On the subject of Clubs Mr Cunningham in his 'Clubs of London,' and Mr
Timbs in his 'Club Life in London,' have said pretty well everything
that we want to know, and by their help, and that of other writers, I
shall endeavour to give an account of the gambling carried on in such
places.
1. ALMACK'S.
'The gaming at Almack's,' writes Walpole to Horace Mann, 'which has
taken the pas of White's, is worthy of the decline of our empire, or
commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose ten,
fifteen, twenty thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale,
not one-and-twenty, lost L11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it
by one great hand at Hazard. He swore a great oath--"Now, if I had been
playing DEEP I might have won millions!" His cousin, Charles Fox, shines
equally here and in the House of Commons.'
Among the rules of the establishment, it was ordered 'that every person
playing at the twenty-guinea table do not keep less than twenty guineas
before him,' and 'that every person playing at the new guinea table do
keep fifty guineas before him.' That the play ran high may be inferred
from a note against the name of Mr Thynne, in the Club-books:--'Mr
Thynne having won ONLY 12,000 guineas during the last two months,
retired in disgust, March 21st, 1772.' Indeed, the play was unusually
high--for rouleaus of L50 each, and generally there was L10,000
in specie on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their
embroidered clothes, and putting on frieze great coats, or turned their
coats inside out for luck! They put on pieces of leather (such as are
worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their laced ruffles;
and to guard their eyes from the light, and to keep their hair in order,
wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims adorned with flowers and
ribbons; they also wore masks to conceal their emotions when they played
at quinz.(35) Each gamester had a small neat stand by him, to hold his
tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold the rouleaus of
guineas.
(35) Quinze, the French for fifteen. This is a game at cards, in which
the winner is he who counts fifteen, or nearest to that number, in all
the points of his hand. Three, five, or six might play at it. Two entire
packs of cards are used, so disposed that the spades and clubs are on
one side, and the hearts and diamonds on the other. The entire art of
the game consists in making fifteen; below that number the party loses.
2. THE COCOA-TREE CLUB.
This club was remarkable for high if not for foul play. Walpole, writing
to Horace Mann in 1780, says:--'Within this week there has been a cast
at Hazard at the Cocoa-tree (in St James's Street) the difference of
which amounted to one hundred and fourscore thousand pounds! Mr O'Birne,
an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr
Harvey of Chigwell, just started into an estate by his elder brother's
death. O'Birne said,--"You can never pay me." "I can," said the youth,
"my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said O'Birne, "I will win ten
thousand,--you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey
won!'
3. GRAHAM'S CLUB.
This gaming club is remarkable for a scandal which made some noise at
the time of its occurrence, and one version of which a writer in the
Times has been at some pains to rectify. In Mr Duncombe's 'Life' of his
father occurs the following account of this curious transaction.
'In Graham's Club there was also a good deal of play, and large sums
were lost and won among the noblemen and gentlemen who were its members.
An unpleasant rumour circulated in town in the winter of 1836, to the
effect that a noble lord had been detected in cheating by means of
marked cards. The presumed offender was well known in society as a
skilful card-player, but by those who had been most intimate with him
was considered incapable of any unfair practice. He was abroad when the
scandal was set afloat, but returned to England directly he heard of it,
and having traced the accusation to its source, defied his traducers.
Thus challenged, they had no alternative but to support their
allegation, and it took this shape:--They accused Henry William Lord de
Ros of marking the edges of the court cards with his thumb-nail, as well
as of performing a certain trick by which he unfairly secured an ace as
the turn-up card. His accusers were ---- ----, who had formerly kept
a gaming table; Mr ---- ----, also a professional gambler; Lord Henry
Bentinck, and Mr F. Cumming. Lord Henry appears to have taken no very
active part in the proceedings; the other three had lost money in play
with Lord de Ros, and, as unsuccessful gamblers have done before and
since, considered that they had lost it unfairly.
'Lord de Ros, instead of prosecuting the four for a libel, brought an
action only against Cumming, which permitted the others to come forward
as witnesses against him. The cause came on in the Court of King's Bench
before Lord Denman. The plaintiff's witnesses were Lord Wharncliffe,
Lord Robert Grosvenor, the Earl of Clare, and Sir Charles Dalbiac, who
had known and played with him from between 20 to 30 years, as a very
skilful but honourable Whist player. The evidence of Mr Lawrence, the
eminent surgeon, proved that Lord de Ros had long suffered under a
stiffness of the joints of the fingers that made holding a pack of
cards difficult, and the performance of the imputed trick of legerdemain
impossible. For the defence appeared the keeper of the house and
his son; two or three gamblers who had lived by their winnings; one
acknowledged to have won L35,000 in 15 years. Mr Baring Wall, one of the
witnesses, swore that he had never witnessed anything improper in the
play of Lord de Ros, though he had played with and against him many
years; another witness, the Hon. Colonel Anson, had observed nothing
suspicious; but the testimony of others went to prove that the aces and
kings had been marked inside their edges; and one averred that he had
seen Lord de Ros perform sauter la coupe a hundred times. The whole case
wore much the look of a combination among a little coterie who lived
by gambling to drive from the field a player whose skill had diminished
their income; nevertheless, the incidents sworn to by some of them wore
a suspicious significance, and a verdict was given against Lord de Ros,
which he only survived a short time.'
On this statement the Times' reviewer comments as follows:--
'If many old scandals may be revived with impunity, there are some that
cannot. Mr Duncombe the younger has hit on one which affects several
gentlemen still living, and his injurious version of it cannot be
neutralized or atoned for by an apology to one. We call attention to it
in the hope that any more serious notice will be rendered needless by
the simple exposure of its inaccuracies.
'It is difficult to conceive a more inexcusable misstatement, for the
case was fully reported,(36) and the public judgment perfectly coincided
with the verdict. Lord de Ros was not abroad when the scandal was set
afloat. He went abroad after the scene at Graham's had set all London
talking, and he returned in consequence of a peremptory call from his
friends. He was most reluctantly induced to take the required steps for
the vindication of his character; and it is preposterous to suppose that
any little coterie would have dreamt of accusing a man of his rank and
position with the view of driving a skilful player from the field. His
accusers were not challenged. Neither were they volunteers. They became
his accusers, because they formed the Whist party at which he was first
openly denounced. They signed a paper particularizing their charge, and
offered to refer the question to a tribunal of gentlemen, with the Duke
of Wellington or Lord Wharncliffe to preside. Would a little coterie,
who lived by gambling, have made this offer? Or would Lord de Ros have
refused it if he had been the intended victim of a conspiracy? Lord
Henry Bentinck signed the paper, appeared as a witness, and took quite
as active a part in the proceedings as any of the four, except Mr
Cumming, who undertook the sole legal liability by admitting the
publication of the paper.
(36) The Times of February 11 and 13, 1837.
'The evidence was overwhelming. Suspicions had long been rife; and on no
less than ten or twelve occasions the marked packs had been examined in
the presence of unimpeachable witnesses, and sealed up. These packs
were produced at the trial. Several witnesses swore to the trick called
sauter la coupe. It was the late Sir William Ingilby who swore that he
had seen Lord de Ros perform it from 50 to 100 times; and when asked
why he did not at once denounce him, he replied that if he had done
so before his Lordship began to get blown upon, he should have had no
alternative between the window and the door. Of course, every one who
had been in the habit of playing with Lord de Ros prior to the exposure
would have said the same as Sir Charles Dalbiac and Mr Baring Wall.
With regard to the gentlemen whose names we have omitted we take it
for granted that the author is not aware of the position they held, and
continue to hold, or he would hardly have ventured to describe them so
offensively. He has apologized to one, and he had better apologize to
the other without delay.
'The case was complete without the evidence of either of the original
accusers, and the few friends of Lord de Ros who tried to bear him up
against the resulting obloquy were obliged to go with the stream. When
Lord Alvanley was asked whether he meant to leave his card, he replied,
"No, he will stick it in his chimney-piece and count it among his
honours.'"
Having read through the long case as reported in the Times, I must
declare that I do not find that the evidence against Lord de Ros was,
after all, so 'overwhelming' as the reviewer declares; indeed, the
'leader' in the Times on the trial emphatically raises a doubt on the
subject. Among other passages in it there is the following:--
'In the process of the trial it appeared that the most material part of
the evidence against Lord de Ros, that called sauter la coupe,--which,
for the sake of our English readers we shall translate into CHANGING THE
TURN-UP CARD,--the times and places at which it was said to have been
done could not be specified. Some of the witnesses had seen the trick
done 50 or 100 times by Lord de Ros, but could neither say on what day,
in what week, month, or even year, they had so seen it done. People
were excessively struck at this deviation from the extreme punctuality
required in criminal cases by the British courts of law.'
'The disclosures,' says Mr Grant,(27) 'which took place in the Court of
Queen's Bench, on the occasion of the trial of Lord de Ros, for cheating
at cards, furnished the strongest demonstration that he was not the only
person who was in the habit of cheating in certain clubs; while there
were others who, if they could not be charged with direct cheating,
or cheating in their own persons, did cheat indirectly, and by proxy,
inasmuch as they, by their own admission, were, on frequent occasions,
partners with Lord de Ros, long after they knew that he habitually or
systematically cheated. The noble lord, by the confession of the titled
parties to whom I allude, thus cheated for himself and them at the same
time.'
(37) Sketches in London.
Lord de Ros was at the head of the barons of England. He was the son of
Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and Lady de Ros, who inherited in her own right
that ancient title, which dates from the reign of Henry III. He had
studied at Eton and Oxford, and afterwards on the Continent, and
there was not a more accomplished man in Europe. He possessed an ample
fortune, was a member of several of the clubs--White's, Boodle's,
Brookes', and Graham's, and one of the best Whist players in England.
It appears that at Graham's Club, at the commencement of the season,
and before Lord de Ros came to town, whispers were circulated of unfair
play, and various persons were supposed guilty. A determination was
therefore formed that the club should be dissolved and reconstructed,
leaving out the names of certain persons to whom suspicion attached. The
main object of the master of the club, and of some of those who attended
it for the purpose of professional gain, was that its character should
be cleared. Not long after Lord de Ros came to town he received an
anonymous letter, cautioning him against continuing to play at Graham's,
and intimating to him, if he did so, that measures would be taken which
he would have reason to regret. Of course his Lordship disregarded the
threat; he attended the club for several days more assiduously than
before, and continued to play until the end of the season, in the
beginning of July. In September the Satirist newspaper published a
distinct charge of unfair play against Lord de Ros, whilst the latter
was at Baden, and he returned to England and commenced an action for
libel against the newspaper.
He was charged with being in the habit of marking the cards, the effect
being to create a very slight and almost imperceptible indentation, and
to make a ridge or wave on the back, so that a practised eye would be
able, on looking at the right place, knowing where to expect a mark,
to discern whether the ace was there or not. He was also charged with
cheating by reversing the cut--that is, when the cards had come to him,
after having been cut by his adversary, instead of putting the bottom
card at the top, keeping the bottom card at the bottom, by some
shuffling contrivance when he dealt. Another witness said:--
'When he took up the two parcels of cards, after the operation of
cutting the pack by his right-hand adversary, he was always attacked
with a hacking cough, or what I may properly denominate, especially from
the result it produced, a 'king cough,' because a king or an ace was
invariably its effect. The cough always came on at the most convenient
moment to distract the attention of the other players, and was evidently
indulged in for the purpose of abstracting their attention from the
table and from the manoeuvre he was about to perform. However, I never
saw him "slip the card," and I never had cognizance of its execution,
but certain it was that the ace or the king, which was at the bottom of
the pack prior to the cut, invariably found its way to the same position
after the cut, and hence was the turn-up card. With regard to the
operation of dealing, his Lordship delivered the cards particularly
slow, examining every card minutely towards its corners, as if looking
for some mark.'
Many curious facts came out during the trial.
It was Mr Brooke Greville who admitted that he was a considerable winner
at play--having 'no hesitation in saying that he had won L35,000 in the
course of 15 years,' chiefly at Whist; that he had followed play as an
occupation, at Graham's Club. He lost, however, L14,000 at Brighton in
1828, a considerable portion of it to Lord de Ros; but this loss he
made up in three or four years (that is, won L14,000 in that time), and,
excepting that reverse, he was generally fortunate at play.'
A Captain J. Alexander, half-pay R. N., declared that he had won as much
as L700 at a time, having, however, to pay half to another partner; his
winnings might be L1600 a-year. 'I began to play,' he said, 'about 25 or
28 years ago, and, expecting that I should be asked the question, I have
looked into my accounts, and find that I am about L10,000 better than
as though I had not played. That is a yearly average of L500.' He had,
however, lost about L1000 during the previous year.
This Captain Alexander was asked how many hours he played before dinner,
and he answered--'From three to five hours'--adding, however, that 'he
HAD played ALL NIGHT.' Then the counsel said, 'I suppose you take but a
slight dinner?' He replied:--
'Why, I generally make as good a dinner as I can get.' The learned
counsel continued:--
'A small boiled chicken and a glass of lemonade, perhaps?' This seemed
an offensive question, and the captain said,--
'I believe never, and (with increased earnestness of manner) mind, I
DENY THE LEMONADE ALTOGETHER; I never take lemonade. (Laughter, in which
the noble lords on the bench joined involuntarily.)
Sir W. Ingilby entered into a description and practical illustration of
the trick of sauter la coupe with a pack of cards, and it is said that
the performance of the honourable baronet elicited demonstrations of
laughter, which the judge suppressed, and even REPROBATED. Altogether,
it must have been a most interesting and exciting trial.
As before stated, Lord Denman was the presiding judge; there was a
special jury; the attorney-general, Sir W. Follet, and Mr Wightman
appeared for the noble plaintiff; and the keen-witted and exquisitely
polished Mr Thesiger (now Lord Cholmondeley), Mr Alexander, and Mr W.
H. Watson for the defendant. A great many of the nobility were present,
together with several foreigners of distinction.
4. BROOKES' CLUB, IN ST JAMES'S STREET.
This was a house notorious for very high gaming, and was frequented
by the most desperate of gamblers, among the rest Fox, Brummell, and
Alderman Combe. According to Captain Gronow:--
At Brookes's, for nearly half a century, the play was of a more gambling
character than at White's. . . . On one occasion Lord Robert Spencer
contrived to lose the last shilling of his considerable fortune given
him by his brother, the Duke of Marlborough. General Fitzpatrick being
much in the same condition, they agreed to raise a sum of money, in
order that they might keep a Faro bank. The members of the club made no
objection, and ere long they carried out their design. As is generally
the case, the bank was a winner, and Lord Robert bagged, as his share
of the proceeds, L100,000. He retired, strange to say, from the fetid
atmosphere of play, with the money in his pocket, and never again
gambled. The lowest stake at Brookes' was L50; and it was a common event
for a gentleman to lose or win L10,000 in an evening. Sometimes a whole
fortune was lost at a single sitting.(38)
(38) Walpole, passim.
5. WHITE'S CLUB.
White's Club seems to have won the darkest reputation for gambling.
Lord Lyttleton, writing to Dr Doddridge, in 1750, says:--'The Dryads
of Hogley are at present pretty secure, but I tremble to think that the
rattling of a dice-box at White's may one day or other (if my son should
be a member of that noble academy) shake down all our fine oaks. It is
dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in the town,
what devastations are made by that destructive fury, the spirit of
play.' A fact stated by Walpole to Horace Mann shows the character of
the company at this establishment:--'There is a man about town, Sir
William Burdett, a man of very good family, but most infamous character.
In short, to give you his character at once--there is a wager in the
bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an
account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William
Burdett.' Swift says:--'I have heard that the late Earl of Oxford, in
the time of his ministry, never passed by White's chocolate-house
(the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies) without
bestowing a curse upon that famous academy as the bane of half the
English nobility.'
It was from the beginning a gaming club, 'pure and simple.' The play was
mostly at Hazard and Faro. No member was to hold a Faro bank. Whist was
comparatively harmless. Professional gamblers, who lived by dice and
cards, provided they were free from the imputation of cheating, procured
admission to White's. It was a great supper-house, and there was play
before and after supper, carried on to a late hour and to heavy amounts.
At White's they betted on every possible thing, as shown by the
betting-book of the establishment--on births, deaths, and marriages; the
length of a life; the duration of a ministry; a placeman's prospect of a
coronet; the last scandal at Ranelagh or Madame Cornely's; or the shock
of an earthquake! 'A man dropped down at the door of White's; he was
carried into the house. Was he dead or not? The odds were immediately
given and taken for and against. It was proposed to bleed him. Those
who had taken the odds that the man was dead protested that the use of a
lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.' I have met with a similar
anecdote elsewhere. A waiter in a tavern in Westminster, being engaged
in attendance on some young men of distinction, suddenly fell down in a
fit. Bets were immediately proposed by some of the most thoughtless
on his recovery, and accepted by others. The more humane part of the
company were for sending immediately for medical assistance, but this
was overruled; since, by the tenor of the bets, he was to be 'left to
himself,' and he died accordingly!
According to Walpole--'A person coming into the club on the morning of
the earthquake, in 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was
caused by an earthquake or the blowing up of powder-mills, went away in
horror, protesting they were such an impious set that he believed if the
last trump were to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.'
And again: 'One of the youths at White's, in 1744, has committed a
murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted L1500 that a man could live
twelve hours under water; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship,
by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since.
Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives instead of Mr
Blake, the assassin.'
He also tells us of a very curious entry in the betting-book. Lord
Mountford bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber.'
'How odd,' says Walpole, 'that these two old creatures, selected for
their antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end
to their own lives! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still
hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look
so well. "Faith," said he, "it is very well that I look at all." Lord
Mountford would have been the winner: Cibber died in 1757, Nash in
1761.'
Hogarth's scene at the gambling house is taken at White's. 'We see the
highwayman, with his pistols peeping out of his pocket, waiting by
the fireside till the heaviest winner takes his departure, in order to
"recoup" himself for his losings; and in the Beaux' Stratagem, Aimwell
asks of Gibbet--"Ha'n't I seen your face at White's?" "Ay, and at Will's
too," is the highwayman's answer.'
According to Captain Gronow, George Harley Drummond, of the famous
banking-house, Charing Cross, only played once in his whole life at
White's Club, at Whist, on which occasion he lost L20,000 to Brummell.
This even caused him to retire from the banking-house, of which he was a
partner.
'Walpole and a party of friends (Dick Edgecumbe, George Selwyn, and
Williams), in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire--a coat of arms
for the two gaming clubs at White's--which was "actually engraven from a
very pretty painting of Edgecumbe, whom Mr Chute, as Strawberry King at
Arms," appointed their chief herald-painter. The blazon is vert (for
a card-table); three parolis proper on a chevron sable (for a Hazard
table); two rouleaux in saltire between two dice proper, on a canton
sable; a white ball (for election) argent. The supporters are an old and
young knave of clubs; the crest, an arm out of an earl's coronet
shaking a dice-box; and the motto, Cogit amor nummi--"The love of money
compels." Round the arms is a claret-bottle ticket by way of order.'
6. WATTIER'S CLUB.
This great Macao gaming house was of short duration. Mr Raikes says of
it:--'The club did not endure for twelve years altogether; the pace was
too quick to last; it died a natural death in 1819, from the paralyzed
state of its members. The house was then taken by a set of blacklegs,
who instituted a common bank of gambling. To form an idea of the ruin
produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so
intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests the following
melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results: none
of the dead reached the average age of man.' Among the members were Beau
Brummell and the madman Bligh.
7. CROCKFORD'S CLUB.
This once celebrated gaming house is now 'The Wellington,' where the
rattle of knives and forks has succeeded that of dice. It was erected in
1827, and at its opening it was described as 'the new Pandemonium--the
drawing-rooms, or real hell, consisting of four chambers: the first an
ante-room, opening to a saloon embellished to a degree which baffles
description; thence to a small curiously-formed cabinet or boudoir,
which opens to the supper-room. All these rooms are panelled in the most
gorgeous manner; spaces are left to be filled up with mirrors and silk,
or gold enrichments; while the ceilings are as superb as the walls.
A billiard-room on the upper floor completes the number of apartments
professedly dedicated to the use of the members. Whenever any secret
manoeuvre is to be carried on, there are smaller and more retired
places, both under this roof and the next, whose walls will tell no
tales.'
'It rose,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, 'like a creation of
Aladdin's lamp; and the genii themselves could hardly have surpassed
the beauty of the internal decorations, or furnished a more accomplished
maitre d'hotel than Ude. To make the company as select as possible,
the estabishment was regularly organized as a club, and the election of
members vested in a committee. "Crockford's" became the rage, and the
votaries of fashion, whether they like play or not, hastened to enroll
themselves. The Duke of Wellington was an original member, though
(unlike Blucher, who repeatedly lost everything he had at play) the
great captain was never known to play deep at any game but war or
politics. Card-tables were regularly placed, and Whist was played
occasionally; but the aim, end, and final cause of the whole was the
Hazard bank, at which the proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared
for all comers. Le Wellington des Joueurs lost L23,000 at a sitting,
beginning at twelve at night, and ending at seven the following evening.
He and three other noblemen could not have lost less, sooner or
later, than L100,000 a piece.(39) Others lost in proportion (or out of
proportion) to their means; but we leave it to less occupied moralists
and better calculators to say how many ruined families went to make Mr
Crockford a MILLIONNAIRE--for a millionnaire he was in the English sense
of the term, after making the largest possible allowance for bad debts.
A vast sum, perhaps half a million, was sometimes due to him; but as he
won, all his debtors were able to raise, and easy credit was the most
fatal of his lures. He retired in 1840, much as an Indian chief retires
from a hunting country when there is not game enough left for his tribe,
and the club tottered to its fall.'
(39) 'Le Wellington des Joueurs was the name given to Lord Rivers in
Paris. The other three, we believe, were Lord Sefton, Lord Chesterfield,
and Lord Granville or Lord Talbot.' Times, 7 Jan. 1868.
Crockford was originally a FISHMONGER, keeping a shop near Temple Bar.
By embarking in this speculation he laid the foundation of the most
colossal fortune that was ever made by play.
It was said there were persons of rank and station, who had never paid
their debts to Crockford, up to 1844, and that some of his creditors
compounded with him for their gambling debts. His proprietorship had
lasted 15 or 16 years.
Crockford himself was examined by the committee of the House of Commons
on the Gaming Houses; but in spite of his assurance by the members that
were indemnified witnesses in respect of pending actions, he resolutely
declined to 'tell the secrets of his prison-house.' When asked whether a
good deal of play was carried on at his club, he said:--'There may have
been so; but I do not feel myself at liberty to answer that question--to
DIVULGE THE PURSUITS OF PRIVATE GENTLEMEN. Situated as I was, I do not
feel myself at liberty to do so. I do not feel myself at liberty to
answer that question.'
When asked to whom he had given up the house, he fenced in like
manner, saying that he had given it up to a 'committee' of about 200
gentlemen,--concerning which committee he professed to 'know absolutely
nothing'--he could not even say to whom he had given up the house--he
gave it up to the gentlemen of the club four years before--he could not
even say (upon his word) whether he signed any paper in giving it up--he
believed he did not--adding--'I said I grew too old, and I could not
continue in the club any longer, and I wished to give up the club to the
gentlemen, who made their own arrangement.'
Being asked, 'Do you think that a person is just as honourably bound to
pay a debt which he loses upon a game of Hazard, as he would be to pay
a bet which he loses on a horse-race?' Crockford replied--'I think most
certainly he would honourably be bound to pay it.'--'Do you think that
if the loser of a bet on a game at Hazard had no charge to make of any
kind of unfairness, and he were to commence an action to recover that
money back again, he would lay himself open to a charge in the world of
having acted dishonourably?' The old gambler's reply was most emphatic,
overwhelming, indignant--'I should take all the pains I could to avoid
such a man.'
If this evidence was not satisfactory, it was, at any rate, very
characteristic.
A few interesting facts came out before the parliamentary committee on
Gaming, in 1844, respecting Crockford's.
It was said that Crockford gave up the business in 1840, because there
were no more very high players visiting his house.
'A number of persons,' according to the admission of the Honourable
Frederick Byng, 'who were born to very large properties, were very
nearly ruined at Crockford's.'
The sums won on the turf were certainly larger than those won by players
at Crockford's; a man might lose L20,000 in one or more bets, to one or
more persons; but against this he might have won an equivalent amount in
small sums from 200 or more persons.(40)
(40) This is not very clearly put, but the meaning is that much more
money was lost at Crockford's than on the turf.
Some years previously to Crockford's retirement, it is said that he
found the debts so bad that he was obliged to leave off his custom of
paying cheques; and said he would cancel all previous debts, but that in
future gentlemen would have to pay with money.
He made them play for money instead of with counters, in consequence of
the large sums that were owing to him upon those counters.
8. THE TRAVELLERS' CLUB,
next the Athenaeum in Pall Mall, originated soon after the peace
of 1814, in a suggestion of the late Lord Londonderry, then Lord
Castlereagh, for the resort of gentlemen who had resided or travelled
abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who,
when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their
stay.(41) Here Prince Talleyrand was fond of a game at Whist. With all
the advantage of his great imperturbability of face, he is said to have
been an indifferent player.
(41) Quarterly Review, No. cx. p. 481.
Rule 10 of the club directs, 'that no dice and no game of hazard be
allowed in the rooms of the club, nor any higher stake than guinea
points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner.'