The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims. Volume 1 (of 2)
Produced by Mike Lough
THE GAMING TABLE:
ITS VOTARIES AND VICTIMS,
In all Times and Countries, especially in England and in France.
IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.
By Andrew Steinmetz, Esq.,
Of The Middle Temple, Barrister-At-Law; First-Class Extra Certificate School Of Musketry, Hythe; Late Officer Instructor Musketry, The Queens Own Light Infantry Militia.
Author Of 'The History Of The Jesuits,' 'Japan And Her People,' 'The Romance Of Duelling,' &C., &C.
'The sharp, the blackleg, and the knowing one, Livery or lace, the self-same circle, run; The same the passion, end and means the same--Dick and his Lordship differ but in name.'
TO HIS GRACE
The Duke of Wellington, K.G. THIS WORK IS DEDICATED, WITH PERMISSION, BY HIS GRACE'S MOST DEVOTED SERVANT
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
To the readers of the present generation much of this book will, doubtless, seem incredible. Still it is a book of facts--a section of our social history, which is, I think, worth writing, and deserving of meditation.
Forty or fifty years ago--that is, within the memory of many a living man--gambling was 'the rage' in England, especially in the metropolis. Streets now meaningless and dull--such as Osendon Street, and streets and squares now inhabited by the most respectable in the land--for instance, St James's Square, THEN opened doors to countless votaries of the fickle and capricious goddess of Fortune; in the rooms of which many a nobleman, many a gentleman, many an officer of the Army and Navy, clergymen, tradesmen, clerks, and apprentices, were 'cleaned out'--ruined, and driven to self-murder, or to crimes that led to the gallows. 'I have myself,' says a writer of the time, 'seen hanging in chains a man whom a short time before I saw at a Hazard table!'
History, as it is commonly written, does not sufficiently take cognizance of the social pursuits and practices that sap the vitality of a nation; and yet these are the leading influences in its destiny--making it what it is and will be, at least through many generations, by example and the inexorable laws that preside over what is called 'hereditary transmission.'
Have not the gambling propensities of our forefathers influenced the present generation?....
No doubt gambling, in the sense treated of in this book, has ceased in England. If there be here and there a Roulette or Rouge et Noir table in operation, its existence is now known only to a few 'sworn-brethren;' if gambling at cards 'prevails' in certain quarters, it is 'kept quiet.' The vice is not barefaced. It slinks and skulks away into corners and holes, like a poisoned rat. Therefore, public morality has triumphed, or, to use the card-phrase, 'trumped' over this dreadful abuse; and the law has done its duty, or has reason to expect congratulation for its success, in 'putting down' gaming houses.
But we gamble still. The gambling on the Turf (now the most uncertain of all 'games of chance') was, lately, something that rang through and startled the entire nation. We gamble in the funds. We gamble in endless companies (limited)--all resulting from the same passion of our nature, which led to the gambling of former times with cards, with dice, at Piquet, Basset, Faro, Hazard, E O, _Roulette_, and _Rouge et Noir_. At a recent memorable trial, the Lord Chief Justice of England exclaimed--'There can be no doubt--any one who looks around him cannot fail to perceive--that a spirit of speculation and gambling has taken hold of the minds of large classes of the population. Men who were wont to be satisfied with moderate gain and safe investments seem now to be animated by a spirit of greed after gain, which makes them ready to embark their fortunes, however hardly gained, in the vain hope of realizing immense returns by premiums upon shares, and of making more than safe and reasonable gains. We see that continually.' In fact, we may not be a jot better morally than our forefathers. But that is no reason why we should not frown over the story of their horrid sins, and, 'having a good conscience,' think what sad dogs they were in their generation--knowing, as we do, that none of us at the present day lose _FIFTY OR A HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS_ at play, at a sitting, in one single night--as was certainly no very uncommon 'event' in those palmy days of gaming; and that we could not--as was done in 1820--produce a list of _FIVE HUNDRED_ names (in London alone) of noblemen, gentlemen, officers of the Army and Navy, and clergymen, who were veteran or indefatigable gamesters, besides 'clerks, grocers, horse-dealers, linen-drapers, silk-mercers, masons, builders, timber-merchants, booksellers, &c., &c., and men of the very lowest walks of life,' who frequented the numerous gaming houses throughout the metropolis--to their ruin and that of their families more or less (as deploringly lamented by Captain Gronow), and not a few of them, no doubt, finding themselves in that position in which they could exclaim, at _OUR_ remonstrance, as feelingly as did King Richard--
'Slave! I have set my life upon a _CAST_, And I will stand the _HAZARD OF THE DIE!_'
Nor is gaming as yet extinct among us. Every now and then a batch of youngsters is brought before the magistrates charged with vulgar 'tossing' in the streets; and every now and then we hear of some victim of genteel gambling, as recently--in the month of February, 1868--when 'a young member of the aristocracy lost L10,000 at Whist.'
Nay, at the commencement of the present year there appeared in a daily paper the following startling announcement to the editor:--
'Sir,--Allow me, through the columns of your paper, to call the attention of the parents and friends of the young officers in the Channel-fleet to the great extent gambling is carried on at Lisbon. Since the fleet has been there another gambling house has been opened, and is filled every evening with young officers, many of whom are under 18 years of age. On the 1st of January it is computed that upwards of L800 was lost by officers of the fleet in the gambling houses, and if the fleet is to stay there three months there will soon be a great number of the officers involved in debt. I will relate one incident that came under my personal notice. A young midshipman, who had lately joined the Channel fleet from the Bristol, drew a half-year's pay in December, besides his quarterly allowance, and I met him on shore the next evening without money enough to pay a boat to go off to his ship, having lost all at a gambling house.
Hoping that this may be of some use in stopping the gambling among the younger officers, I remain, yours respectfully, AN OFFICER.'(1)
(1) Standard, Jan. 12, 1870.
In conclusion, I have contemplated the passion of gaming in all its bearings, as will be evident from the range of subjects indicated by the table of contents and index. I have ransacked (and sacked) hundreds of volumes for entertaining, amusing, curious, or instructive matter.
Without deprecating criticism on my labours, perhaps I may state that these researches have probably terminated my career as an author. Immediately after the completion of this work I was afflicted with a degree of blindness rendering it impossible for me to read any print whatever, and compelling me to write only by dictation.
ANDREW STEINMETZ.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAP.
I THE UNIVERSAL PASSION OF GAMING; OR, GAMING ALL THE WORLD OVER
II GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT HINDOOS--A HINDOO LEGEND AND ITS MODERN PARALLEL
III GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, PERSIANS AND GREEKS
IV GAMING AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPERORS
V GAMBLING IN FRANCE IN ALL TIMES
VI THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND
VII GAMBLING IN BRIGHTON IN 1817
VIII GAMBLING AT THE GERMAN BATHING-PLACES
IX GAMBLING IN THE UNITED STATES
X LADY GAMESTRESSES
XI GAMBLING POETS, SAVANTS, PHILOSOPHERS, WITS, AND STATESMEN
XII REMARKABLE GAMESTERS
XIII THE LOTTERIES AND THEIR BEWILDERMENTS
XIV THE LAWS AGAINST GAMING IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES
THE GAMING TABLE.
CHAPTER I. THE UNIVERSAL PASSION OF GAMING; OR, GAMING ALL THE WORLD OVER.
A very apt allegory has been imagined as the origin of Gaming. It is said that the Goddess of Fortune, once sporting near the shady pool of Olympus, was met by the gay and captivating God of War, who soon allured her to his arms. They were united; but the matrimony was not holy, and the result of the union was a misfeatured child named Gaming. From the moment of her birth this wayward thing could only be pleased by cards, dice, or counters.
She was not without fascinations, and many were her admirers. As she grew up she was courted by all the gay and extravagant of both sexes, for she was of neither sex, and yet combining the attractions of each. At length, however, being mostly beset by men of the sword, she formed an unnatural union with one of them, and gave birth to twins--one called DUELLING, and the other a grim and hideous monster named SUICIDE. These became their mother's darlings, nursed by her with constant care and tenderness, and her perpetual companions.
The Goddess Fortune ever had an eye on her promising daughter--Gaming; and endowed her with splendid residences, in the most conspicuous streets, near the palaces of kings. They were magnificently designed and elegantly furnished. Lamps, always burning at the portals, were a sign and a perpetual invitation unto all to enter; and, like the gates of the Inferno, they were ever open to daily and nightly visitants; but, unlike the latter, they permitted _EXIT_ to all who entered--some exulting with golden spoil,--others with their hands in empty pockets,--some led by her half-witted son Duelling,--others escorted by her malignant monster Suicide, and his mate, the demon Despair.
'Religion, morals, virtue, all give way, And conscience dies, the prostitute of play. Eternity ne'er steals one thought between, Till suicide completes the fatal scene.'
Such is the _ALLEGORY_;(2) and it may serve well enough to represent the thing in accordance with the usages of civilized or modern life; but Gaming is a _UNIVERSAL_ thing--the characteristic of the human biped all the world over.
(2) It appeared originally, I think, in the Harleian Miscellany. I have taken the liberty to re-touch it here and there, with the view to improvement.
The determination of events by 'lot' was a practice frequently resorted to by the Israelites; as, by lot it was determined which of the goats should be offered by Aaron; by lot the land of Canaan was divided; by lot Saul was marked out for the Hebrew kingdom; by lot Jonah was discovered to be the cause of the storm. It was considered an appeal to Heaven to determine the points, and was thought not to depend on blind chance, or that imaginary being called Fortune, who,
'----With malicious joy,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a _LOTTERY_ of life.'
The Hindoo Code--a promulgation of very high antiquity--denounces gambling, which proves that there were desperate gamesters among the Hindoos in the earliest times. Men gamed, too, it would appear, after the example set them by the gods, who had gamesters among them. The priests of Egypt assured Herodotus that one of their kings visited alive the lower regions called infernal, and that he there joined a gaming party, at which he both lost and won.(3) Plutarch tells a pretty Egyptian story to the effect, that Mercury having fallen in love with Rhea, or the Earth, and wishing to do her a favour, gambled with the Moon, and won from her every seventieth part of the time she illumined the horizon--all which parts he united together, making up _FIVE DAYS_, and added them to the Earth's year, which had previously consisted of only 360 days.(4)
(3) Herod. 1. ii.
(4) Plutarch, _De Isid. et Osirid._
But not only did the gods play among themselves on Olympus, but they gambled with mortals. According to Plutarch, the priest of the temple of Hercules amused himself with playing at dice with the god, the stake or conditions being that if he won he should obtain some signal favour, but if he lost he would procure a beautiful courtesan for Hercules.(5)
(5) _In Vita Romuli_.
By the numerous nations of the East dice, and that pugnacious little bird the cock, have been and are the chief instruments employed to produce a sensation--to agitate their minds and to ruin their fortunes. The Chinese have in all times, we suppose, had cards--hence the absurdity of the notion that they were 'invented' for the amusement of Charles VI. of France, in his 'lucid intervals,' as is constantly asserted in every collection of historic facts. The Chinese invented cards, as they invented almost everything else that administers to our social and domestic comfort.(6)
(6) Observations on Cards, by Mr Gough, in Archaeologia, vol. viii. 1787.
The Asiatic gambler is desperate. When all other property is played away, he scruples not to stake his wife, his child, on the cast of a die or on the courage of the martial bird before mentioned. Nay more, if still unsuccessful, the last venture he makes is that of his limbs--his personal liberty--his life--which he hazards on the caprice of chance, and agrees to be at the mercy, or to become the slave, of his fortunate antagonist.
The Malayan, however, does not always tamely submit to this last stroke of fortune. When reduced to a state of desperation by repeated ill-luck, he loosens a certain lock of hair on his head, which, when flowing down, is a sign of war and destruction. He swallows opium or some intoxicating liquor, till he works himself up into a fit of frenzy, and begins to bite and kill everything that comes in his way; whereupon, as the aforesaid lock of hair is seen flowing, it is lawful to fire at and destroy him as quickly as possible--he being considered no better than a mad dog. A very rational conclusion.
Of course the Chinese are most eager gamesters, or they would not have been capable of inventing those dear, precious killers of time--cards, the EVENING solace of so many a household in the most respectable and 'proper' walks of life. Indeed, they play night and day--until they have lost all they are worth, and then they usually go--and hang themselves.
If we turn our course northward, and penetrate the regions of ice perpetual, we find that the driven snow cannot effectually quench the flames of gambling. They glow amid the regions of the frozen pole. The Greenlanders gamble with a board, which has a finger-piece upon it, turning round on an axle; and the person to whom the finger points on the stopping of the board, which is whirled round, 'sweeps' all the 'stakes' that have been deposited.
If we descend thence into the Western hemisphere, we find that the passion for gambling forms a distinguishing feature in the character of all the rude natives of the American continent. Just as in the East, these savages will lose their aims (on which subsistence depends), their apparel, and at length their personal liberty, on games of chance. There is one thing, however, which must be recorded to their credit--and to our shame. When they have lost their 'all,' they do not follow the example of our refined gamesters. They neither murmur nor repine. Not a fretful word escapes them. They bear the frowns of fortune with a philosophic composure.(7)
(7) Carver, _Travels_.
If we cross the Atlantic and land on the African shore, we find that the 'everlasting Negro' is a gambler--using shells as dice--and following the practice of his 'betters' in every way. He stakes not only his 'fortune,' but also his children and liberty, which he cares very little about, everywhere, until we incite him to do so--as, of course, we ought to do, for every motive 'human and divine.'
There is no doubt, then, that this propensity is part and parcel of 'the unsophisticated savage.' Let us turn to the eminently civilized races of antiquity--the men whose example we have more or less followed in every possible matter, sociality, politics, religion--they were all gamblers, more or less. Take the grand prototypes of Britons, the Romans of old. That gamesters they were! And how gambling recruited the ranks of the desperadoes who gave them insurrectionary trouble! Catiline's 'army of scoundrels,' for instance. 'Every man dishonoured by dissipation,' says Sallust, 'who by his follies or losses at the gaming table had consumed the inheritance of his fathers, and all those who were sufferers by such misery, were the friends of this perverse man.' Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Cicero, and other writers, attest the fact of Roman gambling most eloquently, most indignantly.
The Romans had 'lotteries,' or games of chance, and some of their prizes were of great value, as a good estate and slaves, or rich vases; others of little value, as vases of common earth, but of this more in the sequel.
Among the Gothic kings who, in the fulness of time and accomplishments, 'succeeded' to that empire, we read of a Theodoric, 'a wise and valiant prince,' who was 'great lover of dice;' his solicitude in play was only for victory; and his companions knew how to seize the moment of his success, as consummate courtiers, to put forward their petitions and to make their requests. 'When I have a petition to prefer,' says one of them, 'I am easily beaten in the game that I may win my cause.'(8) What a clever contrivance! But scarcely equal to that of the _GREAT_ (in politeness) Lord Chesterfield, who, to gain a vote for a parliamentary friend, actually submitted to be _BLED!_ It appears that the voter was deemed very difficult, but Chesterfield found out that the man was a doctor, who was a perfect Sangrado, recommending bleeding for every ailment. He went to him, as in consultation, agreed with the man's arguments, and at once bared his arm for the operation. On the point of departure his lordship 'edged' in the question about the vote for his friend, which was, of course, gushingly promised and given.
(8) Sed ego aliquid obsecraturus facile vincor; et mihi tabula perit ut causa salvetur.--Sidonius Apollinaris, _Epist_.
Although there may not be much Gothic blood among us, it is quite certain that there is plenty of German mixture in our nation--taking the term in its very wide and comprehensive ethnology. Now, Tacitus describes the ancient stout and valiant Germans as 'making gaming with a die a very serious occupation of their sober hours.' Like the 'everlasting Negro,' they, too, made their last throw for personal liberty, the loser going into voluntary slavery, and the winner selling such slaves as soon as possible to strangers, in order not to have to blush for such a victory! If the 'nigger' could blush, he might certainly do so for the white man in such a conjuncture.
At Naples and other places in Italy, at least in former times, the boatmen used thus to stake their liberty for a certain number of years. According to Hyde,(9) the Indians stake their fingers and cut them off themselves to pay the debt of honour. Englishmen have cut off their ears, both as a 'security' for a gambling loan, and as a stake; others have staked their lives by hanging, in like manner! Instances will be given in the sequel.
(9) De Ludis Orient.
But leaving these savages and the semi-savages of the very olden time, let us turn to those nearer to our times, with just as much religious truth and principle among them as among ourselves.
The warmth with which 'dice-playing' is condemned in the writings of the _Fathers_, the venerable expounders of Christianity, as well as by 'edicts' and 'canons' of the Church, is unquestionably a sufficient proof of its general and excessive prevalence throughout the nations of Europe. When cards were introduced, in the fourteenth century, they only added fuel to the infernal flame of gambling; and it soon became as necessary to restrain their use as it had been that of dice. The two held a joint empire of ruin and desolation over their devoted victims. A king of France set the ruinous example--Henry IV., the roue, the libertine, the duellist, the gambler,--and yet (historically) the _Bon Henri_, the 'good king,' who wished to order things so that every Frenchman might have a _pot-au-feu_, or dish of flesh savoury, every Sunday for dinner. The money that Henry IV. lost at play would have covered great public expenses.
There can be no doubt that the spirit of gaming went on acquiring new strength and development throughout every subsequent reign in France; and we shall see that under the Empire the thing was a great national institution, and made to put a great deal of money as 'revenue' into the hands of Fouche.
But the Spaniards have always been, of all nations, the most addicted to gambling. A traveller says:--'I have wandered through all parts of Spain, and though in many places I have scarcely been able to procure a glass of wine, or a bit of bread, or any of the first conveniences of life, yet I never went through a village so mean and out of the way, in which I could not have purchased a pack of cards.' This was in the middle of the seventeenth century, but I have no doubt it is true at the present moment.
If we can believe Voltaire, the Spaniards were formerly very generous in their gaming. 'The grandees of Spain,' he says, 'had a generous ostentation; this was to divide the money won at play among all the bystanders, of whatever condition.
Montrefor relates that when the Duke of Lerma, the Spanish minister, entertained Gaston, brother of Louis XIII., with all his retinue in the Netherlands, he displayed a magnificence of an extraordinary kind. The prime minister, with whom Gaston spent several days, used to put two thousand louis d'ors on a large gaming-table after dinner. With this money Gaston's attendants and even the prince himself sat down to play. It is probable, however, that Voltaire extended a single instance or two into a general habit or custom. That writer always preferred to deal with the splendid and the marvellous rather than with plain matter of fact.
There can be little doubt that the Spaniards pursued gaming in the vulgar fashion, just as other people. At any rate the following anecdote gives us no very favourable idea of Spanish generosity to strangers in the matter of gambling in modern times; and the worst of it is the suitableness of its application to more capitals than one among the kingdoms of Europe. 'After the bull-feast I was invited to pass the evening at the hotel of a lady, who had a public card-assembly.... This vile method of subsisting on the folly of mankind is confined in Spain to the nobility. None but women of quality are permitted to hold banks, and there are many whose faro-banks bring them in a clear income of a thousand guineas a year. The lady to whom I was introduced is an old countess, who has lived nearly thirty years on the profits of the card-tables in her house. They are frequented every day, and though both natives and foreigners are duped of large sums by her, and her cabinet-junto, yet it is the greatest house of resort in all Madrid. She goes to court, visits people of the first fashion, and is received with as much respect and veneration as if she exercised the most sacred functions of a divine profession. Many widows of great men keep gaming-houses and live splendidly on the vices of mankind. If you be not disposed to play, be either a sharper or a dupe, you cannot be admitted a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented to the lady than she offered me cards; and on my excusing myself, because I really could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from me, and said to another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any foreigner could have the impertinence to come to her house for no other purpose than to make an apology for not playing. My Spanish conductor, unfortunately for himself, had not the same apology. He played and lost his money--two circumstances which constantly follow in these houses. While my friend was thus playing _THE FOOL_, I attentively watched the countenance and motions of the lady of the house. Her anxiety, address, and assiduity were equal to that of some skilful shopkeeper, who has a certain attraction to engage all to buy, and diligence to take care that none shall escape the net. I found out all her privy-counsellors, by her arrangement of her parties at the different tables; and whenever she showed an extraordinary eagerness to fix one particular person with a stranger, the game was always decided the same way, and her good friend was sure to win the money.
'In short, it is hardly possible to see good company at Madrid unless you resolve to leave a purse of gold at the card-assemblies of their nobility.'(10)
(10) 'Observations in a Tour through Spain.'
We are assured that this state of things is by no means 'obsolete' in Spain, even at the present time. At the time in question, however, the beginning of the present century, there was no European nation among which gaming did not constitute one of its polite and fashionable amusements--with the exception of the _Turks_, who, to the shame of Christians, strictly obeyed the precepts of Mahomet, and scrupulously avoided the 'gambling itch' of our nature.
In England gambling prevailed during the reign of Henry VIII.; indeed, it seems that the king was himself a gamester of the most unscrupulous sort; and there is ample evidence that the practice flourished during the reign of Elizabeth, James I., and subsequently, especially in the times of Charles II. Writing on the day when James II. was proclaimed king, Evelyn says, 'I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love-songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table; a bank of at least L2000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Six days after all was in the dust!'
The following curious observations on the gaming in vogue during the year 1668 are from the Harleian Miscellany:
'One propounded this question, "Whether men in ships at sea were to be accounted amongst the living or the dead--because there were but few inches betwixt them and drowning?" The same query may be made of gamesters, though their estates be 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 (in that circumstance) and a beggar.
'Betwixt twelve and one of the clock a good dinner is prepared by way of ordinary, and some gentlemen of civility and condition oftentimes eat there, and play a while for recreation after dinner, both moderately and most commonly without deserving reproof. Towards night, when ravenous beasts usually seek their prey, there come in shoals of hectors, trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, prigs, divers, lifters, kidnappers, vouchers, mill kens, piemen, decoys, shop-lifters, foilers, bulkers, droppers, gamblers, donnakers, crossbiters, &c., under the general appellation of "rooks;" and in this particular it serves as a nursery for Tyburn, for every year some of this gang march thither.
'Would you imagine it to be true--that a grave gentleman, well stricken in years, insomuch as he cannot see the pips of the dice, is so infatuated with this witchery as to play here with others' eyes,--of whom this quibble was raised, "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, &;c.; and, if you be not vigilant, the box-keeper shall score you up double or treble boxes, and, though you have lost your money, dun you as severely for it as if it were the justest debt in the world.
'There are yet some genteeler and more subtle rooks, whom you shall not distinguish by their outward demeanour 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,(11) low fulhams, or by palming, topping, &c. Note by the way, that when they have you at the tavern and think you a sure "bubble," they will many times purposely lose some small sum to you the first time, to engage you more freely to _BLEED_ (as they call it) at the second meeting, to which they will be sure to invite you.
(11) It appears that false dice were originally made at _Fulham;_ hence so called, high and low fulhams; the high ones were the numbers 4, 5, 6.
'A gentleman whom ill-fortune had hurried into passion, took a box and dice to a side-table, and then fell to throwing by himself; at length he swears with an emphasis, "D--e, now I throw for nothin;, I can win a thousand pounds; but when I lay for money I lose my all."
'If the house find you free to box, and a constant caster, you shall be treated below with suppers at night, and caudle in the morning, and have the honour to be styled, "a lover of the house," whilst your money lasts, which certainly will not be long.
'Most gamesters begin at small games, and by degrees, if their money or estates hold out, they rise to great sums; some have played first all their money, then their rings, coach and horses, even their wearing clothes and _perukes;_ and then, such a farm; and at last, perhaps a lordship.
'You may read in our histories, how Sir Miles Partridge played at dice with King Henry the Eighth, for Jesus Bells (so called), which were the greatest in England, and hung in a tower of St Paul's church, and won them; whereby he brought them to ring in his pocket; but the ropes afterwards catched about his neck; for, in Edward the Sixth's days, he was hanged for some criminal offences.(12)
(12) The clochier in Paul's Churchyard--a bell-house, four square, builded of stone, with four bells; these were called _Jesus_ Bells. The same had a great spire of timber, covered with lead, with the image of St Paul on the top, but was pulled down by Sir Miles Partridge, Kt, in the reign of Henry VIII. The common speech then was that he did set L100 upon a cast at dice against it, and so won the said clochier and bells of the king. And then causing the bells to be broken as they hung, the rest was pulled down, and broken also. This man was afterwards executed on Tower Hill, for matters concerning the Duke of Somerset, in the year 1551, the 5th of Edward VI.--Stowe, B. iii. 148.
'Sir Arthur Smithhouse is yet fresh in memory. He had a fair estate, which in a few years he so lost at play, that he died in great want and penury. Since that Mr Ba--, who was a clerk in the Six-Clerks Office, and well cliented, fell to play, and won by extraordinary fortune two thousand pieces in ready gold; was not content with that, played on, lost all he had won, and almost all his own estate; sold his place in the office, and at last marched off to a foreign plantation, to begin a new world with the sweat of his brow; for that is commonly the destiny of a decayed gamester--either to go to some foreign plantation, or to be preferred to the dignity of a _box-keeper_.
'It is not denied but most gamesters have, at one time or other, a considerable run of winning, but such is the infatuation of play, I could never hear of a man that gave over a winner--I mean, to give over so as never to play again. I am sure it is _rara avis_, for if you once "break bulk," as they phrase it, you are in again for all. Sir Humphry Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then playing, as it is said, _FOR A DEAD HORSE_, did, by happy fortune, recover it again; then gave over, and wisely too.'(13)
(13) Harleian Misc. ii. 108.
The sequel will show the increase of gambling in our country during the subsequent reigns, up to a recent period.
Thus, then, the passion of gaming is, and has ever been, universal. It is said that two Frenchmen could not exist even in a desert without _QUARRELLING;_ and it is quite certain that no two human beings can be anywhere without ere long offering to 'bet' upon something. Indolence and want of employment--'vacuity,' as Dr Johnson would call it--is the cause of the passion. It arises from a want of habitual employment in some material and regular line of conduct. Your very innocent card-parties at home--merely to kill _TIME_ (what a murder!) explains all the apparent mystery! Something must be substituted to call forth the natural activity of the mind; and this is in no way more effectually accomplished, in all indolent pursuits, than by those _EMOTIONS AND AGITATIONS_ which gambling produces.
Such is the source of the thing in our _NATURE;_ but then comes the furious hankering after wealth--the desire to have it without _WORKING_ for it--which is the wish of so many of us; and _THIS_ is the source of that hideous gambling which has produced the contemptible characters and criminal acts which are the burthen of this volume.
We love play because it satisfies our avarice,--that is to say, our desire of having more; it flatters our vanity by the idea of preference that fortune gives us, and of the attention that others pay to our success; it satisfies our curiosity, giving us a spectacle; in short, it gives us the different pleasures of surprise.
Certain it is that the passion for gambling easily gets deeply rooted, and that it cannot be easily eradicated. The most exquisite melody, if compared with the music of dice, is then but discord; and the finest prospect in nature only a miserable blank when put in competition with the attractions of the 'honours' at a rubber of Whist.
Wealth is the general centre of inclination. Whatever is the ultimate design, the immediate care is to be rich. No desire can be formed which riches do not assist to gratify. They may be considered as the elementary principles of pleasure, which may be combined with endless diversity. There are nearer ways to profit than up the steeps of labour. The prospect of gaining speedily what is ardently desired, has so far prevailed upon the passions of mankind, that the peace of life is destroyed by a general and incessant struggle for riches. It is observed of gold by an old epigrammatist, that to have is to be in fear; and to want it is to be in sorrow. There is no condition which is not disquieted either with the care of gaining or keeping money.
No nation has exceeded ours in the pursuit of gaming. In former times--and yet not more than 30 or 40 years ago--the passion for play was predominant among the highest classes.
Genius and abilities of the highest order became its votaries; and the very framers of the laws against gambling were the first to fall under the temptation of their breach! The spirit of gambling pervaded every inferior order of society. The gentleman was a slave to its indulgence; the merchant and the mechanic were the dupes of its imaginary prospects; it engrossed the citizen and occupied the rustic. Town and country became a prey to its despotism. There was scarcely an obscure village to be found wherein this bewitching basilisk did not exercise its powers of fascination and destruction.
Gaming in England became rather a science than an amusement of social intercourse. The 'doctrine of chances' was studied with an assiduity that would have done honour to better subjects; and calculations were made on arithmetical and geometrical principles, to determine the degrees of probability attendant on games of mixed skill and chance, or even on the fortuitous throws of dice. Of course, in spite of all calculations, there were miserable failures--frightful losses. The polite gamester, like the savage, did not scruple to hazard the dearest interests of his family, or to bring his wife and children to poverty, misery, and ruin. He could not give these over in liquidation of a gambling debt; indeed, nobody would, probably, have them at a gift; and yet there were instances in which the honour of a wife was the stake of the infernal game!.... Well might the Emperor Justinian exclaim,--'Can we call _PLAY_ that which causes crime?'(14)
(14) Quis enim ludos appellet eos, ex quibus crimina oriuntur?--_De Concept. Digest_. II. lib. iv. Sec. 9.
CHAPTER II. GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT HINDOOS.--A HINDOO LEGEND AND ITS MODERN PARALLEL.
The recent great contribution to the history of India, published by Mr Wheeler,(15) gives a complete insight into this interesting topic; and this passage of the ancient Sanskrit epic forms one of the most wonderful and thrilling scenes in that most acceptable publication.
(15) The History of India from the Earliest Ages. By J. Talboys Wheeler. Vol. I.--The Vedic Period and the Maha Bharata.
As Mr Wheeler observes, the specialties of Hindoo gambling are worthy of some attention. The passion for play, which has ever been the vice of warriors in times of peace, becomes a madness amidst the lassitude of a tropical climate; and more than one Hindoo legend has been preserved of Rajas playing together for days, until the wretched loser has been deprived of everything he possessed and reduced to the condition of an exile or a slave.
But gambling amongst the Hindoos does not appear to have been altogether dependent upon chance. The ancient Hindoo dice, known by the name of coupun, are almost precisely similar to the modern dice, being thrown out of a box; but the practice of loading is plainly alluded to, and some skill seems to have been occasionally exercised in the rattling of the dice-box. In the more modern game, known by the name of pasha, the dice are not cubic, but oblong; and they are thrown from the hand either direct upon the ground, or against a post or board, which will break the fall, and render the result more a matter of chance.
The great gambling match of the Hindoo epic was the result of a conspiracy to ruin Yudhishthira, a successful warrior, the representative of a mighty family--the Pandavas, who were incessantly pursued by the envy of the Kauravas, their rivals. The fortunes of the Pandavas were at the height of human prosperity; and at this point the universal conception of an avenging Nemesis that humbles the proud and casts down the mighty, finds full expression in the Hindoo epic. The grandeur of the Pandavas excited the jealousy of Duryodhana, and revived the old feud between the Kauravas and the former. Duryodhana plotted with his brother Duhsasana and his uncle Sakuni, how they might dispossess the Pandavas of their newly-acquired territory; and at length they determined to invite their kinsmen to a gambling match, and seek by underhand means to deprive Yudhishthira of his Raj, or kingdom.(16)
(16) The old Sanskrit words _Raj_, 'kingdom,' and Raja, 'king,' are evidently the origin of the Latin _reg-num, reg-o, rex, regula_, 'rule,' &c, reproduced in the words of that ancient language, and continued in the derivative vernaculars of modern names--_re, rey, roy, roi, regal, royal, rule_, &c. &c.
It appears from the poem that Yudhishthira was invited to a game at coupun; and the legend of the great gambling match, which took place at Hastinapur, is related as follows:
'And it came to pass that Duryodhana was very jealous of the _Rajasuya_ or triumph that his cousin Yudhishthira had performed, and he desired in his heart to destroy the Pandavas, and gain possession of their Raj. Now Sakuni was the brother of Gandhari, who was the mother of the Kauravas; and he was very skilful in throwing dice, and in playing with dice that were loaded; insomuch that whenever he played he always won the game. So Duryodhana plotted with his uncle, that Yudhishthira should be invited to a match at gambling, and that Sakuni should challenge him to a game, and win all his wealth and lands.
'After this the wicked Duryodhana proposed to his father the Maharaja, that they should have a great gambling match at Hastinapur, and that Yudhishthira and his brethren should be invited to the festival. And the Maharaja was glad in his heart that his sons should be friendly with the sons of his deceased brother, Pandu; and he sent his younger brother, Vidura, to the city of Indra-prastha to invite the Pandavas to the game. And Vidura went his way to the city of the Pandavas, and was received by them with every sign of attention and respect. And Yudhishthira inquired whether his kinsfolk and friends at Hastinapur were all well in health, and Vidura replied, "They are all well." Then Vidura said to the Pandavas:--"Your uncle, the Maharaja, is about to give a great feast, and he has sent me to invite you and your mother, and your joint wife, to come to his city, and there will be a great match at dice-playing." When Yudhishthira heard these words he was troubled in mind, for he knew that gaming was a frequent cause of strife, and that he was in no way skilful in throwing the dice; and he likewise knew that Sakuni was dwelling at Hastinapur, and that he was a famous gambler. But Yudhishthira remembered that the invitation of the Maharaja was equal to the command of a father, and that no true Kshatriya could refuse a challenge either to war or play. So Yudhishthira accepted the invitation, and gave commandment that on the appointed day his brethren, and their mother, and their joint wife should accompany him to the city of Hastinapur.
'When the day arrived for the departure of the Pandavas they took their mother Kunti, and their joint wife Draupadi, and journeyed from Indra-prastha to the city of Hastinapur. And when they entered the city they first paid a visit of respect to the Maharaja, and they found him sitting amongst his Chieftains; and the ancient Bhishma, and the preceptor Drona, and Karna, who was the friend of Duryodhana, and many others, were sitting there also.
'And when the Pandavas had done reverence to the Maharaja, and respectfully saluted all present, they paid a visit to their aunt Gandhari, and did her reverence likewise.
'And after they had done this, their mother and joint wife entered the presence of Gandhari, and respectfully saluted her; and the wives of the Kauravas came in and were made known to Kunti and Draupadi. And the wives of the Kauravas were much surprised when they beheld the beauty and fine raiment of Draupadi; and they were very jealous of their kinswoman. And when all their visits had been paid, the Pandavas retired with their wife and mother to the quarters which had been prepared for them, and when it was evening they received the visits of all their friends who were dwelling at Hastinapur.
'Now, on the morrow the gambling match was to be played; so when the morning had come, the Pandavas bathed and dressed, and left Draupadi in the lodging which had been prepared for her, and went their way to the palace. And the Pandavas again paid their respects to their uncle the Maharaja, and were then conducted to the pavilion where the play was to be; and Duryodhana went with them, together with all his brethren, and all the chieftains of the royal house. And when the assembly had all taken their seats, Sakuni said to Yudhishthira:--"The ground here has all been prepared, and the dice are all ready: Come now, I pray you, and play a game." But Yudhishthira was disinclined, and replied:--"I will not play excepting upon fair terms; but if you will pledge yourself to throw without artifice or deceit, I will accept your challenge." Sakuni said,--"If you are so fearful of losing, you had better not play at all." At these words Yudhishthira was wroth, and replied:--"I have no fear either in play or war; but let me know with whom I am to play, and who is to pay me if I win." So Duryodhana came forward and said:--"I am the man with whom you are to play, and I shall lay any stakes against your stakes; but my uncle Sakuni will throw the dice for me." Then Yudhishthira said,--"What manner of game is this, where one man throws and another lays the stakes?" Nevertheless he accepted the challenge, and he and Sakuni began to play.
'At this point in the narrative it may be desirable to pause, and endeavour to obtain a picture of the scene. The so-called pavilion was probably a temporary booth constructed of bamboos and interlaced with basket-work; and very likely it was decorated with flowers and leaves after the Hindoo fashion, and hung with fruits, such as cocoa-nuts, mangoes, plantains, and maize. The Chieftains present seem to have sat upon the ground, and watched the game. The stakes may have been pieces of gold or silver, or cattle, or lands; although, according to the legendary account which follows, they included articles of a far more extravagant and imaginative character. With these passing remarks, the tradition of the memorable game may be resumed as follows:--
'So Yudhishthira and Sakuni sat down to play, and whatever Yudhishthira laid as stakes, Duryodhana laid something of equal value; but Yudhishthira lost every game. He first lost a very beautiful pearl; next a thousand bags, each containing a thousand pieces of gold; next a piece of gold so pure that it was as soft as wax; next a chariot set with jewels and hung all round with golden bells; next a thousand war elephants with golden howdahs set with diamonds; next a lakh of slaves all dressed in good garments; next a lakh of beautiful slave girls, adorned from head to foot with golden ornaments; next all the remainder of his goods; next all his cattle; and then the whole of his Raj, excepting only the lands which had been granted to the Brahmans.(17)
(17)'A lakh is a hundred thousand, and a crore is a hundred lakhs, or ten millions. The Hindoo term might therefore have been converted into English numerals, only that it does not seem certain that the bards meant precisely a hundred thousand slaves, but only a very large number. The exceptional clause in favour of the Brahmans is very significant. When the little settlement at Indra-prastha had been swelled by the imagination of the later bards into an extensive Raj, the thought may have entered the minds of the Brahmanical compilers that in losing the Raj, the Brahmans might have lost those free lands, known as inams or jagheers, which are frequently granted by pious Rajas for the subsistence of Brahmans. Hence the insertion of the clause.'
'Now when Yudhishthira had lost his Raj, the Chieftains present in the pavilion were of opinion that he should cease to play, but he would not listen to their words, but persisted in the game. And he staked all the jewels belonging to his brothers, and he lost them; and he staked his two younger brothers, one after the other, and he lost them; and he then staked Arjuna, and Bhima, and finally himself; and he lost every game. Then Sakuni said to him:--"You have done a bad act, Yudhishthira, in gaming away yourself and becoming a slave. But now, stake your wife, Draupadi, and if you win the game you will again be free." And Yudhishthira answered and said:--"I will stake Draupadi!" And all assembled were greatly troubled and thought evil of Yudhishthira; and his uncle Vidura put his hand to his head and fainted away, whilst Bhishma and Drona turned deadly pale, and many of the company were very sorrowful; but Duryodhana and his brother Duhsasana, and some others of the Kauravas, were glad in their hearts, and plainly manifested their joy. Then Sakuni threw the dice, and won Draupadi for Duryodhana.
'Then all in that assembly were in great consternation, and the Chieftains gazed upon one another without speaking a word. And Duryodhana said to his uncle Vidura:--"Go now and bring Draupadi hither, and bid her sweep the rooms." But Vidura cried out against him with a loud voice, and said:--"What wickedness is this? Will you order a woman who is of noble birth, and the wife of your own kinsman, to become a household slave? How can you vex your brethren thus? But Draupadi has not become your slave; for Yudhishthira lost himself before he staked his wife, and having first become a slave, he could no longer have power to stake Draupadi." Vidura then turned to the assembly and said:--"Take no heed to the words of Duryodhana, for he has lost his senses this day." Duryodhana then said:--"A curse be upon this Vidura, who will do nothing that I desire him."
'After this Duryodhana called one of his servants, and desired him to go to the lodgings of the Pandavas, and bring Draupadi into the pavilion. And the man departed out, and went to the lodgings of the Pandavas, and entered the presence of Draupadi, and said to her:--"Raja Yudhishthira has played you away, and you have become the slave of Raja Duryodhana: So come now and do your duty like his other slave girls." And Draupadi was astonished at these words, and exceedingly wroth, and she replied:--"Whose slave was I that I could be gambled away? And who is such a senseless fool as to gamble away his own wife?" The servant said:--"Raja Yudhishthira has lost himself, and his four brothers, and you also, to Raja Duryodhana, and you cannot make any objection: Arise, therefore, and go to the house of the Raja!"
'Then Draupadi cried out:--"Go you now and inquire whether Raja Yudhishthira lost me first or himself first; for if he played away himself first, he could not stake me." So the man returned to the assembly, and put the question to Yudhishthira; but Yudhishthira hung down his head with shame, and answered not a word.
'Then Duryodhana was filled with wrath, and he cried out to his servant:--"What waste of words is this? Go you and bring Draupadi hither, that if she has aught to say, she may say it in the presence of us all." And the man essayed to go, but he beheld the wrathful countenance of Bhima and he was sore afraid, and he refused to go, and remained where he was. Then Duryodhana sent his brother Duhsasana; and Duhsasana went his way to the lodgings of Draupadi and said:--"Raja Yudhishthira has lost you in play to Raja Duryodhana, and he has sent for you: So arise now, and wait upon him according to his commands; and if you have anything to say, you can say it in the presence of the assembly." Draupadi replied:--"The death of the Kauravas is not far distant, since they can do such deeds as these." And she rose up in great trepidation and set out, but when she came near to the palace of the Maharaja, she turned aside from the pavilion where the Chieftains were assembled, and ran away with all speed towards the apartments of the women. And Duhsasana hastened after her, and seized her by her hair, which was very dark and long, and dragged her by main force into the pavilion before all the Chieftains.
'And she cried out:--"Take your hands from off me!" But Duhsasana heeded not her words, and said:--"You are now a slave girl, and slave girls cannot complain of being touched by the hands of men."
'When the Chieftains thus beheld Draupadi, they hung down their heads from shame; and Draupadi called upon the elders amongst them, such as Bhishma and Drona, to acquaint her whether or no Raja Yudhishthira had gamed away himself before he had staked her; but they likewise held down their heads and answered not a word.
'Then she cast her eye upon the Pandavas, and her glance was like the stabbing of a thousand daggers, but they moved not hand or foot to help her; for when Bhima would have stepped forward to deliver her from the hands of Duhsasana, Yudhishthira commanded him to forbear, and both he and the younger Pandavas were obliged to obey the command of their elder brother.
'And when Duhsasana saw that Draupadi looked towards the Pandavas, he took her by the hand, and drew her another way, saying:--"Why, O slave, are you turning your eyes about you?" And when Karna and Sakuni heard Duhsasana calling her a slave, they cried out:--"Well said! well said!"
'Then Draupadi wept very bitterly, and appealed to all the assembly, saying:--"All of you have wives and children of your own, and will you permit me to be treated thus? I ask you one question, and I pray you to answer it." Duhsasana then broke in and spoke foul language to her, and used her rudely, so that her veil came off in his hands. And Bhima could restrain his wrath no longer, and spoke vehemently to Yudhishthira; and Arjuna reproved him for his anger against his elder brother, but Bhima answered:--"I will thrust my hands into the fire before these wretches shall treat my wife in this manner before my eyes."
'Then Duryodhana said to Draupadi:--"Come now, I pray you, and sit upon my thigh!" And Bhima gnashed his teeth, and cried out with a loud voice:--"Hear my vow this day! If for this deed I do not break the thigh of Duryodhana, and drink the blood of Duhsasana, I am not the son of Kunti!"
'Meanwhile the Chieftain Vidura had left the assembly, and told the blind Maharaja Dhritarashtra all that had taken place that day; and the Maharaja ordered his servants to lead him into the pavilion where all the Chieftains were gathered together. And all present were silent when they saw the Maharaja, and the Maharaja said to Draupadi:--"O daughter, my sons have done evil to you this day: But go now, you and your husbands, to your own Raj, and remember not what has occurred, and let the memory of this day be blotted out for ever." So the Pandavas made haste with their wife Draupadi, and departed out of the city of Hastinapur.
'Then Duryodhana was exceedingly wroth, and he said to his father, "O Maharaja, is it not a saying that when your enemy hath fallen down, he should be annihilated without a war? And now that we had thrown the Pandavas to the earth, and had taken possession of all their wealth, you have restored them all their strength, and permitted them to depart with anger in their hearts; and now they will prepare to make war that they may revenge themselves upon us for all that has been done, and they will return within a short while and slay us all: Give us leave then, I pray you, to play another game with these Pandavas, and let the side which loses go into exile for twelve years; for thus and thus only can a war be prevented between ourselves and the Pandavas." And the Maharaja granted the request of his son, and messengers were sent to bring back the brethren; and the Pandavas obeyed the commands of their uncle, and returned to his presence; and it was agreed upon that Yudhishthira should play one game more with Sakuni, and that if Yudhishthira won the Kauravas were to go into exile, and that if Sakuni won, the Pandavas were to go into exile; and the exile was to be for twelve years, and one year more; and during that thirteenth year those who were in exile were to dwell in any city they pleased, but to keep themselves so concealed that the others should never discover them; and if the others did discover them before the thirteenth year was over, then those who were in exile were to continue so for another thirteen years. So they sat down again to play, and Sakuni had a set of cheating dice as before, and with them he won the game.
'When Duhsasana saw that Sakuni had won the game, he danced about for joy; and he cried out:--"Now is established the Raj of Duryodhana." But Bhima said, "Be not elated with joy, but remember my words: The day will come when I will drink your blood, or I am not the son of Kunti." And the Pandavas, seeing that they had lost, threw off their garments and put on deer-skins, and prepared to depart into the forest with their wife and mother, and their priest Dhaumya; but Vidura said to Yudhishthira:--"Your mother is old and unfitted to travel, so leave her under my care;" and the Pandavas did so. And the brethren went out from the assembly hanging down their heads with shame, and covering their faces with their garments; but Bhima threw out his long arms and looked at the Kauravas furiously, and Draupadi spread her long black hair over her face and wept bitterly. And Draupadi vowed a vow, saying:--
'"My hair shall remain dishevelled from this day, until Bhima shall have slain Duhsasana and drank his blood; and then he shall tie up my hair again whilst his hands are dripping with the blood of Duhsasana."'
Such was the great gambling match at Hastinapur in the heroic age of India. It appears there can be little doubt of the truth of the incident, although the verisimilitude would have been more complete without the perpetual winning of the cheat Sakuni--which would be calculated to arouse the suspicion of Yudhishthira, and which could scarcely be indulged in by a professional cheat, mindful of the suspicion it would excite.
Throughout the narrative, however, there is a truthfulness to human nature, and a truthfulness to that particular phase of human nature which is pre-eminently manifested by a high-minded race in its primitive stage of civilization.
To our modern minds the main interest of the story begins from the moment that Draupadi was lost; but it must be remembered that among that ancient people, where women were chiefly prized on sensual grounds, such stakes were evidently recognized.
The conduct of Draupadi herself on the occasion shows that she was by no means unfamiliar with the idea: she protested--not on the ground of sentiment or matrimonial obligation--but solely on what may be called a technical point of law, namely, 'Had Yudhishthira become a slave before he staked his wife upon the last game?' For, of course, having ceased to be a freeman, he had no right to stake her liberty.
The concluding scene of the drama forms an impressive figure in the mind of the Hindoo. The terrible figure of Draupadi, as she dishevels her long black hair, is the very impersonation of revenge; and a Hindoo audience never fails to shudder at her fearful vow--that the straggling tresses shall never again be tied up until the day when Bhima shall have fulfilled his vow, and shall then bind them up whilst his fingers are still dripping with the blood of Duhsasana.
The avenging battle subsequently ensued. Bhima struck down Duhsasana with a terrible blow of his mace, saying,--'This day I fulfil my vow against the man who insulted Draupadi!' Then setting his foot on the breast of Duhsasana, he drew his sword, and cut off the head of his enemy; and holding his two hands to catch the blood, he drank it off, crying out, 'Ho! ho! Never did I taste anything in this world so sweet as this blood.'
This staking of wives by gamblers is a curious subject. The practice may be said to have been universal, having furnished cases among civilized as well as barbarous nations. Of course the Negroes of Africa stake their wives and children; according to Schouten, a Chinese staked his wife and children, and lost them; Paschasius Justus states that a Venetian staked his wife; and not a hundred years ago certain debauchees at Paris played at dice for the possession of a celebrated courtesan. But this is an old thing. Hegesilochus, and other rulers of Rhodes, were accustomed to play at dice for the honour of the most distinguished ladies of that island--the agreement being that the party who lost had to bring to the arms of the winner the lady designated by lot to that indignity.(18)
(18) Athen. lib. XI. cap. xii.
There are traditions of such stakes having been laid and lost by husbands in _England;_ and a remarkable case of the kind will be found related in Ainsworth's 'Old Saint Paul's,' as having occurred during the Plague of London, in the year 1665. There can be little doubt that it is founded on fact; and the conduct of the English wife, curiously enough, bears a striking resemblance to that of Draupadi in the Indian narrative.
A Captain Disbrowe of the king's body-guard lost a large sum of money to a notorious debauchee, a gambler and bully, named Sir Paul Parravicin. The latter had made an offensive allusion to the wife of Captain Disbrowe, after winning his money; and then, picking up the dice-box, and spreading a large heap of gold on the table, he said to the officer who anxiously watched his movements:--'I mentioned your wife, Captain Disbrowe, not with any intention of giving you offence, but to show you that, although you have lost your money, you have still a valuable stake left.'
'I do not understand you, Sir Paul,' returned Disbrowe, with a look of indignant surprise.
'To be plain, then,' replied Parravicin, 'I have won from you two hundred pounds--all you possess. You are a ruined man, and as such, will run any hazard to retrieve your losses. I give you a last chance. I will stake all my winnings--nay, double the amount--against your wife. You have a key of the house you inhabit, by which you admit yourself at all hours; so at least I am informed. If I win, that key shall be mine. I will take my chance of the rest. Do you understand me now?'
'I do,' replied the young man, with concentrated fury. 'I understand that you are a villain. You have robbed me of my money, and would rob me of my honour.'
'These are harsh words, sir,' replied the knight calmly; 'but let them pass. We will play first, and fight afterwards. But you refuse my challenge?'
'It is false!' replied Disbrowe, fiercely, 'I accept it.' And producing a key, he threw it on the table. 'My life is, in truth, set on the die,' he added, with a desperate look; 'for if I lose, I will not survive my shame.'
'You will not forget our terms,' observed Parravicin. 'I am to be your representative to-night. You can return home to-morrow.'
'Throw, sir,--throw,' cried the young man, fiercely.
'Pardon me,' replied the knight; 'the first cast is with you. A single main decides it.'
'Be it so,' returned Disbrowe, seizing the bow. And as he shook the dice with a frenzied air, the bystanders drew near the table to watch the result.
'Twelve!' cried Disbrowe, as he removed the box. 'My honour is saved! My fortune retrieved--Huzza!'
'Not so fast,' returned Parravicin, shaking the box in his turn. 'You were a little hasty,' he added, uncovering the dice. 'I am twelve too. We must throw again.'
'This is to decide,' cried the young officer, rattling the dice,--'Six!'
Parravicin smiled, took the box, and threw _TEN_.
'Perdition!' ejaculated Disbrowe, striking his brow with his clenched hand. 'What devil tempted me to my undoing?... My wife trusted to this profligate!... Horror! It must not be!'
'It is too late to retract,' replied Parravicin, taking up the key, and turning with a triumphant look to his friends.
Disbrowe noticed the smile, and, stung beyond endurance, drew his sword, and called to the knight to defend himself. In an instant passes were exchanged. But the conflict was brief. Fortune, as before, declared herself in favour of Parravicin. He disarmed his assailant, who rushed out of the room, uttering the wildest ejaculations of rage and despair.
* * * * * * The winner of the key proceeded at once to use. He gained admittance to the captain's house, and found his way to the chamber of his wife, who was then in bed. At first mistaken for her husband Parravicin heard words of tender reproach for his lateness; and then, declaring himself, he belied her husband, stating that he was false to her, and had surrendered her to him.
At this announcement Mrs Disbrowe uttered a loud scream, and fell back in the bed. Parravicin waited for a moment; but not hearing her move, brought the lamp to see what was the matter. She had fainted, and was lying across the pillow, with her night-dress partly open, so as to expose her neck and shoulders. The knight was at first ravished with her beauty; but his countenance suddenly fell, and an expression of horror and alarm took possession of it. He appeared rooted to the spot, and instead of attempting to render her any assistance, remained with his gaze fixed upon her neck. Rousing himself at length, he rushed out of the room, hurried down-stairs, and without pausing for a moment, threw open the street door. As he issued from it his throat was forcibly griped, and the point of a sword was placed at his breast.
It was the desperate husband, who was waiting to avenge his wife's honour.
'You are in my power, villain,' cried Disbrowe, 'and shall not escape my vengeance.'
'You are already avenged,' replied Parravicin, shaking off his assailant--'_YOUR WIFE HAS THE PLAGUE_.'
The profligate had been scared away by the sight of the 'plague spot' on the neck of the unfortunate lady.
The husband entered and found his way to his wife's chamber. Instantaneous explanations ensued. 'He told me you were false--that you loved another--and had abandoned me,' exclaimed the frantic wife.
'He lied!' shouted Disbrowe, in a voice of uncontrollable fury. 'It is true that, in a moment of frenzy, I was tempted to set you--yes, _YOU_, Margaret--against all I had lost at play, and was compelled to yield up the key of my house to the winner. But I have never been faithless to you--never.'
'Faithless or not,' replied his wife bitterly, 'it is plain you value me less than play, or you would not have acted thus.'
'Reproach me not, Margaret,' replied Disbrowe. 'I would give worlds to undo what I have done.'
'Who shall guard me against the recurrence of such conduct?' said Mrs Disbrowe, coldly. 'But you have not yet informed me how I was saved!'
Disbrowe averted his head.
'What mean you?' she cried, seizing his arm. 'What has happened? Do not keep me in suspense? Were you my preserver?'
'Your preserver was the plague,' rejoined Disbrowe, mournfully.
The unfortunate lady then, for the first time, perceived that she was attacked by the pestilence, and a long and dreadful pause ensued, broken only by exclamations of anguish from both.
'Disbrowe!' cried Margaret at length, raising herself in bed, 'you have deeply, irrecoverably injured me. But promise me one thing.'
'I swear to do whatever you may desire,' he replied.
'I know not, after what I have heard, whether you have courage for the deed,' she continued. 'But I would have you kill this man.'
'I will do it,' replied Disbrowe.
'Nothing but his blood can wipe out the wrong he has done me,' she rejoined. 'Challenge him to a duel--a mortal duel. If he survives, by my soul, I will give myself to him.'
'Margaret!' exclaimed Disbrowe.
'I swear it,' she rejoined,' and you know my passionate nature too well to doubt I will keep my word.'
'But you have the plague!'
'What does that matter? I may recover.'
'Not so,' muttered Disbrowe. 'If I fall, I will take care you do not recover.... I will fight him to-morrow,' he added aloud.
About noon on the following day Disbrowe proceeded to the Smyrna Coffee-house, where, as he expected, he found Parravicin and his companions. The knight instantly advanced towards him, and laying aside for the moment his reckless air, inquired, with a look of commiseration, after his wife.
'She is better,' replied Disbrowe, fiercely. 'I am come to settle accounts with you.'
'I thought they were settled long ago,' returned Parravicin, instantly resuming his wonted manner. 'But I am glad to find you consider the debt unpaid.'
Disbrowe lifted the cane he held in his hand, and struck the knight with it forcibly on the shoulder. 'Be that my answer,' he said.
'I will have your life first, and your wife afterwards,' replied Parravicin fiercely.
'You shall have her if you slay me, but not otherwise,' retorted Disbrowe. 'It must be a mortal duel.'
'It must,' replied Parravicin. 'I will not spare you this time. I shall instantly proceed to the west side of Hyde Park, beneath the trees. I shall expect you there. On my return I shall call on your wife.'
'I pray you do so, sir,' replied Disbrowe, disdainfully.
Both then quitted the Coffee-house, Parravicin attended by his companions, and Disbrowe accompanied by a military friend, whom he accidentally encountered. Each party taking a coach, they soon reached the ground, a retired spot completely screened from observation by trees. The preliminaries were soon arranged, for neither would admit of delay. The conflict then commenced with great fury on both sides; but Parravicin, in spite of his passion, observed far more caution than his antagonist; and taking advantage of an unguarded movement, occasioned by the other's impetuosity, passed his sword through his body. Disbrowe fell.
'You are again successful,' he groaned, 'but save my wife--save her!'
'What mean you?' cried Parravicin, leaning over him, as he wiped his sword.
But Disbrowe could make no answer. His utterance was choked by a sudden effusion of blood on the lungs, and he instantly expired.
Leaving the body in care of the second, Parravicin and his friends returned to the coach, his friends congratulating him on the issue of the conflict; but the knight looked grave, and pondered upon the words of the dying man. After a time, however, he recovered his spirits, and dined with his friends at the Smyrna; but they observed that he drank more deeply than usual. His excesses did not, however, prevent him from playing with his usual skill, and he won a large sum from one of his companions at Hazard.
Flushed with success, and heated with wine, he walked up to Disbrowe's residence about an hour after midnight. As he approached the house, he observed a strangely-shaped cart at the door, and, halting for a moment, saw a body, wrapped in a shroud, brought out. Could it be Mrs Disbrowe? Rushing forward to one of the assistants in black cloaks, he asked whom he was about to inter.
'It is a Mrs Disbrowe,' replied the coffin-maker. 'She died of grief, because her husband was killed this morning in a duel; but as she had the plague, it must be put down to that. We are not particular in such matters, and shall bury her and her husband together; and as there is no money left to pay for coffins, they must go to the grave without them.'
And as the body of his victim also was brought forth, Parravicin fell against the wall in a state of stupefaction. At this moment, Solomon Eagle, the weird plague-prophet, with his burning brazier on his head, suddenly turned the corner of the street, and, stationing himself before the dead-cart, cried in a voice of thunder--'Woe to the libertine! Woe to the homicide! for he shall perish in everlasting fire! Woe! woe!'
Such is this English legend, as related by Ainsworth, but which I have condensed into its main elements. I think it bids fair to equal in interest that of the Hindoo epic; and if it be not true in every particular, so much the better for the sake of human nature.
CHAPTER III. GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, PERSIANS, AND GREEKS.
Concerning the ancient Egyptians we have no particular facts to detail in the matter of gambling; but it is sufficient to determine the existence of any special vice in a nation to find that there are severe laws prohibiting and punishing its practice. Now, this testimony not only exists, but the penalty is of the utmost severity, from which may be inferred both the horror conceived of the practice by the rulers of the Egyptians, and the strong propensity which required that severity to suppress or hold it in check. In Egypt, 'every man was easily admitted to the accusation of a gamester or dice-player; and if the person was convicted, he was sent to work in the quarries.'(19) Gambling was, therefore, prevalent in Egypt in the earliest times.
(19) Taylor, _Ductor Dubitantium_, B. iv. c. 1.
That gaming with dice was a usual and fashionable species of diversion at the Persian court in the times of the younger Cyrus (about 400 years before the Christian era), to go no higher, is evident from the anecdote related by some historians of those days concerning Queen Parysatis, the mother of Cyrus, who used all her art and skill in gambling to satiate her revenge, and to accomplish her bloodthirsty projects against the murderers of her favourite son. She played for the life or death of an unfortunate slave, who had only executed the commands of his master. The anecdote is as follows, as related by Plutarch, in the Life of Artaxerxes.
'There only remained for the final execution of Queen Parysatis's projects, and fully to satiate her vengeance, the punishment of the king's slave Mesabetes, who by his master's order had cut off the head and hand of the young Cyrus, who was beloved by Parysatis (their common mother) above Artaxerses, his elder brother and the reigning monarch. But as there was nothing to take hold of in his conduct, the queen laid this snare for him. She was a woman of good address, had abundance of wit, and _EXCELLED AT PLAYING A CERTAIN GAME WITH DICE_. She had been apparently reconciled to the king after the death of Cyrus, and was present at all his parties of pleasure and gambling. One day, seeing the king totally unemployed, she proposed playing with him for a thousand _darics_ (about L500), to which he readily consented. She suffered him to win, and paid down the money. But, affecting regret and vexation, she pressed him to begin again, and to play with her--_FOR A SLAVE_. The king, who suspected nothing, complied, and the stipulation was that the winner was to choose the slave.
'The queen was now all attention to the game, and made use of her utmost skill and address, which as easily procured her victory, as her studied neglect before had caused her defeat. She won--and chose Mesabetes--the slayer of her son--who, being delivered into her hands, was put to the most cruel tortures and to death by her command.
'When the king would have interfered, she only replied with a smile of contempt--"Surely you must be a great loser, to be so much out of temper for giving up a decrepit old slave, when I, who lost a thousand good _darics_, and paid them down on the spot, do not say a word, and am satisfied."'
Thus early were dice made subservient to the purposes of cruelty and murder. The modern Persians, being Mohammedans, are restrained from the open practice of gambling. Yet evasions are contrived in favour of games in the tables, which, as they are only liable to chance on the 'throw of the dice,' but totally dependent on the 'skill' in 'the management of the game,' cannot (they argue) be meant to be prohibited by their prophet any more than chess, which is universally allowed to his followers; and, moreover, to evade the difficulty of being forbidden to play for money, they make an alms of their winnings, distributing them to the poor. This may be done by the more scrupulous; but no doubt there are numbers whose consciences do not prevent the disposal of their gambling profits nearer home. All excess of gaming, however, is absolutely prohibited in Persia; and any place wherein it is much exercised is called 'a habitation of corrupted carcases or carrion house.'(20)
(20) Hyde, _De Ludis Oriental_.
In ancient Greece gambling prevailed to a vast extent. Of this there can be no doubt whatever; and it is equally certain that it had an influence, together with other modes of dissipation and corruption, towards subjugating its civil liberties to the power of Macedon.
So shamelessly were the Athenians addicted to this vice, that they forgot all public spirit in their continued habits of gaming, and entered into convivial associations, or formed 'clubs,' for the purposes of dicing, at the very time when Philip of Macedon was making one grand 'throw' for their liberties at the Battle of Chaeronea.
This politic monarch well knew the power of depravity in enervating and enslaving the human mind; he therefore encouraged profusion, dissipation, and gambling, as being sure of meeting with little opposition from those who possessed such characters, in his projects of ambition--as Demosthenes declared in one of his orations.(21) Indeed, gambling had arrived at such a height in Greece, that Aristotle scruples not to rank gamblers 'with thieves and plunderers, who for the sake of gain do not scruple to despoil their best friends;'(22) and his pupil Alexander set a fine upon some of his courtiers because he did not perceive they made a sport or pastime of dice, but seemed to be employed as in a most serious business.(23)
(21) First Olynthia. See also Athenaeus, lib. vi. 260.
(22) Ethic. Ad Nicomachum, lib. iv.
(23) Plutarch, _in Reg. et Imp. Apothegm_
The Greeks gambled not only with dice, and at their equivalent for _Cross and Pile_, but also at cock-fighting, as will appear in the sequel.
From a remark made by the Athenian orator Callistratus, it is evident that desperate gambling was in vogue; he says that the games in which the losers go on doubling their stakes resemble ever-recurring wars, which terminate only with the extinction of the combatants.(24)
(24) Xenophon, _Hist. Graec_. lib. VI. c. iii.
CHAPTER IV. GAMING AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPERORS.
In spite of the laws enacted against gaming, the court of the Emperor Augustus was greatly addicted to that vice, and gave it additional stimulus among the nation. Although, however, he was passionately fond of gambling, and made light of the imputation on his character,(25) it appears that in frequenting the gambling table he had other motives besides mere cupidity. Writing to his daughter he said, 'I send you a sum with which I should have gratified my companions, if they had wished to play at dice or _odds and evens_.' On another occasion he wrote to Tiberius:--'If I had exacted my winnings during the festival of Minerva; if I had not lavished my money on all sides; instead of losing twenty thousand sestercii (about L1000), I should have gained one hundred and fifty thousand (L7500). I prefer it thus, however; for my bounty should win me immense glory.'(26)
(25) Aleae rumorem nullo modo expavit. Suet. in Vita Augusti.
(26) Sed hoc malo: benignitas enim mea me ad coelestem gloriam efferet. _Ubi supra_.
This gambling propensity subjected Augustus to the lash of popular epigrams; among the rest, the following:
Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit, Aliquando ut vincat, ludit assidud aleam.
'He lost at sea; was beaten twice, And tries to win at least with dice.'
But although a satirist by profession, the sleek courtier Horace spared the emperor's vice, contenting himself with only declaring that play was forbidden.(27) The two following verses of his, usually applied to the effects of gaming, really refer only to _RAILLERY._
(27) Carm. lib. III. Od. xxiv.
Ludus enim genuit trepidum certamen et iram; Ira truces inimicitias et funebre bellum.(28)
(28) Epist. lib. I. xix.
He, however, has recorded the curious fact of an old Roman gambler, who was always attended by a slave, to pick up his dice for him and put them in the box.(29) Doubtless, Horace would have lashed the vice of gambling had it not been the 'habitual sin' of his courtly patrons.
(29) Lib. II. Sat. vii. v. 15.
It seems that Augustus not only gambled to excess, but that he gloried in the character of a gamester. Of himself he says, 'Between meals we played like old crones both yesterday and today.'(30)
(30) Inter coenam lusimus (gr gerontikws) et heri et hodie.
When he had no regular players near him, he would play with children at dice, at nuts, or bones. It has been suggested that this emperor gave in to the indulgence of gambling in order to stifle his remorse. If his object in encouraging this vice was to make people forget his proscriptions and to create a diversion in his favour, the artifice may be considered equal to any of the political ruses of this astute ruler, whose false virtues were for a long time vaunted only through ignorance, or in order to flatter his imitators.
The passion of gambling was transmitted, with the empire, to the family of the Caesars. At the gaming table Caligula stooped even to falsehood and perjury. It was whilst gambling that he conceived his most diabolical projects; when the game was against him he would quit the table abruptly, and then, monster as he was, satiated with rapine, would roam about his palace venting his displeasure.
One day, in such a humour, he caught a glimpse of two Roman knights; he had them arrested and confiscated their property. Then returning to the gaming table, he exultingly exclaimed that he had never made a better throw!(31) On another occasion, after having condemned to death several Gauls of great opulence, he immediately went back to his gambling companions and said:--'I pity you when I see you lose a few sestertii, whilst, with a stroke of the pen, I have just won six hundred millions.'(32)
(31) Exultans rediit, gloriansque se nunquam prosperiore alea usum. Suet. in _Vita Calig_.
(32) Thirty millions of pounds sterling. The sestertius was worth 1_s_. 3 3/4_d_.
The Emperor Claudius played like an imbecile, and Nero like a madman. The former would send for the persons whom he had executed the day before, to play with him; and the latter, lavishing the treasures of the public exchequer, would stake four hundred thousand sestertii (L20,000) on a single throw of the dice.
Claudius played at dice on his journeys, having the interior of his carriage so arranged as to prevent the motion from interfering with the game.
From that period the title of courtier and gambler became synonymous. Gaming was the means of securing preferment; it was by gambling that Vitellius opened to himself so grand a career; gaming made him indispensable to Claudius.(33)
(33) Claudio per aleae studium familiaris. Suet.in Vita Vitelli.
Seneca, in his Play on the death of Claudius, represents him as in the lower regions condemned to pick up dice for ever, putting them into a box without a bottom!(34)
(34) Nam quotiens missurus erat resonante fritillo, Utraque subducto fugiebat tessera fundo. _Lusus de Morte Claud. Caesar_.
Caligula was reproached for having played at dice on the day of his sister's funeral; and Domitian was blamed for gaming from morning to night, and without excepting the festivals of the Roman calendar; but it seems ridiculous to note such improprieties in comparison with their habitual and atrocious crimes.
The terrible and inexorable satirist Juvenal was the contemporary of Domitian and ten other emperors; and the following is his description of the vice in the gaming days of Rome:
'When was the madness of games of chance more furious? Now-a-days, not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester conveys his iron chest to the play-room. It is there that, as soon as the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible contests. Is it not mere madness to lose one hundred thousand sestertii and refuse a garment to a slave perishing with cold?'(35)
(35) Sat. I. 87.
It seems that the Romans played for ready money, and had not invented that multitude of signs by the aid of which, without being retarded by the weight of gold and silver, modern gamblers can ruin themselves secretly and without display.
The rage for gambling spread over the Roman provinces, and among barbarous nations who had never been so much addicted to the vice as after they had the misfortune to mingle with the Romans.
The evil continued to increase, stimulated by imperial example. The day on which Didius Julianus was proclaimed Emperor, he walked over the dead and bloody body of Pertinax, and began to play at dice in the next room.(36)
(36) Dion Cass. _Hist. Rom_. l. lxxiii.
At the end of the fourth century, the following state of things at Rome is described by Gibbon, quoting from Ammianus Marcellinus:
'Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the "great," is derived from the profession of gaming; or, as it is more politely styled, of play. The confederates are united by a strict and indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior degree of skill in the "tessarian" art, is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of that sublime science who, in a supper or assembly, is placed below a magistrate, displays in his countenance the surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when he was refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people.'(37)
(37) Amm. Marcellin. lib. XIV. c. vi.
Finally, at the epoch when Constantine abandoned Rome never to return, every inhabitant of that city, down to the populace, was addicted to gambling.
CHAPTER V. GAMBLING IN FRANCE IN ALL TIMES.
CHARLES VI. and CHARLES VII.--The early French annals record the deeds of haughty and idle lords, whose chief occupations were tormenting their vassals, drinking, fighting, and gaming; for most of them were desperate gamblers, setting at defiance all the laws enacted against the practice, and outraging all the decencies of society. The brother of Saint Louis played at dice in spite of the repeated prohibitions of that virtuous prince. Even the great Duguesclin gamed away all his property in prison.(38) The Duc de Touraine, brother of Charles VI., 'set to work eagerly to win the king's money,' says Froissart; and transported with joy one day at having won five thousand livres, his first cry was--_Monseigneur, faites-moi payer_, 'Please to pay, Sire.'
(38) Hist. de Dugueselin, par Menard.
Gaming went on in the camp, and even in the presence of the enemy. Generals, after having ruined their own fortunes, compromised the safety of the country. Among the rest, Philibert de Chalon, Prince d'Orange, who was in command at the siege of Florence, under the Emperor Charles the Fifth, gambled away the money which had been confided to him for the pay of the soldiers, and was compelled, after a struggle of eleven months, to capitulate with those whom he might have forced to surrender.(39)
(39) Paul. Jov. _Hist_. lib. xxix.
In the reign of Charles VI. we read of an Hotel de Nesle which was famous for terrible gaming catastrophes. More than one of its frequenters lost their lives there, and some their honour, dearer than life. This hotel was not accessible to everybody, like more modern gaming _salons_, called _Gesvres_ and _Soissons;_ its gate was open only to the nobility, or the most opulent gentlemen of the day.
There exists an old poem which describes the doings at this celebrated Hotel de Nesle.(40) The author, after describing the convulsions of the players and recording their blasphemies, says:--
(40) The title of this curious old poem is as follows:--'C'est le dit du Gieu des Dez fait par Eustace, et la maniere et contenance des Joueurs qui etoient a Neele, ou etoient Messeigneurs de Berry, de Bourgogne, et plusieurs autres.'
Que maints Gentils-hommes tres haulx Y ont perdu armes et chevaux, Argent, honour, et Seignourie, Dont c'etoit horrible folie.
'How many very eminent gentlemen have there lost their arms and horses, their money and lordship--a horrible folly.'
In another part of the poem he says:--
Li jeune enfant deviennent Rufien, Joueurs de Dez, gourmands et plains d'yvresse, Hautains de cuer, et ne leur chant en rien D'onneur, &c.
'There young men become ruffians, dice-players, gluttons, and drunkards, haughty of heart, and bereft of honour.'
Still it seems that gaming had not then confounded all conditions, as at a later period. It is evident, from the history and memoirs of the times, that the people were more given to games of skill and exercise than games of chance. Before the introduction of the arquebus and gunpowder, they applied themselves to the practice of archery, and in all times they played at quoits, ninepins, bowls, and other similar games of skill.(41)
(41) Sauval, _Antiquites de Paris_, ii.
The invention of cards brought about some change in the mode of amusement. The various games of this kind, however, cost more time than money; but still the thing attracted the attention of the magistrates and the clergy. An Augustinian friar, in the reign of Charles VII., effected a wonderful reformation in the matter by his preaching. At his voice the people lit fires in several quarters of the city, and eagerly flung into them their cards and billiard-balls.(42)
(42) Pasquier, _Recherche des Recherches_.
With the exception of a few transient follies, nothing like a rage for gambling can be detected at that period among the lower ranks and the middle classes. The vice, however, continued to prevail without abatement in the palaces of kings and the mansions of the great.
It is impossible not to remark, in the history of nations, that delicacy and good faith decline in proportion to the spread of gambling. However select may be the society of gamesters, it is seldom that it is exempt from all baseness. We have seen a proof of the practice of cheating among the Hindoos. It existed also among the Romans, as proved by the 'cogged' or loaded dice dug up at Herculaneum. The fact is that cheating is a natural, if not a necessary, incident of gambling. It may be inferred from a passage in the old French poet before quoted, that cheats, during the reign of Charles VI., were punished with 'bonnetting,'(43) but no instance of the kind is on record; on the contrary, it is certain that many of the French kings patronized and applauded well-known cheats at the gaming table.
(43) Se votre ami qui bien vous sert En jouant vous changeoit les Dez, Auroit-il pas _Chapeau de vert_.
LOUIS XI.--Brantome says that Louis XI., who seems not to have had a special secretary, being one day desirous of getting something written, perceived an ecclesiastic who had an inkstand hanging at his side; and the latter having opened it at the king's request, a set of dice fell out. 'What kind of _SUGAR-PLUMS_ are these?' asked his Majesty. 'Sire,' replied the priest, 'they are a remedy for the Plague.' 'Well said,' exclaimed the king, 'you are a fine _Paillard_ (a word he often used); '_YOU ARE THE MAN FOR ME_,' and took him into his service; for this king was fond of bon-mots and sharp wits, and did not even object to thieves, provided they were original and provocative of humour, as the following very funny anecdote will show. 'A certain French baron who had lost everything at play, even to his clothes, happening to be in the king's chamber, quietly laid hands on a small clock, ornamented with massive gold, and concealed it in his sleeve. Very soon after, whilst he was among the troop of lords and gentlemen, the clock began to strike the hour. We can well imagine the consternation of the baron at this contretemps. Of course he blushed red-hot, and tightened his arm to try and stifle the implacable sound of detection manifest--the _flagrans delictum_--still the clock went on striking the long hour, so that at each stroke the bystanders looked at each other from head to foot in utter bewilderment.
'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.
At the first examination, the 'gentleman' before mentioned, a Mr Mackenzie, said he had played _Rouge et Noir_ at Walker's, and had lost L125. He saw O'Mara there, but he appeared as a player, not a banker; the only reason for considering him as one of the proprietors of the table, arose from the information of the witnesses Wright and Ford.
On this evidence, Mr Sergeant Runnington called on O'Mara and Walker for their defence, observing that, according to the statements before him, there appeared sufficient ground for considering O'Mara as a rogue and vagabond; and for subjecting Mr Walker to penalties for keeping a house or room wherein he permitted unlawful games to be played. O'Mara affirmed that the whole testimony of Wright and Ford with respect to him was false; that he had been nine years a resident housekeeper in Brighton, and was known by, and had rendered essential services to, many respectable individuals who lived in the town, and to many noble persons who were occasional visitors. He seemed deeply penetrated by the intimation that he could be whipped, or otherwise treated as a vagabond; and said, that if time were allowed him to collect evidence, and obtain legal assistance, he could disprove the charge, or at least invalidate the evidence of the two accusers.
In consequence of these representations, the case was adjourned to another day, when, so much was the expectation excited by the rumour of the affair, that at the opening of the court the hall was crowded almost to suffocation, and all the avenues were completely beset.
O'Mara appeared, with his counsel, the celebrated Mr Adolphus--the Ballantyne of his day--of Old Bailey renown and forensic prowess.
Mr Sergeant Runnington very obligingly stated to Mr Adolphus the previous proceeding, directed the depositions to be laid before him, and allowed him time to peruse them. Mr Adolphus having gone through the document, requested that the witnesses might be brought into court, that he might cross-question them separately; which being ordered, Wright was first put forward--the man who had received the L100, enlightened the Mr Mackenzie, and who was charged with feloniously stealing the above amount.
After the usual questions, very immaterial in the present case, but answered, the witness went on to say that, O'Mara called at his lodgings and said, if he (Wright) could not persuade Mr Mackenzie to come from London, he was not to leave him, but write to him (O'Mara), and he would go to town, and win all his money. He had, on a former occasion, told the witness, that he could win all Mackenzie's money at child's play--that he could toss up and win ninety times out of one hundred; he had told both him and Ford, that if they met with any gentleman who did not like the game of _Rouge et Noir_, and would bring them to his house, he was always provided with cards, dice, and backgammon tables, to win their money from them.
The learned counsel then cross-questioned the witness as to various matters, in the usual way, but tending, of course, to damage him by the answers which the questions necessitated--a horrible, but, perhaps, necessary ordeal perpetuated in our law-procedure. In these answers there was something like prevarication; so that the magistrate, Mr Sergeant Runnington, asked the witness at the close of the examination, whether he had any previous acquaintance with the gentlemen who had engaged him at half-a-crown a game, and then so candily communicated to him all their schemes? He said, none whatever. 'But,' said the Sergeant, 'you were in the daily habit of playing at this public table for the purpose of deceiving the persons who might come there?' The witness answered--'I was.'
The witness Ford fared no better in the cross-examination, and Mr Sergeant Runnington, at its close, asked him the same question that he had addressed to Wright, respecting his playing at the table, and received the same answer.
Mr Mackenzie did not appear, and there was no further evidence. Mr Adolphus said that if he were called upon to make any defence for his client upon a charge so supported, he was ready to do it; but, as he must make many observations, not only on the facts, but on the _LAW_, he was anxious if possible to avoid doing so, as he did not wish to say too much about the law respecting gaming before so large and mixed an audience.(72)
(72) See Chapter XI. for the views of Mr Adolphus here alluded to.
Two witnesses were called, who gave evidence which was damaging to the character of Ford, stating that he told them he was in a conspiracy against O'Mara and some other moneyed men, from whom they should get three or four hundred pounds, and if witness would conceal from O'Mara his (Ford's) real name, he should have his share of the money, and might go with him and Wright to Brussels.
After hearing these witnesses, Mr Sergeant Runnington, without calling on Mr Adolphus for any further defence of his client, pronounced the judgment of the Bench.
He reviewed the transaction from its commencement, and stated the impression, to the disadvantage of O'Mara, which the tale originally told by the two witnesses was calculated to make. But, on hearing the cross-examination of those witnesses, and seeing no evidence against the defendant but from sources so impure and corrupt--recollecting the severe penalties of the Vagrant Acts, and sitting there not merely as a judge, but also exercising the functions of a jury, he could not bring himself to convict on such evidence. The witnesses, impure as they were, were _NOT SUPPORTED BY MR MACKENZIE IN ANY PARTICULAR_, except the fact of his losing money, at a time when O'Mara did not appear as a proprietor of the table, but as a player like himself. O'Mara must therefore be discharged; but the two witnesses would not be so fortunate. From their own mouths it appeared that they had been using subtle craft to deceive and impose upon his Majesty's subjects, by playing or betting at unlawful games, and had no legal or visible means of gaining a livelihood; the court, therefore, adjudged them to be rogues and vagabonds, and committed them, in execution, to the gaol at Lewes, there to remain till the next Quarter Sessions, and then to be further dealt with according to law. A short private conference followed between the magistrates and Mr Adolphus, the result of which was that Mr Walker was not proceeded against, but entered into a recognizance not to permit any kind of gaming to be carried on in his house.
CHAPTER VIII. GAMBLING AT THE GERMAN BATHING-PLACES.----
BADEN AND ITS CONVERSATION HOUSE.
Baden-Baden in the season is full of the most exciting contrasts--gay restaurants and brilliant saloons, gaming-tables, promenades, and theatres crammed with beauty and rank, in the midst of lovely natural scenery, and under the shade of the pine-clad heights of the Hercynian or Black Forest--the scene of so many weird tales of old Germany--as for instance of the charming _Undine_ of De la Mothe Fouque.
But among the seducing attractions of Baden-Baden, and of all German bathing-places, the Rouge-et-noir and Roulette-table hold a melancholy pre-eminence,--being at once a shameful source of revenue to the prince,--a rallying point for the gay, the beautiful, the professional blackleg, the incognito duke or king,--and a vortex in which the student, the merchant, and the subaltern officer are, in the course of the season, often hopelessly and irrevocably ingulfed. Remembering the gaming excitement of the primitive Germans, we can scarcely be surprised to find that the descendants of these northern races poison the pure stream of pleasure by the introduction of this hateful occupation. It is, however, rather remarkable that all foreign visitors, whether Dutch, Flemish, Swede, Italian, or even English, of whatever age or disposition or sex, 'catch the frenzy' during the (falsely so-called) _Kurzeit_, that is, _Cure-season_, at Baden, Ems, and Ais.
Princes and their subjects, fathers and sons, and even, horrible to say, mothers and daughters, are hanging, side by side, for half the night over the green table; and, with trembling hands and anxious eyes, watching their chance-cards, or thrusting francs and Napoleons with their rakes to the red or the black cloth.
No spot in the whole world draws together a more distinguished society than may be met at Baden; its attractions are felt and acknowledged by every country in Europe. Many of the _elite_ of each nation may yearly be found there during the months of summer, and, as a natural consequence, many of the worst and vilest follow them, in the hope of pillage.
Says Mrs Trollope:--'I doubt if anything less than the evidence of the senses can enable any one fully to credit and comprehend the spectacle that a gaming-table offers. I saw women distinguished by rank, elegant in person, modest, and even reserved in manner, sitting at the Rouge-et-noir table with their rateaux, or rakes, and marking-cards in their hands;--the former to push forth their bets, and draw in their winnings, the latter to prick down the events of the game. I saw such at different hours through the whole of Sunday. To name these is impossible; but I grieve to say that two English women were among them.'
The Conversationshaus, where the gambling takes place, is let out by the Government of Baden to a company of speculators, who pay, for the exclusive privilege of keeping the tables, L11,000 annually, and agree to spend in addition 250,000 florins (L25,000) on the walks and buildings, making altogether about L36,000. Some idea may be formed from this of the vast sums of money which must be yearly lost by the dupes who frequent it. The whole is under the direction of M. Benazet, who formerly farmed the gambling houses of Paris.
'On trouve ici le jeu, les livres, la musique,
Les cigarres, l'amour, les orangers,
Le monde tantot gai, tantot melancholique,
Les glaces, la danse, et les cochers;
De la biere, de bons diners,
A cote d'arbre une boutique,
Et la vue de hauts rochers.
Ma foi!'
'We find here gambling, books, and music,
Cigars, love-making, orange-trees;
People or gay or melancholic,
Ices, dancing, and coachmen, if you please;
Beer, and good dinners; besides these,
Shops where they sell not _on tic;_
And towering rocks one ever sees.'
'How shall I describe,' says Mr Whitelocke, 'to my readers in language sufficiently graphic, one of the resorts the most celebrated in Europe; a place, if not competing with Crockford's in gorgeous magnificence and display, at least surpassing it in renown, and known over a wider sphere? The metropolitan pump-room of Europe, conducted on the principle of gratuitous admittance to all bearing the semblance of gentility and conducting themselves with propriety, opens its Janus doors to all the world with the most laudable hospitality and with a perfect indifference to exclusiveness, requiring only the hat to be taken off upon entering, and rejecting only short jackets, cigar, pipe, and meerschaum. A room of this description, a temple dedicated to fashion, fortune, and flirtation, requires a pen more current, a voice more eloquent, than mine to trace, condense, vivify, and depict. Taking everything, therefore, for granted, let us suppose a vast saloon of regular proportions, rather longer than broad, at either end garnished by a balcony; beneath, doors to the right and left, and opposite to the main entrance, conduct to other apartments, dedicated to different purposes. On entering the eye is at once dazzled by the blaze of lights from chandeliers of magnificent dimensions, of lamps, lustres, and sconces. The ceiling and borders set off into compartments, showered over with arabesques, the gilded pillars, the moving mass of promenaders, the endless labyrinth of human beings assembled from every region in Europe, the costly dresses, repeated by a host of mirrors, all this combined, which the eye conveys to the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every step a new language falls upon it, and every tongue with different intonation, for the high and the low, the prince, peer, vassal, and tradesman, the proud beauty, the decrepit crone, some fresh budding into the world, some standing near the grave, the gentle and the stern, the sombre and the gay, in short, every possible antithesis that the eye, ear, heart can perceive, hear, or respond to, or that the mind itself can imagine, is here to be met with in two minutes. And yet all this is no Babel; for all, though concentrated, is admirably void of confusion; and evil or strong passions, if they do exist, are religiously suppressed--a necessary consequence, indeed, where there can be no sympathy, and where contempt and ridicule would be the sole reciprocity. In case, however, any such display should take place, a gendarme keeps constant watch at the door, appointed by government, it is true, but resembling our Bow-street officers in more respects than one.
'Now that we have taken a survey of the brilliant and moving throng, let us approach the stationary crowd to the left hand, and see what it is that so fascinates and rivets their attention. They are looking upon a long table covered with green cloth, in the centre of which is a large polished wooden basin with a moveable rim, and around it are small compartments, numbered to a certain extent, namely 38, alternately red and black in irregular order, numbered from one to 36, a nought or zero in a red, and a double zero upon the black, making up the 38, and each capable of holding a marble. The moveable rim is set in motion by the hand, and as it revolves horizontally from east to west round its axis, the marble is caused by a jerk of the finger and thumb to fly off in a contrary movement. The public therefore conclude that no calculation can foretell where the marble will fall, and I believe they are right, inasmuch as the bank plays a certain and sure game, however deep, runs no risk of loss, and consequently has no necessity for superfluously cheating or deluding the public. It also plays double, that is, on both sides of the wheel of fortune at once.
'When the whirling of both rim and marble cease, the latter falls, either simultaneously or after some coy uncertainty, into one of the compartments, and the number and colour, &c., are immediately proclaimed, the stakes deposited are dexterously raked up by the croupier, or increased by payment from the bank, according as the colour wins or loses. Now, the two sides or tables are merely duplicates of one another, and each of them is divided something like a chess-board into three columns of squares, which amount to 36; the numbers advance arithmetically from right to left, and consequently there are 12 lines down, so as to complete the rectangle; as one, therefore, stands at the head, four stands immediately under it, and so on. At the bottom lie three squares, with the French marks 12 p--12 m--12 d, that is, first, middle, third dozen. The three large meadows on either side are for red and black, pair and odd, miss and pass--which last signify the division of the numbers into the first and second half, from 1 to 18, and from 19 to 36, inclusive. If a number be staked upon and wins, the stake is increased to six times its amount, and so on, always less as the stake is placed in different positions, which may be effected in the following ways--by placing the piece of gold or silver on the line (_a cheval_, as it is called), partly on one and partly on its neighbour, two numbers are represented, and should one win, the piece is augmented to eighteen times the sum; three numbers are signified upon the stroke at the end or beginning of the numbers that go across; six, by placing the coin on the border of a perpendicular and a horizontal line between two strokes; four, where the lines cross within; twelve numbers are signified in a two-fold manner, either upon the column where the figures follow in the order of one, four, seven, and so on, or on the side-fields mentioned above; these receive the stake trebled; and those who stake solely upon the colour, the two halves, or equal and odd, have their stake doubled when they win. Now, the two zeros, that is, the simple and compound, stand apart and may be separately staked upon; should either turn up, the stake is increased in a far larger proportion.
'To render the game equal, without counting in the zeros and other trifles, the winner ought to receive the square of 36, instead of 36.
'It is a melancholy amusement to any rational being not infatuated by the blind rage of gold, to witness the incredible excitement so repeatedly made to take the bank by storm, sometimes by surprise, anon by stealth, and not rarely by digging a mine, laying intrenchments and opening a fire of field-pieces, heavy ordnance, and flying artillery; but the fortress, proud and conscious of its superior strength, built on a rock of adamant, laughs at the fiery attacks of its foes, nay, itself invites the storm.
'For those classes of mankind who possess a little more prudence, the game called _Trente-et-un_, and _Quarante_, or _Rouge et Noir_ are substituted.
'The lord of the temple or establishment pays, I believe, to government a yearly sum of 35,000 florins (about L3000) for permission to keep up the establishment. He has gone to immense expense in decorating the building; he pays a crowd of croupiers at different salaries, and officers of his own, who superintend and direct matters; he lights up the building, and he presides over the festivities of the town--in short, he is the patron of it all. With all this liberality he himself derives an enormous revenue, an income as sure and determined as that of my Lord Mayor himself.'(73)
(73) City of the Fountains, or Baden-Baden. By R. H. Whitelocke. Carlsruhe, 1840.
The Baden season begins in May; the official opening takes place towards the close of the spring quarter, and then the fashionable world begins to arrive at the rendezvous.
It cannot be denied that everything is right well regulated, and apart from the terrible dangers of gambling, the place does very great credit to the authorities who thrive on the nefarious traffic. Perfect order and decency of deportment, with all the necessary civilities of life, are rigorously insisted on, and summary expulsion is the consequence of any intolerable conduct. If it so happens that any person becomes obnoxious in any way, whatever may be his or her rank, the first intimation will be--'Sir, you are not in your place here;' or, 'Madame, the air of Baden does not suit you.' If these words are disregarded, there follows a summary order--'You must leave Baden this very day, and cross the frontiers of the Grand Duchy within twenty-four hours.'
Mr Sala, in his novel 'Make your Game,'(74) has given a spirited description of the gambling scenes at Baden.
(74) Originally published in the 'Welcome Guest.'
Whilst I write there is exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, London, Dore's magnificent picture of the _Tapis Vert_, or Life in Baden-Baden, of which the following is an accurate description:--
'The _Tapis Vert_ is a moral, and at the same time an exceedingly clever, satire. It is illustrative of the life, manners, and predilections and pursuits of a class of society left hereafter to enjoy the manifold attractions of fashionable watering-places, without the scourge that for so many years held its immoral and degrading sway in their sumptuous halls.
'In one of these splendid salons the fashionable crowd is eagerly pressing round an oblong table covered with green cloth (_le tapis vert_), upon which piles of gold and bank-notes tell the tale of "_noir perd et la couleur gagne_," and vice versa. The principal group, upon which Dore has thrown one of his powerful effects of light, is lifelike, and several of the actors are at once recognized. Both croupiers are well-known characters. There is much life and movement in the silent scene, in which thousands of pounds change hands in a few seconds. To the left of the croupier (dealer), who turns up the winning card, sits a finely-dressed woman, who cares for little else but gold. There is a remarkable expression of eagerness and curiosity upon the countenance of the lady who comes next, and who endeavours, with the assistance of her eye-glass, to find out the state of affairs. The gentleman next to her is an inveterate _blase_. The countenance of the old man reckoning up needs no description. Near by stands a lady with a red feather in her hat, and whose lace shawl alone is worth several hundred pounds--for Dore made it. The two female figures to the left are splendidly painted. The one who causes the other croupier to turn round seems somewhat extravagantly dressed; but these costumes have been frequently worn within the last two years both at Baden and Hombourg. The old lady at the end of the table, to the left, is a well-known habituee at both places. The bustling and shuffling eagerness of the figures in the background is exceedingly well rendered.
'As a whole, the _Tapis Vert_ is a very fine illustration of real life, as met with in most of the leading German watering-places.'(75)
(75) 'Illustrated Times.'
'At the present moment,' says another authority, writing more than a year ago, 'there are three very bold female gamblers at Baden. One is the Russian Princess ----, who plays several hours every day at _Rouge et Noir_, and sometimes makes what in our money would be many hundreds, and at others goes empty away. She wins calmly enough, but when luck is against her looks anxious. The second is the wife of an Italian ex-minister, who is well known both as an authoress and politician. She patronizes _Roulette_, and at every turn of the wheel her money passes on the board. She is a good gambler--smirking when she wins, and smirking when she loses. She dresses as splendidly as any of the dames of Paris. The other night she excited a flutter among the ladies assembled in the salons of the "Conversation" by appearing in a robe flaming red with an exaggerated train which dragged its slow length along the floor. But the greatest of the feminine players is the Leonie Leblanc. When she is at the _Rouge et Noir_ table a larger crowd than usual is collected to witness her operation. The stake she generally risks is 6000 francs (L240), which is the maximum allowed. Her chance is changing: a few days back she won L4000 in one sitting; some days later she lost about L2000, and was then reduced to the, for her, indignity of playing for paltry sums--L20 or thereabouts.'
Among the more recent chronicles, the _Figaro_ gives the following account of the close of the campaign of a gaming hero, M. Edgar de la Charme, who, for a number of days together, never left the gaming-room without carrying off the sum of 24,000 francs.
'The day before yesterday, M. de la Charme, reflecting that there must be an end even to the greatest run of luck, locked his portmanteau, paid his bill, and took the road to the railway station, accompanied by some of his friends. On reaching the wicket he found it closed; there were still three-quarters of an hour to pass before the departure of the train. "I will go and play my parting game," he exclaimed, and, turning to the coachman, bade him drive to the Kursaal. His friends surrounded him, and held him back; he should not go, he would lose all his winnings. But he was resolute, and soon reached the Casino, where his travelling dress caused a stir of satisfaction among the croupiers. He sat down at the _Trente-et-quarante_, broke the bank in 20 minutes, got into his cab again, and seeing the inspector of the tables walking to and fro under the arcades, he said to him, in a tone of exquisite politeness, "I could not think of going away without leaving you my P.P.C."'
SPA.
'The gambling houses of Spa are in the Redoute, where _Rouge et Noir_ and _Roulette_ are carried on nearly from morning to night.
The profits of these establishments exceed L40,000 a year. In former times they belonged to the Bishop of Liege, who was a partner in the concern, and derived a considerable revenue from his share of the ill-gotten gains of the manager of the establishment, and no gambling tables could be set up without his permission.'(76)
(76) Murray's Handbook for Travellers on the Continent.
'The gambling in Spa is in a lower style than elsewhere. The croupiers seem to be always on the look-out for cheating. You never see here a pile of gold or bank notes on the table, as at Hombourg or Wiesbaden, with the player saying, "Cinquante louis aux billet," "Cent-vingt louis a la masse," and the winnings scrupulously paid, or the losings raked carefully away from the heap. They do not allow that at Spa; there is an order against it on the wall. They could not trust the people that play, I suppose, and it is doubtful if the people could trust the croupiers. The ball spins more slowly at _Roulette_--the cards are dealt more gingerly at _Trente-et-quarante_ here than elsewhere. Nothing must be done quickly, lest somebody on one side or other should try to do somebody else. Altogether Spa is not a pleasant place to play in, and as, moreover, the odds are as great against you as at Ems, it is better to stick to the promenade _de sept heures_ and the ball-room, and leave the two tables alone. Outside it is cheery and full of life. The Queen of the Belgians is here, the Duke of Aumale, and other nice people. The breeze from the hills is always delicious; the Promenade Meyerbeer as refreshing on a hot day as a draught of iced water. But the denizens, male and female, of the _salons de jeu_ are often obnoxious, and one wishes that the old Baden law could be enforced against some of the gentler sex.
'By way of warning to any of your readers who propose to visit the tables this summer, will you let me tell a little anecdote, from personal experience, of one of these places--which one I had perhaps better not say. I took a place at the Roulette table, and had not staked more than once or twice, when two handsomely dressed ladies placed themselves one on either side of me, and commenced playing with the smallest coins allowed, wedging me in rather unpleasantly close between them. At my third or fourth stake I won on both the colour and a number, and my neighbour on the right quietly swept up my coins from the colour the instant they were paid. I remonstrated, and she very politely argued the point, ending by restoring my money. But during our discussion my far larger stake, paid in the mean while, on the winning number, had disappeared into the pocket of my neighbour on the left, who was not so polite, and was very indignant at my suggestion that the stake was mine. An appeal to the croupier only produced a shrug of the shoulders and regret that he had not seen who staked the money, an offer to stop the play, and a suggestion that I should find it very difficult to prove it was my stake. The "plant" between the two women was evident. The whole thing was a systematically-planned robbery, and very possibly the croupier was a confederate. I detected the two women in communication, and I told them that I should change my place to the other side of the table where I would trouble them not to come. They took the hint very mildly, and could afford to do so, for they had got my money. The affair was very neatly managed, and would succeed in nearly every case, especially if the croupier is, as is most probable, always on the side of the ladies.'
HOMBOURG.
'In 1842 Hombourg was an obscure village, consisting of the castle of the Landgraf, and of a few hundred houses which in the course of ages had clustered around it. Few would have known of its existence except from the fact of its being the capital of the smallest of European countries. Its inhabitants lived poor and contented--the world forgetting, by the world forgot. It boasted only of one inn--the "Aigle"--which in summer was frequented by a few German families, who came to live cheaply and to drink the waters of a neighbouring mineral spring. That same year two French brothers of the name of Blanc arrived at Frankfort. They were men of a speculative turn, and a recent and somewhat daring speculation in France, connected with the old semaphore telegraph, had rendered it necessary for them to withdraw for a time from their native land. Their stock-in-trade consisted in a Roulette wheel, a few thousand francs, and an old and skilful croupier of Frascati, who knew a great deal about the properties of cards. The authorities of the town of Frankfort, being dull traders, declined to allow them to initiate their townsmen into the mysteries of cards and Roulette, so hearing that there were some strangers living at Hombourg, they put themselves into an old diligence, and the same evening disembarked at the "Aigle." The next day the elder brother called upon the prime minister, an ancient gentleman, who, with a couple of clerks, for some L60 a year governed the Landgrafate of Hombourg to his own and the general satisfaction. After a private interview with this statesman the elder Blanc returned poorer in money, but with a permission in his pocket to put up his Roulette wheel in one of the rooms of the inn. In a few months the money of the innocent water-drinkers passed from their pockets into those of the brothers Blanc. The ancient man of Frascati turned the wheel, and no matter on what number the water-drinkers risked their money, that number did not turn up. At the close of the summer season a second visit was made to the prime minister, and the Blancs returned to Frankfort with an exclusive concession to establish games of hazard within the wide spreading dominions of the Landgraf. For this they had agreed to build a kursaal, to lay out a public garden, and to pay into the national exchequer 40,000 florins (a florin is worth one shilling and eight-pence) per annum. Having obtained this concession, the next step was to found a company. Frankfort abounds in Hebrew speculators, who are not particular how they make money, and as the speculation appeared a good one, the money was soon forthcoming. It was decided that the nominal capital was to be 400,000 florins, divided into shares of 100 florins each. Half the shares were subscribed for by the Hebrew financialists, and the other half was credited to the Blancs as the price of their concession. During the winter a small kursaal was built and a small garden planted; the mineral well was deepened, and flaming advertisements appeared in all the German newspapers announcing to the world that the famous waters of Hombourg were able to cure every disease to which flesh is heir, and that to enable visitors to while away their evenings agreeably a salon had been opened, in which they would have an opportunity to win fabulous sums by risking their money either at the game of _Trente et Quarante_ or at _Roulette_. From these small beginnings arose the "company" whose career has been so notorious. It has enjoyed uninterrupted good fortune. During the twenty-six years that have elapsed since its foundation, a vast palace dedicated to gambling has been built, the village has become a town, well paved, and lighted with gas; the neighbouring hills are covered with villas; about eighty acres have been laid out in pleasure-grounds; roads have been made in all directions through the surrounding woods; the visitors are numbered by tens of thousands; there are above twenty hotels and many hundred excellent lodging-houses.'(77)
(77) Correspondent of _Daily News._
'Let those who are disposed to risk their money inquire what is the character of the managers, and be on their guard. The expenses of such an enormous and splendid establishment amount to L10,000, and the shares have for some years paid a handsome dividend--the whole of which must be paid out of the pockets of travellers and visitors.'(78)
(78) Murray, _ubi supra_.
Mr Sala in his interesting work, already quoted, furnishes the completest account of Hombourg, its Kursaal, and gambling, which I have condensed as follows:--
'In Hombourg the Kursaal is everything, and the town nothing. The extortionate hotel-keepers, the "snub-nosed rogues of counter and till," who overcharge you in the shops, make their egregious profits from the Kursaal. The major part of the Landgrave's revenue is derived from the Kursaal; he draws L5000 a year from it. He and his house are sold to the Kursaal; and the Board of Directors of the Kursaal are the real sovereigns and land-graves of Hesse Hombourg. They have metamorphosed a miserable mid-German townlet into a city of palaces. Their stuccoed and frescoed palace is five hundred times handsomer than the mouldy old Schloss, built by William with the silver leg. They have planted the gardens; they have imported the orange-trees; they have laid out the park, and enclosed the hunting-grounds; they board, lodge, wash, and tax the inhabitants; and I may say, without the slightest attempt at punning, that the citizens are all _Kursed_.
'In the Kursaal is the ball or concert-room, at either end of which is a gallery, supported by pillars of composition marble. The floors are inlaid, and immense mirrors in sumptuous frames hang on the walls. Vice can see her own image all over the establishment. The ceiling is superbly decorated with bas-reliefs in _carton-pierre_, like those in Mr Barry's new Covent Garden Theatre; and fresco paintings, executed by Viotti, of Milan, and Conti, of Munich; whilst the whole is lighted up by enormous and gorgeous chandeliers. The apartment to the right is called the _Salle Japanese_, and is used as a dining-room for a monster _table d'hote_, held twice a day, and served by the famous Chevet of Paris.
'There is a huge Cafe Olympique, for smoking and imbibing purposes, private cabinets for parties, the monster saloon, and two smaller ones, where _FROM ELEVEN IN THE FORENOON TO ELEVEN AT NIGHT, SUNDAYS NOT EXCEPTED, ALL THE YEAR ROUND_, and year after year--(the "administration" have yet a "_jouissance_" of eighty-five years to run out, guaranteed by the incoming dynasty of Hesse Darmstadt), knaves and fools, from almost every corner of the world, gamble at the ingenious and amusing games of _Roulette_, and _Rouge et Noir_, otherwise _Trente et Quarante_.
'There is one table covered with green baize, tightly stretched as on a billiard-field. In the midst of the table there is a circular pit, coved inwards, but not bottomless, and containing the Roulette wheel, a revolving disc, turning with an accurate momentum on a brass pillar, and divided at its outer edge into thirty-seven narrow and shallow pigeon-hole compartments, coloured alternately red and black, and numbered--not consecutively--up to thirty-six. The last is a blank, and stands for _Zero_, number _Nothing_. Round the upper edge, too, run a series of little brass hoops, or bridges, to cause the ball to hop and skip, and not at once into the nearest compartment. This is the regimen of Roulette. The banker sits before the wheel,--a croupier, or payer-out of winnings to and raker in of losses from the players, on either side. Crying in a voice calmly sonorous, "_Faites le Jeu, Messieurs_,"--"Make your game, gentlemen!" the banker gives the wheel a dexterous twirl, and ere it has made one revolution, casts into its Maelstrom of black and red an ivory ball. The interval between this and the ball finding a home is one of breathless anxiety. Stakes are eagerly laid; but at a certain period of the revolution the banker calls out--"_Le Jeu est fait. Rien ne va plus_,"--and after that intimation it is useless to lay down money. Then the banker, in the same calm and impassable voice, declares the result. It may run thus:--"_Vingt-neuf, Noir, Impair, et Passe," "Twenty-nine, Black, Odd, and Pass the Rubicon_" (No. 18); or, "_Huit, Rouge, Pair, et Manque_," "Eight, Red, Even, and _NOT_ Pass the Rubicon."
'Now, on either side of the wheel, and extending to the extremity of the table, run, in duplicate, the schedule of _mises_ or stakes. The green baize first offers just thirty-six square compartments, marked out by yellow threads woven in the fabric itself, and bearing thirty-six consecutive numbers. If you place a florin (one and eight-pence)--and no lower stake is permitted--or ten florins, or a Napoleon, or an English five-pound note, or any sum of money not exceeding the maximum, whose multiple is the highest stake which the bank, if it loses, can be made to pay, in the midst of compartment 29, and if the banker, in that calm voice of his, has declared that 29 has become the resting place of the ball, the croupier will push towards you with his rake exactly thirty-three times the amount of your stake, whatever it might have been. You must bear in mind, however, that the bank's loss on a single stake is limited to eight thousand francs. Moreover, if you have placed another sum of money in the compartment inscribed, in legible yellow colours, "_Impair_," or Odd, you will receive the equivalent to your stake--twenty-nine being an odd number. If you have placed a coin on _Passe_, you will also receive this additional equivalent to your stake, twenty-nine being "Past the Rubicon," or middle of the table of numbers--18. Again, if you have ventured your money in a compartment bearing for device a lozenge in outline, which represents black, and twenty-nine being a black number, you will again pocket a double stake, that is, one in addition to your original venture. More, and more still,--if you have risked money on the columns--that is, betted on the number turning up corresponding with some number in one of the columns of the tabular schedule, and have selected the right column--you have your own stake and two others;--if you have betted on either of these three eventualities, _douze premier, douze milieu_, or _douze dernier_, otherwise "first dozen," "middle dozen," or "last dozen," as one to twelve, thirteen to twenty-four, twenty-five to thirty-six, all inclusive, and have chanced to select _douze dernier_, the division in which No. 29 occurs, you also obtain a treble stake, namely, your own and two more which the bank pays you, your florin or your five-pound note--benign fact!--metamorphosed into three. But, woe to the wight who should have ventured on the number "eight," on the red colour (compartment with a crimson lozenge), on "even," and on "not past the Rubicon;" for twenty-nine does not comply with any one of these conditions. He loses, and his money is coolly swept away from him by the croupier's rake. With reference to the last chances I enumerated in the last paragraph, I should mention that the number _EIGHT_ would lie in the second column--there being three columns,--and in the first dozen numbers.
'There are more chances, or rather subdivisions of chances, to entice the player to back the "numbers;" for these the stations of the ball are as capricious as womankind; and it is, of course, extremely rare that a player will fix upon the particular number that happens to turn up. But he may place a piece of money _a cheval_, or astride, on the line which divides two numbers, in which case (either of the numbers turning up) he receives sixteen times his stake. He may place it on the cross lines that divide four numbers, and, if either of the four wins, he will receive eight times the amount of his stake. A word as to _Zero_. Zero is designated by the compartment close to the wheel's diameter, and zero, or blank, will turn up, on an average, about once in seventy times. If you have placed money in zero, and the ball seeks that haven, you will receive thirty-three times your stake.'
The twin or elder brother of _Roulette_, played at Hombourg, _Rouge et Noir_, or _Trente et Quarante_, is thus described by Mr Sala:--
'There is the ordinary green-cloth covered table, with its brilliant down-coming lights. In the centre sits the banker, gold and silver in piles and _rouleaux_, and bank-notes before him. On either hand, the croupier, as before, now wielding the rakes and plying them to bring in the money, now balancing them, now shouldering them, as soldiers do their muskets, half-pay officers their canes, and dandies their silk umbrellas. The banker's cards are, as throughout all the Rhenish gaming-places, of French design; the same that were invented, or, at least, first used in Europe, for crazy Charles the Simple. These cards are placed on an inclined plane of marble, called a _talon_.
'The dealer first takes six packs of cards, shuffles them, and distributes them in various parcels to the various punters or players round the table, to shuffle and mix. He then finally shuffles them, and takes and places the end cards into various parts of the three hundred and twelve cards, until he meets with a _court card_, which he must place upright at the end. This done, he presents the pack to one of the players to cut, who places the pictured card where the _dealer_ separates the pack, and that part of the pack beyond the pictured card he places at the end nearest him, leaving the pictured card at the bottom of the pack.
'The dealer then takes a certain number of cards, about as many as would form a pack, and, looking at the first card, to know its colour, puts it on the table with its face downwards. He then takes two cards, one red and the other black, and sets them back to back. These cards are turned, and displayed conspicuously, as often as the colour varies, for the information of the company.
'The gamblers having staked their money on either of the colours, the dealer asks, "_Votre jeu est-il fait?_" "Is your game made?" or, "_Votre jeu est-il piet?_" "Is your game ready?" or, "_Le jeu est pret, Messieurs_," "The game is ready, gentlemen." He then deals the first card with its face upwards, saying "_Noir;_" and continues dealing until the cards turned exceed thirty points or pips in number, which number he must mention, as "_Trente-et-un_," or "_Trente-six_," as the case may be.
'As the aces reckon but for one, no card after thirty can make up forty; the dealer, therefore, does not declare the _tens_ after _thirty-one_, or upwards, but merely the units, as one, two, three; if the number of points dealt for _Noir_ are thirty-five he says "_Cinq_."
'Another parcel is then dealt for _rouge_, or _red_, and with equal deliberation and solemnity; and if the players stake beyond the colour that comes to _thirty-one_ or nearest to it, he wins, which happy eventuality is announced by the dealer crying--"_Rouge gagne_," "Red wins," or "_Rouge perd_," "Red loses." These two parcels, one for each colour, make a _coup_. The same number of parcels being dealt for each colour, the dealer says, "_Apres_," "After." This is a "doublet," called in the amiable French tongue, "_un refait_," by which neither party wins, unless both colours come to _thirty-one_, which the dealer announces by saying, "_Un refait Trente-et-un_," and he wins half the stakes posted on both colours. He, however, does not take the money, but removes it to the middle line, and the players may change the _venue_ of their stakes if they please. This is called the first "prison," or _la premiere prison_, and, if they win their next event, they draw the entire stake. In case of another "_refait_," the money is removed into the third line, which is called the second prison. So you see that there are wheels within wheels, and Lord Chancellor King's dictum, that walls can be built higher, but there should be no prison within a prison, is sometimes reversed.
When this happens the dealer wins all.
'The cards are sometimes cut for which colour shall be dealt first; but, in general, the first parcel is for _black_, and the second for _red_. The odds against a "_refait_" turning up are usually reckoned as 63 to 1. The bankers, however, acknowledge that they expect it twice in three deals, and there are generally from twenty-nine to thirty-two coups in each deal. The odds in favour of winning several times are about the same as in the game of Pharaon, and are as delusive. 'He who goes to Hombourg and expects to see any melodramatic manifestation of rage, disappointment, and despair in the losing players, reckons without his host. Winners or losers seldom speak above a whisper; and the only sound that is heard above the suppressed buzz of conversation, the muffled jingle of the money on the green cloth, the "sweep" of the croupiers' rakes, and the ticking of the very ornate French clocks on the mantel-pieces, is the impassibly metallic voice of the banker, as he proclaims his "_Rouge perd_," or "_Couleur gagne_." People are too genteel at Hombourg-von-der-Hohe to scream, to yell, to fall into fainting fits, or go into convulsions, because they have lost four or five thousand francs or so in a single coup.
'I have heard of one gentleman, indeed, who, after a ruinous loss, put a pistol to his head, and discharging it, spattered his brains over the Roulette wheel. It was said that the banker, looking up calmly, called out--'_Triple Zero,' 'Treble Nothing_,'--a case as yet unheard of in the tactics of Roulette, but signifying annihilation,--and that, a cloth being thrown over the ensanguined wheel, the bank of that particular table was declared to be closed for the day. Very probably the whole story is but a newspaper _canard_, devised by the proprietors of some rival gaming establishment, who would have been delighted to see the fashionable Hombourg under a cloud.
'When people want to commit suicide at Hombourg, they do it genteelly; early in the morning, or late at night, in the solitude of their own apartments at the hotels. It would be reckoned a gross breach of good manners to scandalize the refined and liberal administration of the Kursaal by undisguised _felo-de-se_. The devil on two _croupes_ at Hombourg is the very genteelest of demons imaginable. He ties his tail up with cherry-coloured ribbon, and conceals his cloven foot in a patent-leather boot. All this gentility and varnish, and elegant veneering of the sulphurous pit, takes away from him, if it does not wholly extinguish, the honour and loathing for a common gaming-house, with which the mind of a wellured English youth has been sedulously imbued by his parents and guardians. He has very probably witnessed the performance of the "Gamester" at the theatre, and been a spectator of the remorseful agonies of Mr Beverly, the virtuous sorrows of Mrs B., and the dark villanies of Messieurs Dawson and Bates.
'The first visit of the British youth to the Kursaal is usually paid with fear and trembling. He is with difficulty persuaded to enter the accursed place. When introduced to the saloons--delusively called _de conversation_, he begins by staring fixedly at the chandeliers, the ormolu clocks, and the rich draperies, and resolutely averts his eyes from the serried ranks of punters or players, and the Pactolus, whose sands are circulating on the green cloth on the table. Then he thinks there is no very great harm in looking on, and so peeps over the shoulder of a moustached gamester, who perhaps whispers to him in the interval between two coups, that if a man will only play carefully, and be content with moderate gains, he may win sufficient--taking the good days and the evil days in a lump--to keep him in a decent kind of affluence all the year round. Indeed, I once knew a croupier--we used to call him Napoleon, from the way he took snuff from his waistcoat pocket, who was in the way of expressing a grave conviction that it was possible to make a capital living at Roulette, so long as you stuck to the colours, and avoided the Scylla of the numbers and the Charybdis of the Zero. By degrees, then, the shyness of the neophyte wears off. Perhaps in the course of his descent of Avernus, a revulsion of feeling takes place, and, horror-struck and ashamed, he rushes out of the Kursaal, determined to enter its portals no more. Then he temporizes; remembers that there is a capital reading-room, provided with all the newspapers and periodicals of civilized Europe, attached to the Kursaalian premises. There can be no harm, he thinks, in glancing over "Galignani" or the "Charivari," although under the same roof as the abhorred _Trente et Quarante;_ but, alas! he finds _Galignani_ engaged by an acrid old lady of morose countenance, who has lost all her money by lunch-time, and is determined to "take it out in reading," and the _Charivari_ slightly clenched in one hand by the deaf old gentleman with the dingy ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and the curly brown wig pushed up over one ear, who always goes to sleep on the soft and luxurious velvet couches of the Kursaal reading-room, from eleven till three, every day, Sundays not excepted. The disappointed student of home or foreign news wanders back to one of the apartments where play is going, on. In fact, he does not know what to do with himself until table-d'hote time. You know what the moral bard, Dr Watts says:--
"Satan finds some mischief still, For idle hands to do."
The unfledged gamester watches the play more narrowly. A stout lady in a maroon velvet mantle, and a man with a bald head, a black patch on his occiput, and gold spectacles, obligingly makes way for him. He finds himself pressed against the very edge of the table. Perhaps a chair--one of those delightfully comfortable Kursaal chairs--is vacant. He is tired with doing nothing, and sinks into the emolliently-cushioned _fauteuil_. He fancies that he has caught the eye of the banker, or one of the gentlemen of the _croupe_, and that they are meekly inviting him to try his luck. "Well, there can't be much harm in risking a florin," he murmurs. He stakes his silver-piece on a number or a colour. He wins, we will say, twice or thrice. Perhaps he quadruples his stake, nay, perchance, hits on the lucky number. It turns up, and he receives thirty-five times the amount of his _mise_. Thenceforth it is all over with that ingenuous British youth. The Demon of Play has him for his own, and he may go on playing and playing until he has lost every florin of his own, or as many of those belonging to other people as he can beg or borrow. Far more fortunate for him would it be in the long run, if he met in the outset with a good swinging loss. The burnt child _DOES_ dread the fire as a rule; but there is this capricious, almost preternatural, feature of the physiology of gaming, that the young and inexperienced generally win in the first instance. They are drawn on and on, and in and in. They begin to lose, and continue to lose, and by the time they have cut their wise teeth they have neither sou nor silver to make their dearly-bought wisdom available.
'At least one-half of the company may be assumed to be arrant rascals--rascals male and rascals female--_chevaliers d'industrie_, the offscourings of all the shut-up gambling-houses in Europe, demireps and _lorettes_, single and married women innumerable.'
In the course of the three visits he has paid to Hombourg, Mr Sala has observed that 'nine-tenths of the English visitors to the Kursaal, play;' and he does not hesitate to say that the moths who flutter round the garish lamps at the Kursaal Van der Hohe, and its kindred Hades, almost invariably singe their wings; and that the chaseer at _Roulette_ and _Rouge_, generally turn out edged tools, with which those incautious enough to play with them are apt to cut their fingers, sometimes very dangerously.
The season of 1869 in Hombourg is thus depicted in a high class newspaper.
'Never within the memory of the oldest inhabitant (who in this instance must undoubtedly be that veteran player Countess Kisselef) has the town witnessed such an influx of tourists of every class and description. Hotels and lodging-houses are filled to overflowing. Every day imprudent travellers who have neglected the precaution of securing rooms before their arrival return disconsolately to Frankfort to await the vacation of some apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at most inconvenient hours, swallow a certain quantity of a most nauseous fluid, and then, having sacrificed so much to appearances, soothe our consciences with the unfounded belief that a love of early rising and salt water was our real reason for coming here, and that the gambling tables had nothing whatever to do with it. Perhaps, in some few instances, this view may be the correct one; some few invalids, say one in a hundred, may have sought Hombourg solely in the interest of an impaired digestion, but I fear that such cases are few and far between; and, as a friend afflicted with a mania for misquotation remarked to me the other day, even "those who come to drink remain to play."
'Certainly the demon of Rouge et Noir has never held more undisputed sway in Hombourg than in the present season; never have the tables groaned under such a load of notes and rouleaux. It would seem as if the gamblers, having only two or more years left in which to complete their ruin, were hurrying on with redoubled speed to that desirable consummation, and where a stake of 12,000 francs is allowed on a single coup the pace can be made very rapid indeed. High play is so common that unless you are lucky enough to win or rich enough to lose a hundred thousand francs at least, you need not hope to excite either envy or commiseration. One persevering Muscovite, who has been punting steadily for six weeks, has actually succeeded in getting rid of a million of florins. As yet there have been no suicides to record, owing probably to the precautionary measures adopted by a paternal Administration. As soon as a gambler is known to be utterly cleared out he at once receives a visit from one of M. Blanc's officials, who offers him a small sum on condition he will leave the town forthwith; which viaticum, however, for fear of accidents, is only handed to him when fairly seated in the train that bears him away, to blow out his brains, should he feel so inclined, elsewhere. One of the most unpleasant facts connected with the gambling is the ardour displayed by many ladies in this very unfeminine pursuit: last night out of twenty-five persons seated at the Roulette table I counted no fewer than fifteen ladies, including an American lady with her two daughters!
'The King of Prussia has arrived, and, with due deference to the official editors who have described in glowing paragraphs the popular demonstrations in his honour, I am bound to assert that he was received with very modified tokens of delight. There was not even a repetition of the triumphal arch of last year; those funereal black and white flags, whose sole aspect is enough to repress any exuberance of rejoicing, were certainly flapping against the hotel windows and the official flagstaffs, but little else testified to the joy of the Hombourgers at beholding their Sovereign. They manage these things better in France. Any French _prefet_ would give the German authorities a few useful hints concerning the cheap and speedy manufacture of loyal enthusiasm. The foreigners, however, seem determined to atone amply for any lack of proper feeling on the part of the townspeople. They crowd round his Majesty as soon as he appears in the rooms or gardens, and mob the poor old gentleman with a vigour which taxes all the energies of his aides-de-camp to save their Royal master from death by suffocation. Need I add that our old friend the irrepressible "'Arry" is ever foremost in these gentlemanlike demonstrations?
'Of course the town swarms with well-known English faces; indeed, the Peers and M.P.s here at present would form a very respectable party in the two Houses. We are especially well off for dukes; the _Fremdenliste_ notifies the presence of no fewer than five of those exalted personages. A far less respectable class of London society is also, I am sorry to say, strongly represented: I allude to those gentlemen of the light-fingered persuasion whom the outer world rudely designate as pickpockets. This morning two gorgeously arrayed members of the fraternity were marched down to the station by the police, each being decorated with a pair of bright steel handcuffs; seventeen of them were arrested last week in Frankfort at one fell swoop, and at the tables the row of lookers-on who always surround the players consists in about equal proportions of these gentry and their natural enemies--the detectives. Their booty since the beginning of the season must be reckoned by thousands. Mustapha Fazyl Pasha had his pocket picked of a purse containing L600, and a Russian lady was lately robbed of a splendid diamond brooch valued at 75,000 francs.(79)
(79) Pall Mall Gazette, Aug. 1869.
But the days of the Kursaal are numbered, and the glories or infamies of Hombourg are doomed.
'The fiat has gone forth. In five years(80) from this time the "game will be made" no longer--the great gambling establishment of Hombourg will be a thing of the past. The town will be obliged to contend on equal terms with other watering-places for its share of the wool on the backs of summer excursionists.
(80) In 1872.
'As most of the townspeople are shareholders in this thriving concern, and as all of them gain either directly or indirectly by the play, it was amusing to watch the anxiety of these worthies during the war between Austria and Prussia. Patriotism they had none; they cared neither for Austrian nor Prussian, for a great Germany nor for a small Germany. The "company" was their god and their country. All that concerned them was to know whether the play was likely to be suppressed. When they were annexed to Prussia, at first they could not believe that Count Bismarck, whatever he might do with kings, would venture to interfere with the "bank." It was to them a divine institution--something far superior to dynasties and kingdoms....
'For a year the Hombourgers were allowed to suppose that their "peculiar institution" was indeed superior to fate, to public opinion, and to Prussia; but at the commencement of the present year they were rudely awakened from their dreams of security. The sword that had been hanging over them fell. The directors of the company were ordered to appear before the governor of the town, and they were told that they and all belonging to them were to cease to exist in 1872, and that the following arrangement was to be made respecting the plunder gained until that date. The shareholders were to receive 10 per cent. on their money; 5000 shares were to be paid off at par each year, and if this did not absorb all the profits, the surplus was to go towards a fund for keeping up the gardens after the play had ceased. By this means, as there are now 36,000 shares, 25,000 will be paid off at par, and the remaining 11,000 will be represented by the buildings and the land belonging to the company, which it will be at liberty to sell to the highest bidder. Since this decree has been promulgated the Hombourgers are in despair. The croupiers and the clerks, the Jews who lend money at high interest, the Christians who let lodgings, all the rogues and swindlers who one way or another make a living out of the play, fill the air with their complaints.
'Although no doubt individuals will suffer by the suppression of public play here, it is by no means certain that the town itself will not be a gainer by it. Holiday seekers must go somewhere. The air of Hombourg is excellent; the waters are invigorating; the town is well situated and easy of access by rail; living is comparatively cheap--a room may be had for about 18_s_. a week, an excellent dinner for 2_s_.; breakfast costs less than a shilling. Hombourg is now a fixed fact, and if the townspeople take heart and grapple with the new state of things--if they buy up the Kursaal, and throw open its salons to visitors; if they keep up the opera, the cricket club, and the shooting; if they have good music, and balls and concerts for those who like them, there is no reason why they should not attract as many visitors to their town as they do now.'(81)
(81) Correspondent of _Daily News._
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
The gaming at Aix-la-Chapelle is equally desperate and destructive. 'A Russian officer of my acquaintance,' says a writer in the Annual Register for 1818, 'was subject, like many of his countrymen whom I have known, to the infatuation of play to a most ridiculous excess. His distrust of himself under the assailments which he anticipated at a place like Aix-la-Chapelle, had induced him to take the prudent precaution of paying in advance at his hotel for his board and lodging, and at the bathing-house for his baths, for the time he intended to stay. The remaining contents of his purse he thought fairly his own; and he went of course to the table all the gayer for the license he had taken of his conscience. On fortune showing him a few favours, he came to me in high spirits, with a purse full of Napoleons, and a resolute determination to keep them by venturing no more; but a gamester can no more be stationary than the tide of a river, and on the evening he was put out of suspense by having not a Napoleon left, and nothing to console but congratulation on his foresight, and the excellent supper which was the fruit of it.'
Towards the end of the last century Aix-la-Chapelle was a great rendezvous of gamblers. The chief banker there paid a thousand louis per annum for his license. A little Italian adventurer once went to the place with only a few louis in his pocket, and played crown stakes at Hazard. Fortune smiled on him; he increased his stakes progressively; in twenty-four hours won about L4000. On the following day he stripped the bank entirely, pocketing nearly L10,000. He continued to play for some days, till he was at last reduced to a single louis! He now obtained from a friend the loan of L30, and once more resumed his station at the gaming table, which he once more quitted with L10,000 in his pocket, and resolved to leave it for ever. The arguments of one of the bankers, however, who followed him to his inn, soon prevailed over his resolution, and on his return to the gaming table he was stripped of his last farthing. He went to his lodgings, sold his clothes, and by that means again appeared at his old haunt, for the half-crown stakes, by which he honourably repaid his loan of L30. His end was unknown to the relater of the anecdote, but 'ten to one,' it was ruin.
At the same place, in the year 1793, the heir-apparent of an Irish Marquis lost at various times nearly L20,000 at a billiard table, partly owing to his antagonist being an excellent calculator, as well as a superior player.
A French emigrant at Aix-la-Chapelle, who carried a basket of tarts, liqueurs, &c., for regaling the gamesters, put down twenty-five louis at _Rouge et Noir_. He lost. He then put down fifteen, and lost again; at the third turn he staked ten; but while the cards were being shuffled, seeming to recollect himself, he felt all his pockets, and at length found two large French crowns, and a small one, which he also ventured. The deal was determined at the ninth card; and the poor wretch, who had lost his all, dashed down his basket, started from his seat, overturning two chairs as he forced the circle, tore off his hair, and with horrid blasphemies, burst the folding doors, and rushing out like a madman, was seen no more.
Another emigrant arrived here penniless, but meeting a friend, obtained the loan of a few crowns, nearly his all. With these he went to the rooms, put down his stake, and won. He then successively doubled his stakes till he closed the evening with a hundred louis in his pocket. He went to his friend, and with mutual congratulations they resolved to venture no more, and calculated how long their gains would support them from absolute want, and thus seemed to strengthen their wise resolution.
The next night, however, the lucky gambler returned to the room--but only to be a spectator, as he firmly said. Alas! his resolution failed him, and he quitted the tables indebted to a charitable bystander for a livre or two, to pay for his petty refreshments.
It is said that the annual profit to the bankers was 120,000 florins, or L14,000.
'The very name of Aix-la-Chapelle,' says a traveller, 'makes one think (at least, makes me think) of cards and dice,--sharks and pigeons. It has a "professional odour" upon it, which is certainly not that of sanctity. I entered the Redoute with my head full of sham barons, German Catalinas, and the thousand-and-one popular tales of renowned knights of the green cloth,--their seducing confederates, and infatuated dupes.
'The rooms are well distributed; the saloons handsome. A sparkling of ladies, apparently (and really, as I understood) of the best water, the _elite_, in short, of Aix-la-Chapelle, were lounging on sofas placed round the principal saloon, or fluttering about amidst a crowd of men, who filled up the centre of the room, or thronged round the tables that were ranged on one side of it.
'The players continued their occupation in death-like silence, undisturbed by the buzz or the gaze of the lookers-on; not a sound was heard but the rattle of the heaped-up money, as it was passed from one side of the table to the other; nor was the smallest anxiety or emotion visible on any countenance.
'The scene was unpleasing, though to me curious from its novelty.
Ladies are admitted to play, but there were none occupied this morning. I was glad of it; indeed, though English travellers are accused of carrying about with them a portable code of morality, which dissolves or stiffens like a soap-cake as circumstances may affect its consistency, yet I sincerely believe that there are few amongst us who would not feel shocked at seeing one of the gentler sex in so unwomanly a position.'(82)
(82) Reminiscences of the Rhine, &c. Anon.
WIESBADEN.
The gambling here in 1868 has been described in a very vivid manner.
'Since the enforcement of the Prussian Sunday observance regulations, Monday has become the great day of the week for the banks of the German gambling establishments. Anxious to make up for lost time, the regular contributors to the company's dividends flock early on Monday forenoon to the play-rooms in order to secure good places at the tables, which, by the appointed hour for commencing operations (eleven o'clock), are closely hedged round by persons of both sexes, eagerly waiting for the first deal of the cards or the initial twist of the brass wheel, that they may try another fall with Fortune. Before each seated player are arranged precious little piles of gold and silver, a card printed in black and red, and a long pin, wherewith to prick out a system of infallible gain. The croupiers take their seats and unpack the strong box; rouleaux--long metal sausages composed of double and single florins,--wooden bowls brimming over with gold Frederics and Napoleons, bank notes of all sizes and colours, are arranged upon the black leather compartment, ruled over by the company's officers; half-a-dozen packs of new cards are stripped of their paper cases, and swiftly shuffled together; and when all these preliminaries, watched with breathless anxiety by the surrounding speculators, have been gravely and carefully executed, the chief croupier looks round him--a signal for the prompt investment of capital on all parts of the table--chucks out a handful of cards from the mass packed together convenient to his hand--ejaculates the formula, "Faites le jeu!" and, after half a minute's pause, during which he delicately moistens the ball of his dealing thumb, exclaims "Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus," and proceeds to interpret the decrees of fate according to the approved fashion of Trente et Quarante. A similar scene is taking place at the Roulette table--a goodly crop of florins, with here and there a speck of gold shining amongst the silver harvest, is being sown over the field of the cloth of green, soon to be reaped by the croupier's sickle, and the pith ball is being dropped into the revolving basin that is partitioned off into so many tiny black and red niches. For the next twelve hours the processes in question are carried on swiftly and steadily, without variation or loss of time; relays of croupiers are laid on, who unobtrusively slip into the places of their fellows when the hours arrive for relieving guard; the game is never stopped for more than a couple of minutes at a time, viz., when the cards run out and have to be re-shuffled. This brief interruption is commonly consi