (who has now his town and country house, in the most fashionable style) the same who was originally a linen-draper and bankrupt at Salisbury, and who made his first family entre in the metropolis, by his superiority at Billiards (with Captain Wallace, Orrell, &c.) at Cropley's, in Bow Street?

'Was poor carbuncled P—e (so many years the favourite decoy duck of THE FAMILY) the very barber of Oxford, who, in the midst of the operation upon a gentleman's face, laid down his razor, swearing that he would never shave another man so long as he lived, and immediately became the hero of the card table, the bones, the box, and the Cockpit?'

Capital was not the only qualification for admission into the Confederacy of Gambling. Some of the members were taken into partnership on account of their dexterity in 'securing' dice or 'dealing' cards. One is said to have been actually a sharer in every 'Hell' at the West-End of the Town, because he was feared as much as he was detested by the firms, who had reason to know that he would 'peach' if not kept quiet. Informers against the illegal and iniquitous associations were arrested and imprisoned upon writs, obtained by perjury—to deter others from similar attacks; witnesses were suborned; officers of justice bribed; ruffians and bludgeon-men employed, where gratuities failed; personal violence and even assassination threatened to all who dared to expose the crying evil—among others, to Stockdale, the well-known publisher of the day, in Piccadilly.

Then came upon the nation the muddy flood of French emigrants, poured forth by the Great Revolution—a set of men, speaking generally, whose vices contaminated the very atmosphere.

Before the advent of these worthies the number of gambling houses in the metropolis, exclusive of those so long established by subscription, was not more than half-a-dozen; but by the year 1820 they had increased to nearly fifty. Besides Faro and Hazard, the foreign games of Macao, Roulette, Rouge et Noir, &c., were introduced, and there was a graduated accommodation for all ranks, from the Peer of the Realm to the Highwayman, the Burglar, and the Pick et.

At one of the watering-places, in 1803, a baronet lost L20,000 at play, and a bond for L7000. This will scarcely surprise us when we consider that at the time above five hundred notorious characters supported themselves in the metropolis by this species of robbery, and in the summer spread themselves through the watering-places for their professional operations. Some of them kept bankers, and were possessed of considerable property in the funds and in land, and went their circuits as regularly as the judges. Most excellent judges they were, too, of the condition of a 'pigeon.'

In a great commercial city where, from the extent of its trade, manufacture, and revenue, there must be an immense circulation of property, the danger is not to be conceived of the allurements which were thus held out to young men in business having the command of money, as well as the clerks of merchants, bankers, and others. In fact, too many of this class proved, at the bar of justice, the consequence of their resort to these complicated scenes of vice, idleness, extravagance, misfortune, and crime. Among innumerable instances are the following:—In 1796, a shopman to a grocer in the city was seduced into a gaming party, where he first lost all his own money, and ultimately what his master had intrusted him with. He hanged himself in his bed-room a few hours afterwards.

In the same year, Lord Kenyon in summing up a case of the kind said:—'It was extremely to be lamented that the vice of gambling had descended to the very lowest orders of the people. It was prevalent among the highest ranks of society, who had set the example to their inferiors, and who, it seemed, were too great for the law. I wish they could be punished. If any prosecutions are fairly brought before me, and the parties are justly convicted, whatever may be their rank or station in the country—though they should be the first ladies in the land—they shall certainly exhibit themselves in the pillory.'

In 1820, James Lloyd, one of the harpies who practised on the credulity of the lower orders by keeping a Little Go, or illegal lottery, was brought up for the twentieth time, to answer for that offence. This man was a methodist preacher, and assembled his neighbours together at his dwelling on a Saturday to preach the gospel to them, and the remainder of the week he was to be found, with an equally numerous party, instructing them in the ruinous vice of gambling. The charge was clearly proved, and the prisoner was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour.

In the same year numbers of young persons robbed their masters to play at a certain establishment called Morley's Gambling House, in the City, and were ruined there. Some were brought to justice at the Old Bailey; others, in the madness caused by their losses, destroyed themselves; and some escaped to other countries, by their own activity, or through the influence of their friends.

A traveller of the coachmakers, Messrs Houlditch of Long Acre, embezzled or applied to his own use considerable sums of money belonging to them. It appeared in evidence that the prisoner was sent by his employers to the Continent to take orders for carriages; he was allowed a handsome salary, and was furnished with carriages for sale. The money he received for them he was to send to his employers, after deducting his expenses; but instead of so doing, he gambled nearly the whole of it away. The following letter to his master was put in by way of explanation of his career:—'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 dishonoured. 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 treble 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 such success at Vienna as would enable me to state 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 re-imbursing 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 3000 francs, which I received before you came to Paris, furnished me with the means—my death speaks the result! After robbery so base as mine, I fear it will be of no use for me to solicit your kindness for my wretched wife and forlorn family. Oh, Sir, if you have pity on them and treat them kindly, and do not leave them to perish in a foreign land, the consciousness of the act will cheer you in your last moments, and God will reward you and yours for it tenfold. Their sensibilities will not cause them to need human aid. Thus I shall be threefold the murderer. I thank you for the kindness you have rendered me; and I assure your brother that he has, in this dreadful moment, my ardent wishes for his welfare here and hereafter. I have so contrived it that you will see a person at the Prince's tomorrow, who will interpret for you. In mentioning my fate to him, you will not much serve your own interest by blackening my character and memory. I subjoin the reward of my villainies and the correct balance of the account. Count Edmond's regular bills I have not received; his valet will give you them; the others are in a pocket-book, which will be found on my corpse somewhere in the wood of Boulogne.

'Signed, W. KINSBY.'

It appears, however, that the gentleman changed his mind and did not commit suicide, but surrendered at the Insolvent Debtor's Court to be dealt with according to law, which was a much wiser resolution.

To the games of Faro, Hazard, Macao, Doodle-do, and Rouge et Noir, more even than to horse-racing, many tradesmen, once possessing good fortunes and great business, owed their destruction. Thousands upon thousands have been ruined in the vicinity of St James's. It was not confined to youths of fortune only, but the decent and respectable tradesman, as well as the dashing clerk of the merchant and banker, was ingulfed in its vortes.

The proprietors of gaming houses were also concerned in fraudulent insurances, and employed a number of clerks while the lotteries were drawing, who conducted the business without risk, in counting-houses, where no insurances were taken, but to which books were carried, as well as from the different offices in every part of the town, as from the Morocco-men, who went from door to door taking insurances and enticing the poor and middling ranks to adventure.

It was gambling, and not the burdens of the long war, nor the revulsion from war to peace, that made so many bankruptcies in the few years succeeding the Battle of Waterloo. It was the plunderers at gaming tables that filled the gazettes and made the gaols overflow with so many victims.

A foreigner has advanced an opinion as to the source of the gambling propensity of Englishmen. 'The English,' says M. Dunne,(68) 'the most speculative nation on earth, calculate even upon future contingences. Nowhere else is the adventurous rage for stock-jobbing carried on to so great an extent. The fury of gambling, so common in England, is undoubtedly a daughter of this speculative genius. The Greeks of Great Britain are, however, much inferior to those of France in cunning and industry. A certain Frenchman who assumed in London the title and manners of a baron, has been known to surpass all the most dexterous rogues of the three kingdoms in the art of robbing. His aide-de-camp was a kind of German captain, or rather chevalier d'industrie, a person who had acted the double character of a French spy and an English officer at the same time. Their tactics being at length discovered, the baron was obliged to quit the country; and he is said to have afterwards entered the monastery of La Trappe,' where doubtless, in the severe and gloomy religious practices of that terrible penitentiary, he atoned for his past enormities.

(68) 'Refexions sur l'Homme.'

'Till near the commencement of the present century the favourite game was Faro, and as it was a decided advantage to hold the Bank, masters and mistresses, less scrupulous than Wilberforce, frequently volunteered to fleece and amuse the company. But scandal having made busy with the names of some of them, it became usual to hire a professed gamester at five or ten guineas a night, to set up a table for the evening, just as any operatic professional might now-a-days be hired for a concert, or a band-master for a ball.

'Faro gradually dropped out of fashion; Macao took its place; Hazard was never wanting; and Whist began to be played for stakes which would have satisfied Fox himself, who, though it was calculated that he might have netted four or five thousand a year by games of skill, complained that they afforded no excitement.

'Wattier's Club, in Piccadilly, was the resort of the Macao players. It was kept by an old maitre d'hotel of George IV., a character in his way, who took a just pride in the cookery and wines of his establishment.

'All the brilliant stars of fashion (and fashion was power then) frequented Wattier's, with Beau Brummell for their sun. 'Poor Brummell, dead, in misery and idiotcy, at Caen! and I remember him in all his glory, cutting his jokes after the opera, at White's, in a black velvet great-coat, and a cocked hat on his well-powdered head.

'Nearly the same turn of reflection is suggested as we run over the names of his associates. Almost all of them were ruined—three out of four irretrievably. Indeed, it was the forced expatriation of its supporters that caused the club to be broken up.

'During the same period (from 1810 to 1815 or thereabouts) there was a great deal of high play at White's and Brookes', particularly at Whist. At Brookes' figured some remarkable characters—as Tippoo Smith, by common consent the best Whist-player of his day; and an old gentleman nicknamed Neptune, from his having once flung himself into the sea in a fit of despair at being, as he thought, ruined. He was fished out in time, found he was not ruined, and played on during the remainder of his life.

'The most distinguished player at White's was the nobleman who was presented at the Salons in Paris as Le Wellington des Joueurs (Lord Rivers); and he richly merited the name, if skill, temper, and the most daring courage are titles to it. The greatest genius, however, is not infallible. He once lost three thousand four hundred pounds at Whist by not remembering that the seven of hearts was in! He played at Hazard for the highest stakes that any one could be got to play for with him, and at one time was supposed to have won nearly a hundred thousand pounds; but IT ALL WENT, along with a great deal more, at Crockford's.

'There was also a great deal of play at Graham's, the Union, the Cocoa Tree, and other clubs of the second order in point of fashion. Here large sums were hazarded with equal rashness, and remarkable characters started up. Among the most conspicuous was the late Colonel Aubrey, who literally passed his life at play. He did nothing else, morning, noon, and night; and it was computed that he had paid more than sixty thousand pounds for card-money. He was a very fine player at all games, and a shrewd, clever man. He had been twice to India and made two fortunes. It was said that he lost the first on his way home, transferred himself from one ship to another without landing, went back, and made the second. His life was a continual alternation between poverty and wealth; and he used to say, the greatest pleasure in life is winning at cards—the next greatest, losing!

'For several years deep play went on at all these clubs, fluctuating both as to amount and locality, till by degrees it began to flag. It had got to a low ebb when Mr Crockford came to London and established the celebrated club which bore his name.

'Some good was certainly produced by the system. In the first place, private gambling (between gentleman and gentleman), with its degrading incidents, is at an end. In the second place, this very circumstance brings the worst part of the practice within the reach of the law. Public gambling, which only existed by and through what were popularly termed hells, might be easily suppressed. There were, in 1844, more than twenty of these establishments in Pall Mall, Piccadilly, and St James's, called into existence by Crockford's success.'(69)

(69) Private MS. (Edinburgh Review, vol. LXXX).

Whilst such was the state of things among the aristocracy and those who were able to consort with them, it seems that the lower orders were pursuing 'private gambling,' in their 'ungenteel' fashion, to a very sad extent. In 1834 a writer in the 'Quarterly' speaks as follows:—

'Doncaster, Epsom, Ascot, and Warwick, and most of our numerous race-grounds and race-towns, are scenes of destructive and universal gambling among the lower orders, which our absurdly lax police never attempt to suppress; and yet, without the slightest approach to an improperly harsh interference with the pleasures of the people, the Roulette and E.O. tables, which plunder the peasantry at these places for the benefit of travelling sharpers (certainly equally respectable with some bipeds of prey who drive coroneted cabs near St James's), might be put down by any watchful magistrate.'(70)

(70) Quarterly Review, vol. LII.

I fear that something similar may be suggested at the present day, as to the same notorious localities.

Mr Sala, writing some years ago on gambling in England, said:—

'The passion for gambling is, I believe, innate; but there is, happily, a very small percentage of the population who are born with a propensity for high play. We are speculative and eagerly commercial; but it is rare to discover among us that inveterate love for gambling, as gambling, which you may find among the Italians, the South American Spaniards, the Russians, and the Poles. Moro, Baccara, Tchuka—these are games at which continental peasants will wager and lose their little fields, their standing crops, their harvest in embryo, their very wives even. The Americans surpass us in the ardour of their propitiation of the gambling goddess, and on board the Mississippi steamboats, an enchanting game, called Poker, is played with a delirium of excitement, whose intensity can only be imagined by realizing that famous bout at "catch him who can," which took place at the horticultural fete immortalized by Mr Samuel Foote, comedian, at which was present the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, the festivities continuing till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of the company's boots.

'When I was a boy, not so very long—say twenty years—since, the West-end of London swarmed with illicit gambling houses, known by a name I will not offend your ears by repeating.

On every race-course there was a public gambling booth and an abundance of thimble-riggers' stalls. These, I am happy to state, exist no longer; and the fools who are always ready to be plucked, can only, in gambling, fall victims to the commonest and coarsest of swindlers; skittle sharps, beer-house rogues and sharpers, and knaves who travel to entrap the unwary in railway carriages with loaded dice, marked cards, and little squares of green baize for tables, and against whom the authorities of the railway companies very properly warn their passengers. A notorious gambling house in St James's Street—Crockford's,—where it may be said, without exaggeration, that millions of pounds sterling have been diced away by the fools of fashion, is now one of the most sumptuous and best conducted dining establishments in London—the "Wellington." The semipatrician Hades that were to be found in the purlieus of St James's, such as the "Cocoa Tree," the "Berkeley," and the "stick-shop," at the corner of Albemarle Street—a whole Pandemonium of rosewood and plate-glass dens—never recovered from a razzia made on them simultaneously one night by the police, who were organized on a plan of military tactics, and under the command of Inspector Beresford; and at a concerted signal assailed the portals of the infamous places with sledge-hammers. At the time to which I refer, in Paris, the Palais Royal, and the environs of the Boulevards des Italiens, abounded with magnificent gambling rooms similar to those still in existence in Hombourg, which were regularly licensed by the police, and farmed under the municipality of the Ville de Paris; a handsome per-centage of the iniquitous profits being paid towards the charitable institutions of the French metropolis. There are very many notabilities of the French Imperial Court, who were then fermiers des jeux, or gambling house contractors; and only a year or two since Doctor Louis Veron, ex-dealer in quack medicines, ex-manager of the Grand Opera, and ex-proprietor of the "Constitutionnel" newspaper, offered an enormous royalty to Government for the privilege of establishing a gambling house in Paris. But the Emperor Napoleon—all ex-member of Crockford's as he is—sensibly declined the tempting bait. A similarly "generous" offer was made last year to the Belgian Government by a joint-stock company who wanted to establish public gaming tables at the watering-places of Ostend, and who offered to establish an hospital from their profits; but King Leopold, the astute proprietor of Claremont, was as prudent as his Imperial cousin of France, and refused to soil his hands with cogged dice.

The lease of the Paris authorized gaming houses expired in 1836-7; and the municipality, albeit loath to lose the fat annual revenue, was induced by governmental pressure not to renew it; and it is asserted that from that moment the number of annual suicides in Paris very sensibly decreased. "It is not generally known," as the penny-a-liners say, "that the Rev. Caleb Colton, a clergyman of the Church of England, and the author of "Lacon," a book replete with aphoristic wisdom, blew his brains out in the forest of St Germains, after ruinous losses at Frascati's, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu and the Boulevards, one of the most noted of the Maisons des Jeux, and which was afterwards turned into a restaurant, and is now a shawl-shop.(71) Just before the revolution of 1848, nearly all the watering-places in the Prusso-Rhenane provinces, and in Bavaria, and Hesse, Nassau, and Baden, contained Kursaals, where gambling was openly carried on. These existed at Aix-la-Chapelle, Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Ems, Kissengen, and at Spa, close to the Prussian frontier, in Belgium. It is due to the fierce democrats who revolted against the monarchs of the defunct Holy Alliance, to say that they utterly swept away the gambling-tables in Rhenish-Prussia, and in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Herr Hecker, of the red republican tendencies, and the astounding wide-awake hat, particularly distinguished himself in the latter place by his iconoclastic animosity to Roulette and Rouge et Noir. When dynastic "order" was restored the Rhine gaming tables were re-established. The Prussian Government, much to its honour, has since shut up the gambling houses at that resort for decayed nobility and ruined livers, Aix-la-Chapelle. A motion was made in the Federal Diet, sitting at Frankfort, to constrain the smaller governments, in the interest of the Germanic good name generally, to close their tripots, and in some measure the Federal authorities succeeded. The only existing continental gaming houses authorized by government are now the two Badens, Spa (of which the lease is nearly expired, and will not be renewed), Monaco (capital of the ridiculous little Italian principality, of which the suzerain is a scion of the house of "Grimaldi"), Malmoe, in Sweden, too remote to do much harm, and HOMBOURG. This last still flourishes greatly, and I am afraid is likely to flourish, though happily in isolation; for, as I have before remarked, the "concession" or privilege of the place has been guaranteed for a long period of years to come by the expectant dynasty of Hesse-Darmstadt. "C'est fait," "It is all settled," said the host of the Hotel de France to me, rubbing his hands exultingly when I mentioned the matter. But, Quis custodiet custodes? Hesse-Darmstadt has guaranteed the "administration of Hesse-Hombourg, but who is to guarantee Hesse-Darmstadt? A battalion of French infantry would, it seems to me, make short work of H. D., lease guarantees, Federal contingent, and all. I must mention, in conclusion, that within a very few years we had, if we have not still, a licensed gaming house in our exquisitely moral British dominions. This was in that remarkably "tight little island" at the mouth of the Elbe, Heligoland, which we so queerly possess—Puffendorf, Grotius, and Vattel, or any other writers on the Jus gentium, would be puzzled to tell why, or by what right. I was at Hamburg in the autumn of 1856, crossed over to Heligoland one day on a pleasure trip, and lost some money there, at a miniature Roulette table, much frequented by joyous Israelites from the mainland, and English "soldier officers" in mufti. I did not lose much of my temper, however, for the odd, quaint little place pleased me. Not so another Roman citizen, or English travelling gent., who losing, perhaps, seven-and-sixpence, wrote a furious letter to the "Times," complaining of such horrors existing under the British flag, desecration of the English name, and so forth. Next week the lieutenant-governor, by "order," put an end to Roulette at Heligoland; but play on a diminutive scale has since, I have been given to understand, recommenced there without molestation.

(71) Mr Sala is here in error. Colton was a prosperous gambler throughout, and committed suicide to avoid a surgical operation. A notice of the Rev. C. Colton will be found in the sequel.

'We gamble in England at the Stock Exchange, we gamble on horse-races all the year round; but there is something more than the mere eventuality of a chance that prompts us to the enjeu; there is mixed up with our eagerness for the stakes the most varied elements of business and pleasure; cash-books, ledgers, divident-warrants, indignation meetings of Venezuelan bond-holders, coupons, cases of champagne, satin-skinned horses with plaited manes, grand stands, pretty faces, bright flags, lobster salads, cold lamb, fortune-telling gipsies, barouches-and-four, and "our Aunt Sally." High play is still rife in some aristocratic clubs; there are prosperous gentlemen who wear clean linen every day, and whose names are still in the Army List, who make their five or six hundred a year by Whist-playing, and have nothing else to live upon; in East-end coffee-shops, sallow-faced Jew boys, itinerant Sclavonic jewellers, and brawny German sugar-bakers, with sticky hands, may be found glozing and wrangling over their beloved cards and dominoes, and screaming with excitement at the loss of a few pence. There are yet some occult nooks and corners, nestling in unsavoury localities, on passing which the policeman, even in broad daylight, cannot refrain from turning his head a little backwards—as though some bedevilments must necessarily be taking place directly he has passed—where, in musty back parlours, by furtive lamplight, with doors barred, bolted, and sheeted with iron, some wretched, cheating gambling goes on at unholy hours. Chicken-hazard is scotched, not killed; but a poor, weazened, etiolated biped is that once game-bird now. And there is Doncaster, every year—Doncaster, with its subscription-rooms under authority, winked at by a pious corporation, patronized by nobles and gentlemen supporters of the turf, and who are good enough, sometimes, to make laws for us plebeians in the Houses of Lords and Commons. There is Doncaster, with policemen to keep order, and admit none but "respectable" people—subscribers, who fear Heaven and honour the Queen. Are you aware, my Lord Chief-Justice, are you aware, Mr Attorney, Mr Solicitor-General, have you the slightest notion, ye Inspectors of Police, that in the teeth of the law, and under its very eyes, a shameless gaming-house exists in moral Yorkshire, throughout every Doncaster St Leger race-week? Of course you haven't; never dreamed of such a thing—never could, never would. Hie you, then, and prosecute this wretched gang of betting-touts, congregating at the corner of Bride Lane, Fleet Street; quick, lodge informations against this publican who has suffered card-playing to take place, raffles, or St Leger sweeps to be held in his house. "You have seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar, and the creature run from the cur. There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office." You have—very well. Take crazy King Lear's words as a text for a sermon against legislative inconsistencies, and come back with me to Hombourg Kursaal.'



CHAPTER VII. GAMBLING IN BRIGHTON IN 1817.

The subject of English gambling may be illustrated by a series of events which happened at Brighton in 1817, when an inquiry respecting the gaming carried on at the libraries led to many important disclosures.

It appears that a warrant was granted on the oath of a Mr William Clarke, against William Wright and James Ford, charged with feloniously stealing L100. But the prosecutor did not appear in court to prove the charge. It was quite evident, therefore, that the law had been abused in the transaction, and the magistrate, Sergeant Runnington, directed warrants to be issued for the immediate appearance of the prosecutor and Timothy O'Mara, as an evidence; but they absconded, and the learned Sergeant discharged the prisoners.

The matter then took a different turn. The same William Wright, before charged with 'stealing' the L100, was now examined as a witness to give evidence upon an examination against Charles Walker, of the Marine Library, for keeping an unlawful Gaming House.

This witness stated that he was engaged, about five weeks before, to act as punter or player (that is, in this case, a sham player or decoy) to a table called Noir, rouge, tout le deux (evidently a name invented to evade the statute, if possible), by William Clarke, the prosecutor, before-mentioned; that the table was first carried to the back room of Donaldson's Library, where it continued for three or four days, when Donaldson discharged it from his premises.

He said he soon got into the confidence of Clarke, who put him up to the secrets of playing. The firm consisted of O'Mara, Pollett, Morley, and Clarke. There was not much playing at Donaldson's. Afterwards the table was removed into Broad Street, but the landlady quickly sent it away. It was then carried to a room over Walker's Library, where a rent was paid of twelve guineas per week, showing plainly the profits of the speculation.

Several gentlemen used to frequent the table, among whom was one who lost L125.

Clarke asked the witness if he thought the person who lost his money was rich? And being answered in the affirmative, it was proposed that he, William Wright, should invite the gentleman to dinner, to let him have what wine he liked, and to spare no expense to get him drunk.

The gentleman was induced to play again, and endeavour to recover his money. As he had nothing but large bills, to a considerable amount, he was prevailed on to go to London, in company with the witness, who was to take care and bring him back. One of the firm, Pollett, wrote a letter of recommendation to a Mr Young, to get the bills discounted at his broker's. They returned to Brighton, and the witness apprized the firm of his arrival. They wanted him to come that evening, but the witness TOLD THE GENTLEMAN OF HIS SUSPICIONS—that during their absence a FALSE TABLE had been substituted.

The witness, however, returned to his employers that evening, when the firm advanced him L100, and Ford, another punter of the sort, L100, to back with the gentleman as a blind—so that when the signal was given to put upon black or red, they were to put their stakes—by which means the gentleman would follow; and they calculated upon fleecing him of five or six thousand pounds in the course of an hour. According to his own account, the witness told the gentleman of this trick; and the following morning the latter went with him, to know if this nefarious dealing has been truly represented.

On entering the library they met Walker, who wished them better success, but trembled visibly. At the door leading into the room porters were stationed; and, as soon as they entered, Walker ordered it to be bolted, for the sake of privacy; but as soon as the gentleman ascended the dark staircase, he became alarmed at the appearance of men in the room, and returned to the porter, and, by a timely excuse, was allowed to pass.

At this table Clarke generally dealt, and O'Mara played. It was for not restoring the L100 to the firm that the charge of felony was laid against the witness—after the escape of the gentleman; but an offer of L100 was made to him, after his imprisonment, if he would not give his evidence of the above facts and transactions.

The evidence of the other witness, Ford, confirmed all the material facts of the former, and the gentleman himself, the intended victim, substantiated the evidence of Wright—as to putting him in possession of their nefarious designs.

When the gentleman found that he had been cheated of the L125, he went to Walker to demand back his money. Walker, in the utmost confusion, went into the room, and returned with a proposal to allow L100. This he declined to take, and immediately laid the information before Mr Sergeant Runnington.

The learned Sergeant forcibly recapitulated the evidence, and declared that in the whole course of his professional duties he had never heard such a disclosure of profligacy and villainy, combined with every species of wickedness. In a strain of pointed animadversion he declared it to be an imperative duty,—however much his private feelings might be wounded in seeing a reputable tradesman of the town convicted of such nefarious pursuits,—to order warrants to be issued against all parties concerned as rogues and vagrants.

At the next hearing of the case the court was crowded to excess; and the mass of evidence deposed before the magistrates threw such a light on the system of gambling, that they summarily put a stop to the Cobourg and Loo tables at the various public establishments.