Chapter VI: England (2)

“The odds against any number being thrown against another number varies from two to one, to six to five, and consequently keeps all the table engaged in betting. All bets are staked, and the noise occasioned by proposing and accepting wagers is most uproarious and deafening among the low players, each having one eye on the black spots marked on the dice, as they land from the box, and the other on the stake, ready to snatch it if successful. To prevent the noise being heard in the street, shutters closely fitted to the window frames are affixed, which are padded and covered with green baize. There is also invariably an inner door placed in the passage, having an aperture in it, through which all who enter the door from the street may be viewed. This precaution answers two purposes, it deadens the sound of the noisy voices at the table, and prevents surprise by the officer of justice. The generality of the minor houses are kept by prize fighters, and other desperate characters, who bully and hector the more timid out of their money, by deciding that bets have been lost when in fact they have been won. Bread, cheese, and beer are supplied to the players, and a glass of gin is handed when called for, gratis. To these places thieves resort, and such other loose characters as are lost to every feeling of honesty and shame. A table of this nature in full operation is a terrific sight, all the bad passions appertaining to the vicious propensities of mankind are portrayed on the countenances of the players. An assembly of the most horrible demons could not exhibit a more appalling effect, recklessness and desperation overshadow every noble trait, which should enlighten the countenance of a human being. Many, in their desperation, stripped themselves on the spot of their clothes, either to stake against money, or to pledge to the table-keeper for a trifle to renew the play, and many instances occur of men going home half naked, after having lost their all. They assemble in parties of from forty to fifty persons, who probably bring on an average each night of from one to twenty shillings to play with. As the money is lost the players depart, if they can not borrow or beg more, and this goes on some times in the winter season for fourteen or sixteen hours in succession, so that from 100 to 150 persons may be calculated to visit one gambling table in the course of a night; and it not unfrequently happens that, ultimately, all the money brought to the table gets into the hands of one or two of the most fortunate adventurers, save that which is paid to the table for box-hands, whilst the losers separate, only to devise plans by which a few more shilling may be secured for the next night’s play.

“Every man so engaged is destined either to become by success a more finished and mischievous gambler, or to appear at the bar of the ‘Old Bailey’ where, indeed, most of them may be said to have figured already.

“The successful players, by degrees, improve their external appearance, and obtain admittance to the houses of higher play, where 2s. 6d., or 3s. 4d. is demanded for box-hands. At these places silver counters are used, representing the aliquot parts of a pound; these are called ‘pieces,’ one of which is a box-hand.

“If success attends them, in the first step of advancement, they next become initiated into pound-houses, and associate with gamblers of respectable exterior, where, if they show talent, they either become confederates in forming schemes of plunder, and in aiding establishments to carry on their concerns in defiance of the law, or fall back to their old station of playing chicken-hazard, as the small play is designated.

“The half-crown, or third rate houses, are not less mischievious than the lower ones. These houses are chiefly opened at the west end of the town, but there are some few at the east. In the parish of St. James, I have counted seven, eight and nine, in one street, which were open both day and night.

“One house in Oxenden street, Coventry, had an uninterrupted run of sixteen or seventeen years. Thousands have been ruined there, while every proprietor amassed a large fortune. The man who first opened the house (G. S.) has resided at Kentish Town for years past, in ease and affluence, keeping his servants and horses, although he rose from the lowest of the low.

“Several others who have followed him have had equal success. The watchmen and Bow street officers were kept in regular pay, and the law openly and expressly set at defiance, cards being handed about, on which were written these words: ‘Note, the house is insured against all legal interruptions, and the players are guaranteed to be as free from officious interruptions as they are at their own homes.’

“At another of these medium houses, known by the numerals ‘77,’ the proprietor, (a broken down Irish publican, formerly residing in the parish of St. Anne’s) accumulated in two years so much money that he became a large builder of houses and assembly rooms at Cheltenham, where he was at one time considered the most important man of the place, although he continued his calling to the day of his death. ‘Alas! J. D. K., hadst thou remained on earth thou wouldst ere this have been honored with the title of Grand Master of all the Blarney Clubs throughout the United Kingdom. Many a coroner hast thou found employ, and many a guinea hast thou brought into their purses, and many a family hast thou cast into the depths of sorrow.’ So runs the world. Fools are the natural prey of knaves, nature designed them so, when she made lambs for wolves. The laws that fear and policy framed, nature disclaims; she knows but two, and those are force and cunning. The nobler law is force, but then there’s danger in’t; while cunning, like a skillful miner, works safely and unseen.

“The subject of these remarks was not only subtle, wily, and in some measure fascinating, but most athletic and active in person. He was part proprietor of No. —, Pall Mall, for many years, where he would himself play for heavy stakes. And it was a favorite hobby of his to go into St. James’ Square, after having been up all night, to jump over the iron railings and back again, from the enclosure to the paved way.

“The average number of these third-rate houses in London, open for play, may be calculated at about twenty-five. If there were not a constant influx of tyro-gamblers this number would not be supported. Their agents stroll about the town, visiting public house parlors, and houses where cribbage-players resort, whist clubs, also billiard and bagatelle tables, experience having taught them that the man who plays at one game, if the opportunity be afforded him, is ever ready to plunge deeper into the vice of gambling on a large scale. Junior clerks, and the upper class of gentlemen’s servants are the men whom they chiefly attack.

“It is an extraordinary and uncomfortable fact that no set of men are more open to seduction than the servants of the nobility, and the menials of club-houses, an instance of which occurred a few months since, in the case of a servant of the Athenæum Club, who was inveigled into a house in the Quadrant, where he lost, in two or three days, a considerable sum of money belonging to his employers.

“The sum annually lost by the servants of the present day may reasonably be laid at one million and a half sterling. At most of the middle class gambling houses, play is going on from three o’clock, p. m. to five or six o’clock a. m. In the afternoon, from three to seven, it is called morning play, being generally rouge-et-noir or roulette.

“As soon as the proprietor of a ‘crown-house’ amasses money enough to appear on the turf, and becomes known at Tattersall’s as a speculator on horse-racing, he is dubbed a gentleman. Associating now with another class of men, a high ambitious spirit prompts him to open a superior house of play, where the upper class of gamblers and young nobility may not be ashamed of meeting together. All petty players are excluded. When he has accomplished his object he deems himself in the high road for the acquirement of a splendid fortune, being now master of a concern where money and estate are as regularly bought and sold as any commodity in a public market; one man of fashion betraying another—the most intimate and bosom friends colleaguing with these monsters for the purpose of sacrificing each other to the god Plutus, instances of which occur in this viciated town as often as the sun rises and sets.

“It might be thought invidious to mention names by innuendo, but every man of the world, or rather of the London world (which comprehends some thousand swindlers intermingled with the same number of nobility and gentry), must have a knowledge of those characters who have elevated themselves from the lowest state in society by gambling, to associate on terms of equality with nobles. One married his daughters to peers of the realm, and was treated with respect daily at the table of those who enact laws for the punishment of swindlers, and also of bishops who expatiate daily against all kinds of vice, including that of gambling, and the sin of countenancing those who promote it. Another, whose confederate was executed for poisoning horses, to secure for himself and his honorable employer a large sum of money, now stalks through the halls of our proud Norman, but too susceptible aristocracy, with as much freedom and nonchalance as one who could trace his ancestry back to William the Conqueror, and was possessed of a pure and unblemished reputation. When the history of this individual and that of six others, who, to use their own phraseology, have rowed through life together in the same boat, are before the world, scenes will be developed which will stand as beacons to warn future generations against coming in contact with such characters.

“In accordance with the reigning spirit of the day, such persons having acquired money, no matter how, rank as gentlemen, and are qualified to sit at the tables of the nobility. The company of fashionable or club society is that of black-legs, and it would not be difficult for me to name from twenty to thirty individuals at this moment who associate with, and move among, persons of high life, who were, but a few years back, in low vice and penury, and who have possessed themselves of a sum of money certainly not less than from eight to nine millions sterling.

“Again, there are hundreds of others who have amassed from ten to twenty thousand pounds each. Add to these the two or three thousand who annually make smaller sums of money, or manage to keep themselves and families in comfortable style by ‘hokey-pokey’ gambling ways, as Brother Jonathan would say, some estimate may be made of the evil occasioned to society by the movements of these men in it.”

One of the most deplorable phases of gambling in England is that women have figured prominently. Incredible as it may seem, numerous instances are recorded where the honor of wives and daughters has been staked in the desperation of cowardly men. It may be believed that this occurred only when all else had been swept away, and by persons from whom every vestige of manhood had departed. Ethiopians, it is said, have been known to gamble away their wives and children, and Schouten tells of a Chinaman who lost his family in this manner. A similar story is told of a Venetian, by Paschasius Justus, and in the wicked Paris of Louis XV, debauched nobles played at dice for the favor of a notorious courtesan.

English literature contains many allusions to women gamblers. So far did ladies of fashion carry the vice that certain nights for meeting were set apart in their private mansions, at which young and old, married and single, played with a desperation that must have made their husbands and fathers tremble. Professionals, whose morals were not above reproach, were engaged to conduct the games, and thus the women were thrown into association with bad characters, and their names and reputations bandied about in the mouths of the sporting gentry of London.

In 1820, James Lloyd, a harpy who practiced on the credulity of the lower orders by keeping an illegal lottery, was arrested for the twentieth time to answer for the offense. Lloyd was a Methodist preacher, and on Sundays expounded the gospel to his neighbors; the remainder of the week he instructed them in the gambling vice.

“In the same years,” says a writer of the time, “parties of young persons robbed their masters to play at a certain establishment called ‘Morley’s Gambling House,’ in the city of London, and were there ruined. Some were brought to justice at the Old Bailey, others in the madness caused by their losses, destroyed themselves while some escaped to other countries.”

To the games of faro, hazard, macao, doodle-doo and rouge-et-noir, at this time, more than to horse-racing, may be ascribed the ruin of many London merchants who once possessed fortunes and prosperous business. Thousands upon thousands were thus ruined in the vicinity of St. James; but this was not confined to youths of fortune only, but to decent and respectable merchants, who were engulfed in its vortex.

Of the “South Sea Bubble,” a writer in the _Eclectic Magazine_ for May, 1885, says: “If not the earliest, at least the most remarkable instance of this national spirit of gambling displayed itself in the last century, and was the infatuation which led all classes to commit themselves to the alluring prospects held out to them by the South Sea Company. The public creditor was offered six per cent. interest, and a participation in the profits of a new trading company, incorporated under the style of ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America.’ But, whatever chances of success this company might have had, were soon dispersed by the breaking out of the war with Spain, in 1718, which rendered it necessary for the concoctors of the scheme to circulate the most exaggerated reports, falsify their books, bribe members of the government, and resort to every fraudulent means, for the purpose of propping up their tottering creation. Wonderful discoveries of valuable resources were trumped up, and, by the mystery which they contrived to throw around the whole concern, people’s curiosity was excited, and a general, but vague impression got abroad that one of the South Sea Company’s bonds was talismanic, and there was no reckoning the amount of profit it would bring to the fortunate possessor. The smallest result expected from the enterprise was that in twenty-six years it would pay off the entire amount of the National debt.

“How it was to be done no one knew, or cared to inquire, it was sufficient to know that it was to be done. Trade and business of all kinds was suspended, every pursuit and calling neglected, and the interest of the whole nation absorbed by this enchanting dream. Money was realized in every way, and at every sacrifice and risk, to be made available in the purchase of South Sea stock, which rose in price with the demand from £150 to £325. Fresh speculators came pouring in, and the price went up to £1,000. This was at the latter end of July, but alas, a whisper went forth that there was something wrong with the South Sea Company. The chairman, Sir John Blunt, and some of the directors had sold their shares. There was a screw loose somewhere, and on the 2nd of September it was quoted at £700. An attempt to allay the panic was made by the directors, who called a meeting on the 8th, at Merchant Tailors’ Hall, but in the evening it fell to £640, and next day stood at £540. The fever had been succeeded by a shivering fit, and it was rapidly running down to zero. In this emergency, the king, who was at Hanover, was sent for, and Sir Robert Walpole called in, when the case was desperate. He endeavored to persuade the Bank of England to circulate the company’s bonds, but in vain. The stock fell to £135, and the bubble burst. The duration of this public delirium, as Smallett has truly called it, may be estimated when we state that the bill enabling the company to raise the subscription received the royal assent on the 7th of April, 1720, with the stock at £150; that the price subsequently ran up to £1,000; and that, on the 27th day of September it had again sunk to £150, and the delusion was over, and the nation in a state of panic, with public credit shaken to its center. Investigations were now made into the conduct of the managers of this marvelous fraud. A bill was first passed through parliament to prevent the escape of the directors from the kingdom, and then a Committee of Secrecy appointed to examine into their accounts. It then came out that the books had been destroyed, or concealed, entries erased and altered, and accounts falsified; that the king’s mistress, even, the Duchess of Kendal, had received stock to the amount of £10,000; another favorite, the Countess of Platen, £10,000; Mr. Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, £70,000; Mr. Graggs, father of the Secretary of State, £659,000; the Duke of Sutherland, £160,000; Mr. Graggs, Jr., £30,000; and Mr. Charles Stanhope, Secretary of the Treasury, two amounts, one of £10,000, and another of £47,000. The manner in which these worthies, who were in the secret, could anticipate and influence the markets, is obvious. Poor Gay had received an allotment of stock from Mr. Secretary Graggs which was at one time worth £20,000, but he clung fast to the bubble, refused to sell at that price, and waited till it was worthless, when he found himself hugging the shadow of a fortune. The amount of the company’s stock, at the time of the inquiry, was found to be £37,800,000, of which £24,500,000 belonged to individual proprietors. As some compensation to these rash and ruined speculators, the estates of the directors were confiscated. Sir George Caswell was expelled from the House of Commons, and made to disgorge £250,000; Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expelled, and committed to the Tower; Sir John Blunt, the chairman, was stripped of all but £5,000, and the excitement and popular resentment was so intense that it is marvelous that they escaped with their lives.

“The South Sea frenzy was not sufficient to engross the gambling spirit that it had generated, simultaneously there oozed up a crowd of smaller bubbles, of which Malcom counted 156. The titles to some of them were sufficient to illustrate the madness which had seized upon the nation. There were companies for carrying on the undertaking business and furnishing funerals, capital £1,200,000 at the ‘Fleece Tavern’ (ominous sign,) Cornhill; for discounting pensions, 2,000 shares at the Globe Tavern; for preventing and suppressing thieves, and insuring all persons’ goods from the same (?), capital £2,000,000, at Cooper’s; for making Joppa and Castile soap, at the Castile Tavern; for sweeping the streets, for maintaining bastard children; for improving gardens and raising fruit trees, at Carraway’s, for insuring horses against natural death, accident or theft, at the Brown Tavern, Smithfield, another at Robin’s, of the same nature, capital £2,000,000; for introducing the breed of asses; an insurance company against the thefts of servants, 3,000 shares of £1,000 each, at the Devil Tavern; for perpetual motion, by means of a wheel moving by force of its own weight, capital £1,000,000 at the Ship Tavern,” etc., etc. The Prince of Wales became governor of a Welsh Copper Company. The Duke of Chandos was Chairman of the York Building Company, and of another Company for building houses in London and Westminster.

“Many of these speculators were jealously prosecuted by the South Sea Company, but they all succeeded, in a greater or less degree, in spreading the general panic. The amount of capital proposed to be raised by these countless schemes was three hundred million sterling—exceeding the value of all the lands in England. The most amusing instance of the blind credulity of the public was in the success which attended one wary projector, who, well knowing the value of mystery, published the following proposal:

“‘This day, the 28th inst., at Sam’s Coffee-house, behind the Royal Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened for entering into a joint co-partnership for carrying on a thing that will turn to the advantage of all concerned.’

“The particulars of this notable scheme were not to be revealed for a month, and, ‘in the meantime’ says Smallet, he declared that every person paying two guineas should be entitled to a subscription of one hundred pounds, which would produce that sum yearly.’ In the forenoon, the adventurer received a thousand of these subscriptions, and, in the evening, set out for another kingdom.

“Some curious satires on these several schemes are preserved in the British Museum, in the shape of a book of playing-cards. Thus, one is a caricature of York-buildings, with the following lines beneath it:

‘You that are blessed with wealth by your Creator,
And want to drown you money in Thames water,
Buy but York-buildings, and the cistern there
Will sink more pence than any fool can spare.’

“A ship-building company is thus ridiculed:

‘Who but a nest of blockheads to their cost
Would build new ships for freight when trade is lost?
To raise fresh barques must surely be amusing,
When hundreds rot in dock for want of using.’

“The Pennsylvania Land Company comes in for a share of the satire:

‘Come, all ye saints, that would for little buy
Great tracts of land, and care not where they lie,
Deal with your Quaking friends—They’re men of light,
The spirit hates deceit and scorns to bite.’

“The Company for the insurance of horses’ lives against death, or accident, is thus dealt with:

‘You that keep horses to preserve your ease,
And pads to please your wives and mistresses,
Insure their lives, and, if they die we’ll make
Full satisfaction—or be bound to break.’

“Smallett gives us a more dismal picture. ‘The whole nation,’ he says, ‘was infested with a spirit of stock-jobbing, to an astonishing degree. All distinctions of party, religion, sex, character, and circumstances were swallowed up. Exchange-alley was filled with a strange concourse of statesmen and clergymen, churchmen and dissenters, Whigs, and Tories, physicians, lawyers, tradesmen, and even with females. All other professions and employments were utterly neglected.’

“It is not to be wondered at that various lottery schemes were started and prospered immensely at a time when the public mind was in the state indicated above. They were launched by the State, by private companies and by individuals. These institutions played no small part in the general debasement of the public mind and the ruin of fortunes and families.” This will appear more fully in the treatment accorded to lotteries elsewhere in this book.

The history of anti gambling legislation in England, and the various efforts which have been made to suppress or regulate the vice forms an interesting phase of the subject, and also suggests how the evil was regarded from time to time in the public mind. The earliest legislation on the subject appears to have been based on the idea, not that gambling was immoral and degrading, but that it interfered with the usefulness of servants and employes, induced idleness, and diverted attention from archery. “The first statute (12 R. 2, c. 6) in England (1388) prohibiting gambling, applied only to servants of husbandry, artificers, and victuallers—not to servants of gentlemen—and commanded such to refrain from ‘hand and foot ball, quoits, dice, throwing of stone kayles, and such other importune games.’ The next statute (1409) enforced the above, with a penalty of six days imprisonment for such offence. The next act (17 Ed. 4, c. 3, 1477,) after naming in a preamble the foregoing games, says, ‘Contrary to such laws, games called kayles, half-bowles, hand-in-hand-out, and queckeborde, from day to day are used in divers parts of the land,’ then provides that no occupier or master of a house shall voluntarily permit any prohibited person to play at any such game in said house, under pain of three years’ imprisonment and forfeiture of £20 for each offense. No prohibited person could play under pain of two years’ imprisonment and £10 default. Another act (11 H. 7, c. 2, 1494,) provided that no artificer, laborer or servant should play any unlawful game except at Christmas, while the law (19 H. 7, c, 12) of 1503, absolutely prohibited certain persons named therein from playing at any game. In 1511, (3 H. 8, c. 3) unlawful games were again prohibited, and a still more stringent law enacted in 1535 (22 H. 8, c. 35).

“In 1541, (33 H. 8, c. 25) the manufacturers and dealers in archery petitioned Parliament to prohibit all games and enforce the practice of archery. Accordingly, in 1542, a most stringent act was passed, obliging all able-bodied men, between the ages of 17 and 60 years, except ministers and judges, to own bows and arrows, and to practice with the same. Masters were required to see that their servants were provided with bows and arrows and instructed in their use; if not provided, the master must furnish the same, and was empowered to deduct the price from the servant’s wages. This act repeals all other laws concerning gaming, and then prohibits the keeping of any ‘common house, or place of bowling, coytinge, cloyshe, cayles, half-bowle, tannys, dysing table, or cardianage, or any other unlawful new game hereafter to be invented,’ under a penalty of 40s. for each offense. Magistrates, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and head officers of cities, boroughs and towns, were required and authorized to enter all such places, at any time, and arrest offenders; they must also search at least once a month to discover such places, and suppress the same under a monthly penalty of 40s. for every default.”