Gambling, the besetting sin of the indolent in many countries, is ruinously
general throughout South America. In England, and other European states, it
is pretty much limited to the unemployed of the upper classes, who furnish
a never-ending supply of dupes to knavery. In South America the passion
taints all ages, both sexes, and every rank. The dregs of society yield to
the fascination as blindly as the high-born and wealthy of the old or of
the new world. It speaks much in favour of the revolution, that this vice
is sensibly diminishing in Peru, and to the unfortunate Monteagudo belongs
the honour of having been the first to attempt its eradication. A noted
gambler was once as much an object of admiration in South America as a
six-bottle man was in England fifty years ago. The houses of the great were
converted into nightly hells, where the priesthood were amongst the most
regular and adventurous attendants. Those places are now more innocently
enlivened by music and dancing. Buena Vista, a seat of the late Marquess of
Montemira, six leagues from Lima, was the Sunday rendezvous of every
fashionable of the capital who had a few doubloons to risk on the turn of a
card. On one occasion, a fortunate player, the celebrated Baquijano, was
under the necessity of sending for a bullock car to convey his winnings,
amounting to above thirty thousand dollars: a mule thus laden with specie
was a common occurrence. Chorillos, a fishing town, three leagues south of
Lima, is a fashionable watering place for a limited season. Here immense
sums are won and lost; but political and literary coteries, formerly
unknown, daily lessen the numbers of the votaries of fortune.
So strong was this ruling passion, that when the patriot army has been
closely pursued by the royalists, and pay has been issued to lighten the
military chest, the officers, upon halting, would spread their ponchos on
the ground, and play until it was time to resume the march; and this was
frequently done even on the eve of a battle. Soldiers on piquet often
gambled within sight of an enemy's advanced post.
_Memoirs of Gen. Miller._
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