CROCKFORD'S--"THE HOOKS AND EYES"--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
"Crockford's" has become a mere reminiscence, but worthy, in many
respects, of being preserved as part of the history of London. It was
historic in many of its associations as well as its incidents, and men
who made history as well as those who wrote it met at Crockford's. It
was celebrated alike for high play and high company.
As I never had a real passion for gambling, it was to me a place of
great enjoyment, for there were some of the celebrated men of the
day amongst its invited guests--wits, poets, novelists, playwrights,
painters--in fact, all who had distinguished themselves in art
or literature, law, science, or learning of any kind were always
welcomed.
It was as pleasant a lounge as any in London, not excepting
Tattersall's, which has equal claims on my memory. At Crockford's I
met Captain H----, a wonderful gamester; he died early, but not too
early for his welfare, seeing that all the chances of life are against
the gambler. Padwick, too, I knew; he entertained with refined and
lavish hospitality. He was one of the winners in the game of life who
did not die early. He told good stories and put much interest into
them. He knew Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner--a sporting man of the
first water, who poisoned John Parsons Cook for the sake of his
winnings, and his wife and mother, it was said, for the sake of the
insurance on their lives. Padwick knew everybody's deeds and misdeeds
who sought to increase his wealth on the turf or at the gaming-table.
He was a just and honourable man, but without any sympathy for fools.
Others I could recall by the score, men of character and of no
character. Some I knew afterwards professionally, and especially one,
who, although convicted of crime, escaped by collusion the sentence
justly passed upon him. Another was a man of position without
character, whose evil habits destroyed the talent that would have made
him famous.
But I need not dwell on the manifold characters and scenes of
Crockford's. There has been nothing like it either in its origin or
its subsequent history. There will never be anything like it in an
age of refinement and laws, which have been wisely passed for the
protection of fools.
The founder of this fashionable gambling place was at one time a small
fishmonger in either the Strand or Fleet Street, I forget which, and
lived there till he removed to St. James's Street, where he became a
fisher of men, but never in any other than an honourable way.
"His Palace of Fortune" was of the grandest style of architectural
beauty. It was one in which the worshippers of Fortune planked down
the last acre of their patrimonial estates to propitiate the fickle
goddess in the allurements of the gaming-table. But how _can_ Fortune
herself give two to one on all comers? Some _must_ lose to pay the
winners.
At this palatial abode the most sumptuous repasts were prepared by the
most celebrated _chefs_ the world could produce, and were eaten by the
most fastidious and expensive gourmands Nature ever created; gamblers
of the most distinguished and the most disreputable characters;
gentlemen of the latest pattern and the oldest school, the worst
of men and the best, sporting politicians and political sportsmen,
place-hunters, Ministers, ex-Ministers, scions of old families and
ancient pedigrees, as well as men of new families and no pedigrees,
who purchased, as we do now, a coat of arms at the Heralds' tailoring
shop, and selected their ancestors in Wardour Street.
Only the wealthy could be members of this club, for only the wealthy
could lose money and pay it. Landscape painters might be guests, but
it was only the man who belonged to the landscape who could belong to
the body that gambled for it. Young barristers might visit the place,
possibly with an eye to business, but only members of large practice
or Judges could be members of this society.
Lord Palmerston defended it manfully before the committee appointed
really for its destruction. He said it did a great deal of good--much
more good than all the gambling hells of London did harm. Whether his
lordship contended that there was no betting carried on at Crockford's
I am not prepared to say, but when evidence is given before
Parliamentary Committees it is sometimes difficult to understand its
exact meaning. Palmerston, however, positively said, without any doubt
as to his meaning, that candidates were not elected in order that they
might be plucked of every feather they possessed, and that any one who
maintained the contrary was slandering one of the most respectable
clubs in London. Some men would rather have pulled down St. Paul's
than Crockford's.
It was the very perfection of a club, said the statesman, and its
principal game was chicken hazard. What could be stronger evidence
than that of its usefulness and respectability? At this game they
usually lost all they had, of little consequence to those who could
not do better with their property, and perhaps the best thing for the
country, because when it got into better hands it stood some chance of
being applied to more legitimate purposes.
After a while Crockford quarrelled with his partner, and they
separated.
Whatever men may say in these days against an institution which
flourished in those, ex-Prime Ministers, Dukes, Earls, and ex-Lord
Chancellors, as well as future Ministers of State and future Judges,
belonged to it, or sought eagerly for admission to its membership. To
be under the shadow of the fishmonger was greatness itself.
At the mention of the name of Crockford's a procession of the greatest
men of the day passes before my eyes; their name would be legion as to
numbers, but an army of devoted patriots I should call them in every
other sense, for they were English to the backbone, whether gamblers
or saints.
Of course there were some amongst them, as in every large body of men,
who were not so desirable to know as you could wish; but they were
easy to avoid and at all times an interesting study.
There were wise men and self-deluded fools, manly, well-bred men, and
effeminate, conceited coxcombs, who wore stays and did up their back
hair, used paint, and daubed their cheeks with violet powder. These
men, while they had it, planked down their money with the longest
possible odds against them. There was one who was the very opposite
to these in the person of old Squire Osbaldistone. True, he had
squandered more money than any one had ever seen outside the Bank of
England, but he had done it like a gentleman and not like a fool. A
real grand man was the old squire, and I enjoyed many a walk with
him over Newmarket Heath, listening to his amusing anecdotes, his
delightful humour and brilliant wit. His manner was so buoyant that no
one could have believed he had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds,
but he had, without compunction or regret.
The novelist and the painter could artistically describe Squire
Osbaldistone. I can only say he was a "fine old English gentleman, one
of the olden time." It was in a billiard-room at Leamington where I
first met him, and as he was as indifferent a player as you could
meet, he thought himself one of the best that ever handled a cue.
I neither played chicken hazard nor any other game, but enjoyed myself
in seeing others play, and in picking up crumbs of knowledge which I
made good use of in my profession.
The institution was not established for the benefit of science or
literature, except that kind of literature which goes by the name
of bookmaking. Its founder was a veritable dunce, but he was the
cleverest of bookmakers, and made more by it in one night than all the
authors of that day in their lives. One hundred thousand pounds in
one night was not bad evidence of his calculation of chances and his
general knowledge of mankind.
To be a member of this club, wealth was not the only qualification,
because in time you would lose it; you had to be well born or
distinguished in some other way. The fishmonger knew a good salmon
by its appearance; he had also a keen respect for the man who had
ancestors and ancestral estates.
I ought not to omit to mention another celebrated bookie of that
day; he was second only to Crockford himself, and was called "The
Librarian." He was also known as "Billy Sims."
Billy lived in St. James's Street, in a house which has long since
been demolished, and thither people resorted to enjoy the idle, witty,
and often scandalous gossip of the time. It was as easy to lose your
reputation there as your money at Crockford's, and far more difficult
to keep it. The only really innocent conversation was when a man
talked about himself.
From that popular gossiping establishment I heard a little story told
by the son of Sydney Smith. His father had been sent for to see an old
lady who was one of his most troublesome parishioners. She was dying.
Sad to say, she had always been querulous and quarrelsome. It may have
been constitutional, but whatever the cause, her husband had had an
uncomfortable time with her. When Sydney Smith reached the house the
old lady was dead, and the bereaved widower, a religious man in his
way, and acquainted with Scripture, said,--
"Ah, sir, you are too late: my poor dear wife has gone to _Abraham's
bosom_."
"Poor Abraham!" exclaimed Sydney; "she'll tear his inside out."
As all these things pass through my memory, I recall another little
incident with much satisfaction, because I was retained in the case.
It was a scandalous fraud in connection with the gaming-table. An
action was brought by a cheat against a gentleman who was said to have
lost £20,000 on the cast of the dice. I was the counsel opposed to
plaintiff, who was said to have cheated by means of _loaded dice_. I
won the case, and it was generally believed that the action was the
cause of the appointment of the "Gaming Committee," at which tribunal
all the rascality of the gaming-tables was called to give evidence,
and the witnesses did so in such a manner as to shock the conscience
of the civilized world, which is never conscious of anything until
exposure takes place in a court of law or in some other legal inquiry.
Diabolical revelations were brought to light. However, as I have said,
Lord Palmerston effectually cleared Crockford's, and it almost seemed,
from the evidence of those who knew Crockford's best, that they never
played anything there but old-fashioned whist for threepenny points,
patience, and beggar-my-neighbour.
His Royal Highness the then Prince of Wales came into court during the
trial I refer to, and seemed interested in the proceedings. I wonder
if his Majesty now remembers it!
In those days Baron Martin and I met once a year, he on the Bench and
I in court, with a hansom cab waiting outside ready to start for the
Derby. It is necessary for Judges to sit on Derby Day, to show that
they do not go; but if by some accident the work of the court is
finished in time to get down to Epsom, those who love an afternoon
in the country sometimes go in the direction of the Downs. There is
usually a run on the list on that day.
There was another club to which I belonged in those old days, called
"The Hooks and Eyes," where I met for the last time poor Douglas
Jerrold. He was one of the Eyes, and always on the lookout for a good
thing, or the opportunity of saying one. He was certainly, in my
opinion, the wittiest man of his day. But at times his wit was more
hurtful than amusing. Wit should never leave a sting.
He was sometimes hard on those who were the objects of his personal
dislike. Of these Sir Charles Taylor was one. He was not a welcome
member of the Hooks and Eyes, and Jerrold knew it. There was really no
reason why Sir Charles should not have been liked, except perhaps that
he was dull and prosaic; rather simple than dull, perhaps, for he was
always ready to laugh with the rest of us, whether he understood the
joke or not. And what could the most brilliant do beyond that?
Sir Charles was fond of music. He mentioned in Jerrold's company on
one occasion "that 'The Last Rose of Summer' so affected him that it
quite carried him away."
"Can any one hum it?" asked Jerrold.