CROCKFORD.

There is a story relating to the life of Crockford, or rather to his

death, which has been so often told that it has come to be accepted

as true. I have never myself, however, given credence to it, inquiry

having satisfied me that the narrative is simply in the nature of a

fable; but for all that it is worth repeating as being in some degree

illustrative of the more "hectic" features of sport as it was carried

on fifty or sixty years ago.

As all versed in our racing records already know, the race for the

Oaks in the year 1844 was won by Princess, an animal which had been

very heavily backed by William Crockford, both on his own account and

for the benefit of a band of followers who "stood in" with him; but as

on the previous night the mighty gambler was seized with an attack of

paralysis which resulted in his sudden demise, there was consternation

among the clique. It being an understood law of the turf that death

cancels all bets, those interested in the victory of Princess (should

the filly win) saw at once they would lose their money, unless by the

adoption of a stratagem of some kind they could avert that misfortune;

the cry among them, therefore, was, "What can we do to get our money?"

As the sum at issue was rather a large one, it was resolved that an

effort should be made to obtain it, and the gruesome plan was hit upon

of exhibiting the dead man in his habit as he lived at one of the

windows of his club. Only two or three persons knew of Crockford's

death, and as they were interested in the Princess affair, they might

be depended on to hold their tongues. It was therefore arranged that

the sportsmen, as they returned from Epsom, should be shown the corpse;

and, by various little stratagems, be made to believe the man was alive.

The matter was managed in the following way: persons were sent to Epsom

to see the race, and note the result; the moment the winning-post was

reached by the winner, they were told at once to despatch pigeons with

the fateful news; the confederates were also instructed to say, to all

whom they spoke to, that Mr. Crockford was waiting anxiously at the

club, in the hope of hearing that Princess had proved victorious. In

due time the anxiously expected bird arrived at its loft, the despatch

it carried bore only the brief legend "Princess." So far all had gone

as well as could be wished: the right horse had won the race. Then

came the second part of the ghastly drama. The corpse, dressed in the

clothes which the living body wore, being placed on a chair in front

of the window, was made, by various arts, to look as life-like as

possible; and many of the gentlemen as they passed on their coaches saw

the old man quite plainly, and looking, as some of them said, "rather

lively."

In beginning this brief sketch by recording the death of Crockford, it

may be said I have begun at the wrong end of my story; but as I do not

aim at making a story, it is not of great consequence how what I have

to say about that once notorious person is arranged. The prosperous

"hell-keeper" died in the sixty-ninth year of his age; his birth having

taken place in 1775, five years before the first race for the Derby

took place. As a child he might have witnessed the beginning of that

great series of turf events, with some of which in after years it was

his fate to be connected. Not very much is known regarding the early

life of Crockford, nor in what year he saw his first Derby. In the days

of his youth he had been a fishmonger, and was well versed in the ways

of London's great piscatorial bourse, where at one time he was known as

a successful trader.

Like many of his fellows at "the gate," Crockford acquired that

taste for gambling which, like the ancient and fish-like smell that

dominates Lower Thames Street, has long been a characteristic of the

locality, and fortune is reported to have favoured him in his little

ventures from the beginning. In his business most of his deals proved

successful, as he was possessed of the happy knack of knowing what to

do and the right time to do it. Finding out what kind of fish were

likely to prove scarce, he used to buy up all that came to hand, and

then by dealing them out to other buyers, secure a good profit without

much trouble. Twenty years ago there were men in Billingsgate who had

known Crockford. One of the number was a porter who used to carry fish

to a shop he had taken close to Temple Bar, and was paid with a liberal

hand as being an old friend, and always with forcible injunctions not

to spend the money in beer or gin. This person had many stories to tell

about his "old pal," as he designated Crockford, both as to his doings

at "the gate" and after he became more celebrated or, as may be said,

more notorious. The following is one of them: a Billingsgate salesman

with whom Crockford had often done business fell into misfortune,

having become security for the sum of a thousand pounds on behalf of

a near relative of his wife. One morning he found himself called on

to pay, but unfortunately, with several bad debts of magnitude in

his books, he had no alternative but to cry peccavi; to crown the

poor man's distress, as one of his children lay on her death-bed, his

furniture was seized, and, but for Crockford, would have been sold.

He it was who came to the rescue, and brought comfort to the parents

in their day of misfortune; he purchased not only the furniture, but

the lease of the man's house as well, paid the funeral expenses of the

child also; and after doing all that, lent the salesman a couple of

hundred to be going on with, and was never the man to say he had done

it. Many other good actions of a similar kind might, were the details

known, be placed to the credit side of Crockford's account.

There is no doubt that Crockford did many kind acts in his day which

never could be chronicled, because none but he knew of them. When a boy

I was taken once or twice to see "Crockford's," and on many occasions

I heard of his doings. He had one virtue--"for days and days," I was

told, "he never drank liquor stronger than water." Abstinence from

intoxicants was one of the aids by which he made the half-million with

which at one time he might have retired into private life, and been

free of gambling evermore.

There is, I think, as much gambling of all kinds to-day as there was

during the days of the great hell in St. James's Street. There is this

difference, however: we hear less about it, even though we have ten

times the number of newspapers telling us of our sins. To-day gambling

goes on everywhere. There may be no hells in London at the present time

to compare in splendour and luxury with that kept by William Crockford,

but there is hardly a club in the mighty town in which speculation of

some kind is not constantly carried on. As for betting on horse-racing,

ten times more money, much of it, however, in small amounts, now

changes hands over a big race than changed hands sixty years since.

Summing up the situation as between then and now, the case may be

thus stated: in the days of Crockford there might perhaps be a

thousand persons each betting or gambling their occasional thousand

or two in the course of the season, but at the present time, as has

been already said, there will not be fewer in the United Kingdom than

half a million persons, each betting or gambling to the tune of from

half-a-sovereign to five pounds per diem. These figures do not include,

at either period, the score of big speculators who know no bounds to

their ventures, and are only given by way of illustration; nor do they

include the greatest gamble of all--that which takes place on the Stock

Exchanges of the kingdom, where, speaking in figurative language, tens

of thousands of pounds are passed every hour of the day from account to

account all the year round.

Crockford soon learned the art, and began the business of gambling.

The times favoured him. Gambling in his time--that is, gambling by

means of cards, dice, and more elaborate machinery--was more of an open

practice than it is now. A number of small, or, as they were called,

"silver" hells were in existence in those days, where persons could

risk shillings or half-crowns, and to one or other of these the young

fishmonger was a constant visitor after he had closed his shop. He

became in time a painstaking speculator, and soon began to make money

in steady fashion whilst others were losing it. As a contemporary

remarked, "he was lucky from the first; whatever he tried turned

up trumps." Along with a partner picked up in a gambling-house--he

was a clever person, who seemed to be always fortunate in his

dealings--Crockford made his _début_ on the turf with a roulette-table

constructed after a somewhat rude fashion; it was, in fact, a revolving

handle fixed on a board, which at the end of each revolution pointed

to one or other of several figures painted on a piece of white cloth,

by means of which winnings were determined. Many similar tables were

to be found on the racecourses of the period. At Ascot, Epsom, and

Doncaster tents were at one time fitted up in which gambling was

carried on all day long; and there was no concealment, the frequenters

of the racecourse being openly invited to "walk in; roulette," or "walk

in; hazard," as might happen. Cards with addresses upon them were also

distributed at race meetings, so that those inclined to try their

fortunes might know where they could tempt the fickle goddess. To many,

attendance at a race meeting was simply--about the time referred to--an

excuse for a gambling bout, which nearly always resulted in favour of

those who kept the bank.

The methods of gambling in the days of Crockford were ruthlessly

exposed during the trial of the well-known case of Smith _v._ Bond,

then a well-known partner in one of the superior London hells. At the

time indicated (1820 to 1845), the parishes of St. George's and St.

James' swarmed with gambling-houses, where large or small sums of money

could nightly be gained or lost, as might happen, and the play at the

majority of such houses was well known to fall out largely against

the players, as by many well-planned devices the bankers had points

in their favour. The Bonds, who had named their place the Junior St.

James' Club, waxed wealthy and fat over the game which was oftenest

played there, namely, French hazard. In the course of the trial much

interesting information was elicited as to the gambling practices which

then prevailed; in the end a heavy verdict was returned against the

defenders and in favour of the men who had the courage to sue them. The

amount given by the jury was £3,508, being treble the sum which Smith

had lost. If it had pleased some of the noblemen and gentlemen who gave

evidence to play the part of plaintiff, the amount of the verdict might

easily have been quintupled, so high and extensive did play run in the

house of the Bonds--"a place of bondage," as one of the counsel wittily

described it as being.

Coming back to the doings of my hero, it has to be stated with regard

to Crockford that, although at one period he was in possession of a

stud of race-horses, among the lot being Sultan, which made some mark

on the turf, he never took a great amount of interest in the noble

animal, preferring to regard it, like many other men, as an instrument

of gambling; but the owner of the St. James' gambling-house was well

versed in turf chicanery of all kinds, and knew in his day most of the

prominent spirits of the racing world. The year in which Crockford

saw his first Derby is not known, but in the course of his lifetime

it is said he saw the race run on thirty-five consecutive occasions.

Whether that be correct or not, it is certain that the Derby was a

race in which he evinced great interest, and he was reputed to have

landed more than one large stake on the winner of the Blue Ribbon. One

year Crockford was the owner of a Derby favourite in Ratan, a horse

which had made its mark as a two-year-old. Although the horse was

very carefully watched, seeing that its owner had backed it to win an

enormous sum of money, it was "got at," and it is supposed poisoned by

means of arsenic introduced into its drinking trough.

Crockford started a house at Newmarket, which became an agreeable

resort to those visitors to whom he offered hospitality, and he was

no niggard in dispensing the good things of life at his table. Nor

did he invite persons to his house so that, when heated with liquor,

he might rob them at cards or dice. Crockford was then a betting

man and bookmaker, laying or backing as he thought best for his own

interest; and his visitors, to use a slang phrase, were "as fly as he

was." They were not all spiders who walked into his Newmarket parlour,

his visitors were known to have, on many occasions, their pockets

well stuffed with crisp Bank of England notes. Another feature of

Crockford's behaviour helped him to connection and wealth; when he

lost he never required to be asked for money, he was a prompt payer;

nor did he, when he was reputed to be rolling in wealth, ever forget

himself, he was invariably polite and courteous. The devil, indeed,

never was so black as he has been painted, and Crockford, gambler

though he was, was not the fiend that some writers described him

as being. As well as being a betting man and the keeper of a hell,

Crockford was also a keen operator on the Stock Exchange; but on that

stage of speculation he generally came to grief, and much of the cash

made in St. James's Street was paid away to the stockbrokers. Another

branch of turf business which Crockford conducted at one time was that

of "squaring" the books of smaller betting men than himself; he could

always be relied upon, even at the last moment--that is, immediately

before a race--to lay the odds against such horses as a bookmaker

was "bad" against, and required therefore to back back again, so as

not to run greater risk than was compatible with an honest desire to

meet engagements, and pay what was seen to be due after the race was

determined.

The palatial gaming club erected by Crockford was at one time looked

upon as one of the wonders of London; two or three houses had been

knocked down to provide a site for it, and no expense was spared to

render it commodious and luxurious, and make it attractive to visitors,

who were waited upon by footmen in gorgeous liveries, and had their

palates tickled by the gastronomic delicacies of Monsieur Ude. There

were over eight hundred members, and the house was placed under the

management of a committee, to whom Crockford conceded all they asked.

Gambling, as a matter of course, was the business or recreation of

all who came to the place; figuratively speaking, the rattle of the

dice was heard morning, noon, and night, thousands of pounds changing

hands as if they were so many halfpence. "Crockford's" cost an enormous

sum of money; the building of it, I have been told, was carried on

regardless of expense by night as well as by day. All its appointments

were sumptuous, the cellars were filled with the finest of wines, and

the culinary arrangements were for months the talk of the town.

Much capital has from time to time been drawn by philanthropic

gentlemen out of what took place at "Crockford's," when the amounts

at stake were practically unlimited, a bank of £10,000 being put down

every evening at about eleven o'clock, the chief game of the house

being French hazard. Play of some kind was always, however, going

forward in every room of the large establishment, which was lit by

hundreds of wax candles all night long. Sad pictures have been painted

of the ruin that overtook men in the St. James' club-house; but many

of these men who went there were simply fools who brought on their own

fate, and who, had they not been ruined at Crockford's, would have

been ruined in some other hell. There were plenty of such places, and

although public gambling-houses are now not tolerated, it is quite

certain that card-playing goes on nightly in all the clubs in London,

and that in several of them large sums of money are lost and won.

Crockford was not in any degree worse than his neighbours, and no one

has ventured to say that undue advantage of any kind was ever taken of

the persons who frequented his house by the proprietor or his servants.

It should be kept in mind as well that visitors to Crockford's went

there to try and obtain his money, and if in doing so they lost their

own, they scarcely require to be sympathised with.

It is not my intention to defend gambling, or to become the apologist

of Crockford, but such matters should be looked straight in the

face, because, if there be sin in the matter, it is unfortunately of

universal occurrence and among all classes of society; but surely it

is not more sinful to stake one's sovereign on the turning up of a

particular card than it is to do so on the rise or fall of the stock of

a particular railway, or the loan bonds of some foreign country.