Part 7

At the time when the real Athenæum in Pall Mall was being established there was a swindler upon the town named William Earl. Although the son of a respectable bookseller, who formerly resided in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, he committed some very flagrant acts of imposition upon the public. Among many other schemes he conceived the plan of pretending that he was the person deputed and authorised by the gentlemen composing the members of the true Athenæum Club, to take and fit up a house for their accommodation. The house in St. James's Street being to let at the time, he (Earl) took it on the residue of a lease having between two and three years to run, and, forthwith, when in possession, got tradesmen to fit it up in the most superb manner possible, making it a great favour to recommend them to so good a job, the Athenæum management promising that all the money shares should be paid down the moment the house was ready for the reception of the members. The furniture, however, as fast as it was brought into the house, disappeared, being taken away by Earl to dispose of for cash to put into his own pocket, preparatory to a final retreat from the scene of action. This being discovered before larger debts were contracted, the creditors, who were already minus about £1400, convened a meeting, at which, under a threat of a criminal prosecution, they compelled Earl to assign the premises and everything else to three gentlemen, Messrs. Baines, Vincent, and Laing, in trust for the benefit of the creditors. These gentlemen, subsequently representing the case of the creditors to the Lord Chamberlain, obtained a licence for music, the premises being designated and inserted in the licence as known by the name of the Athenæum; but this and a juggling speculation failing, it was at length let to Ephraim Bond, Esq., at a rental of £50 per month. This was in the early part of the year 1830, during which Earl was committed to Newgate for swindling a jeweller in St. Paul's Churchyard out of a gold chain and other property, being subsequently transported for the term of seven years. The notoriety of these circumstances, and the length of time Earl's name had been before the public, as being somehow connected with the institution described as the Athenæum Club in St. James's Street, led a vast number of thoughtless young men to visit the house. Certain is it, that not a few joined the place under a full impression that they were actually admitted into the real Athenæum Club: and to this confusion of names did the new proprietor, in a very large measure, owe the extraordinary run of play he had at his tables. Among the persons who were employed at this house were Kelly, Peck, Hancock, Mayne, and Thompson: the two latter were retained by Bond as waiters, after having been placed in the house under the following circumstances. Earl, as the spurious Athenæum progressed, advertised for waiters; when these men applied, he represented in forcible language the responsible nature of their situations, and the great trust which would be reposed in them, informing one that all the linen and glass would be placed in his hands, and the other that he would have charge of plate to the value of some thousands. By these means he induced one to deposit £150 and the other £100 as security before they entered upon the service of the Club. Bond thought that the ill-usage of these men gave them some claim upon the premises, and, therefore, installed them into the office which they originally came to fill, that is, as waiters.

At many of the gambling-houses the waiters reaped a rich harvest by lending money. At Crockford's one of these servants once received £500, nominally as a Christmas-box, but really as a recognition of timely financial assistance rendered to frequenters of the hazard-table; £100 of this sum was given to him by a nobleman who had in one week won £80,000 on a moderate sum which had been borrowed from the waiter in question.

About 1838 gaming-houses were kept open all day, the dice were scarcely ever idle, day or night. All the week, all the year round, persons were to be found in these places, losing their money, and up to 1844 there were no less than twelve gaming-houses in St. James's and St. George's. Before that the play was higher, but not so general.

The increase of gambling-houses was said to be owing to the existence of Crockford's. Such was the opinion of the Honourable Frederick Byng, as given before the Committee of the House of Commons. He declared "that the facility to gamble at Crockford's led to the establishment of other gambling-houses fitted up in a superior style, and attractive to gentlemen who never would have thought of going into them formerly." He added that in his older days gambling was very high, but the amusement of a very few. Mr. Byng also said he "could have named all the gamblers in his early days at the clubs. No person coming into a room where hazard was carried on would have been permitted to play for a small sum, and therefore poor people left it alone."

The gambling which was carried on in the private rooms of the wine and oyster houses, about 1840, was of the same character as that which had at the same time flourished in the vicinity of St James's. For this reason the blackguards frequenting the former attained the most profound knowledge of the art of robbing at the West-End Hells. They visited the saloons every night, in order to pick up new acquaintances amongst inexperienced youth. Well-dressed and polite, they carefully scanned every visitor on the look-out for pigeons to pluck, and having found one went soon to work to establish an acquaintance. Cards being proposed, the leader of the band provided a room, play ensuing, accompanied by the certainty of loss to the unfortunate guest. If the invitation was rejected, the pigeon was attacked through a passion of a different kind. The word being given to one of their female friends, she threw herself in the quarry's way, and prevailed upon him to accompany her to her house. In the morning the "gentleman," who in vain had solicited him to play at the saloon the night before, would call--as if to pay "a friendly visit." Cards would be again proposed, the "lady" offering to be the partner of her friend in the game. Numbers of young men were plundered by such schemes of thousands of pounds; and a good deal of demoralisation prevailed amongst small tradesmen and gentlemen's servants, numbers of whom frequented the low gambling-houses. If one of these could scrape together two or three hundred pounds he was able, with the assistance of the keeper of the Hell, to lend it to needy losers at sixty per cent.

A careful inspection was made of the visitor's appearance by a gaming-house keeper's spies, his dress being strictly scrutinised. He was obliged, before entering the saloon, to deposit his great-coat and cane, or anything else which might facilitate the introduction of some weapon; the value or elegance of these did not save him from the humiliation of having it taken from him at the door. The assaults which were sometimes made on the bankers led to such precautions.

The blame for the great increase of gambling in the West End was mostly attributed to Crockford, who presided over the most palatial gaming-house ever run in England.

William Crockford was the son of a small fishmonger who lived next door to Temple Bar. After his father's death the young man soon abandoned fish-selling for more exciting pursuits. He became a frequenter of the sporting-houses then abundant in the neighbourhood of St. James's, went racing, and, after setting up a successful hazard bank in Wattier's old Club-house,[4] became connected with a gaming-house in King Street, which, though it frequently got him into trouble with the authorities, put a very large sum of money into his pocket. At King Street, Crockford, together with his partner Gye, is said to have once won the very large sum of £100,000 from five well-known men-about-town, amongst whom were Lords Thanet and Granville and Mr. Ball Hughes.

With the capital amassed in the manner described Crockford founded the celebrated institution in St. James's Street which was sometimes jokingly called "Fishmonger's Hall."

It was opened at the end of the year 1827. There were about 1200 members, exclusive of ambassadors and foreigners of distinction; the annual subscription was £25. The Club-house was luxurious beyond anything which had been known up to that time. The decorations alone, it is said, cost £94,000, and a salary of £1200 a year was paid by Crockford to his cook, M. Eustache Ude.

The Club-house, which still exists in an altered form as the Devonshire Club, was decorated and upholstered in the somewhat gaudy style popular during the reign of George IV., the apartment known as the State Drawing-room being particularly gorgeous and florid in its general effect.

The gaming-room was comparatively small. Here were card-tables at which whist was occasionally played, whilst in the centre stood the hazard-table, the real _raison d'être_ of the whole establishment.

The expenses of running this gambling-club were large, the dice alone costing some two thousand a year! Three new pairs at about a guinea each pair were provided at the commencement of every evening's play, and very often as many more were called for either by players or by Crockford himself in order to change the luck.

By the terms of his agreement Crockford was bound to put £5000 into a bank every night whilst Parliament was sitting; as long as any of this capital remained he was not allowed to end the play until an hour previously appointed.

During his first two seasons Crockford is said to have made about £300,000; he may, indeed, be said to have extracted nearly all the ready money from the pockets of the men of fashion of the day. So much so was this the case, that when Crockford retired in 1840 it was said that he resembled an Indian chief who retires from a hunting country when there is not game enough left for his tribe.

Mr. Crockford's private views as to the likelihood of any player at hazard increasing his fortune were certainly interesting. Being one day asked by a young man of his acquaintance what was the best main to call at the game, he solemnly replied: "I'll tell you what it is, young man. You may call mains at hazard till your hair grows out of your hat and your toes grow out of your boots. My advice to you is not to call any mains at all."

This, though undoubtedly sound, was a curious speech from a man who had laid the foundation of a large fortune at the gaming-table, and had himself successfully called all the mains under the sun.

Whilst many were ruined at Crockford's, nobody appears to have made much by the place except the proprietor, who, though latterly rather unsuccessful in speculation, died a very rich man at the age of sixty-nine in May 1844.

In 1844 a Select Committee on gaming took a great deal of evidence, Crockford himself being examined, though nothing was got out of him. The result of all this was that on the 8th of August 1845 was passed an Act to amend the law against games and wagers. The Act in question was particularly aimed against hazard, which had undoubtedly done a good deal of harm, lending itself as it did to much trickery and foul play. Gaming-houses were now rigorously repressed, but it was not long before gambling began to rage in another form, many betting-houses being started.

The first institution of this kind appears to have opened its doors in 1847, the proprietors being Messrs. Drummond and Greville. About 1850, about four hundred of these houses (the vast majority not very solvent), where regular lists of the prices were openly exhibited, flourished, and an epidemic of gambling was declared to have attacked even the poorest class, who were being offered facilities for risking their hard-earned sixpences and shillings. The rise and fall of the odds before any great race was eagerly watched by the keepers of the betting-houses, and scenes of wild excitement occasionally occurred. Many of the smaller betting-shops were simply traps for the unwary. The stock-in-trade needed was merely a few flyblown racing prints and some old ledgers. A room was soon hired, often in some derelict tobacconist's shop, and business then commenced. Most of these places existed in obscure and dirty thoroughfares; the neighbourhood of Drury Lane being especially affected by those indulging in this nefarious industry. Just before a big race meeting, such as the Derby or Ascot, numbers of these betting shops would burst into bloom for a short space of time. When the meetings ended, the crowd coming to get paid would find the proprietor gone and the place in charge of a boy, who, generally not at all disconcerted, would announce that his master had gone out on "'tickler bizness," and would not be back till late at night. His wife also had gone out of town for her health till the winter. "Will he be back to-morrow?" would cry the crowd. "No, he won't be here to-morrow 'cos it's Sunday, and he always goes to church on Sunday," a favourite reply which made even the losers laugh. "Will he be back on Monday, then?" "Monday," would say the boy, reflecting, "No, I don't think he'll be here on Monday--he's going to a sale on Monday." After further inquiries and replies of this sort the crowd would, for the time being, reluctantly disperse, murmuring something about a "sell" instead of a "sale," to return again time after time with the same ill-success, till eventually, realising that they had been duped, the bell-pull was torn out and the windows broken, the proprietor meanwhile doing a flourishing business in some other locality. Various subterfuges were employed by betting-shopkeepers to attract clients. One of these places grandiloquently styled itself "The Tradesmen's Moral Associative Betting Club." The circular issued by this beneficent organisation set forth that a number of persons in business, realising the robberies hourly inflicted upon the humbler portion of the sporting public by persons bankrupt alike in character and property, had banded themselves together to establish a club wherein their fellow tradesmen and the speculator of a few shillings might invest their money with the assured consciousness of meeting with fair and honourable treatment. In all probability the clients of the Moral Associative Club found that, like other institutions of the same sort, its idea was to receive the money of all and close its career by paying none.

A man named Dwyer, who kept a cigar shop and betting-house in St. Martin's Lane in 1851, was in the habit of laying a point or two more than the regular odds, and in consequence did the largest business of any list man in London. He was considered to be absolutely safe. It was his custom to pay the day following a big race, but when Miss Nancy won the Chester Cup, his doors were found to be closed; and the house being broken into by an enormous crowd of infuriated creditors, everything valuable was discovered to have been removed. Dwyer, as a matter of fact, had bolted with about £25,000 of the public's money. The occurrence of scandals such as this naturally caused a considerable outcry for the suppression of the betting-houses, which, it was declared, were demoralising the public, who, even when they were not swindled, were led into risking sums which they could not afford. A Bill for checking the evil was eventually drafted, and in July 1853 was passed an Act entitled "An Act for the Suppression of Betting-Houses," which inflicted on any one keeping or assisting to keep any house, office, room, or place for the purpose of betting, a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds, or imprisonment with or without hard labour for any time not exceeding six calendar months.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: No. 81 Piccadilly.]

IV

Craze for eccentric wagers at end of eighteenth century--Lord Cobham's insulting freak and its results--Betting and gaming at White's--The Arms of the Club--The old betting-book and its quaint wagers--Tragedies of play--White's to-day--£180,000 lost at hazard at the Cocoa Tree--Brummell as a gambler--Gaming at Brooks's--Anecdotes--General Scott--Whist--Mr. Pratt--Wattier's Club--Scandal at Graham's--Modern gambling clubs--The Park Club case in 1884--Dangers of private play.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century a curious mania for making eccentric wagers seized hold of the bucks of the day. Unlike many another craze this was not imported from France, but had its rise and progress entirely in England. During the last illness of Louis XIV., Lord Stair laid a wager on his death, which rather astonished the French, who did not approve of such a form of speculation. At a subsequent period bets about the most trivial incidents became quite common in the West End of London. Not infrequently some thoughtless wager would lead to considerable trouble.

Lord Cobham, for instance, once foolishly bet Mr. Nugent a guinea that he would spit in Lord Bristol's hat without the latter, who had a reputation for effeminacy, resenting it. The wager itself was singularly lacking in refinement, and the moment chosen for carrying it out was quite in keeping.

Lord Bristol being one day at Lady Cobham's talking to some ladies, he chanced to lean over a chair holding his hat behind him, into which Lord Cobham deliberately spat, at the same time asking Mr. Nugent, who was present, for his guinea; after which he began to make the most profuse apologies to the victim of the outrage, who, remaining apparently quite unmoved, merely asked if his host had any further use for his hat, and then resumed his conversation, and every one considered the incident at an end. Lord Bristol being to all outward appearance absolutely unruffled.

The next morning, however, both Lord Cobham and Mr. Nugent received messages demanding satisfaction, to which they returned the most humble answers. The incident, they declared, was all merely a foolish joke, and they were quite ready to make all sorts of submissive apologies.

Lord Bristol, however, would only assent to condone the insult if the aggressors were ready to make a public apology in the Club-room at White's, where he was prepared to receive it, and here, amidst a crowd of members, Lord Cobham and Mr. Nugent publicly expressed their regret.

As the eighteenth century waned. White's Club developed into a great gambling centre; its members indeed professed a universal scepticism and decided everything by a wager. There was nothing, however trivial or ridiculous, which was not capable of producing a bet. Many pounds were lost upon the colour of a coach-horse, the birth of a child, the breaking off of a marriage, and even a change in the weather.

A favourite mode of speculation was backing one man against another, that is, betting that he would live the longest. People of all classes were made the subjects of such bets. An actor was pitted against a duke, an alderman against a bishop, a pimp against some member of the privy council. Scarcely a remarkable person existed upon whose life many thousand pounds did not depend. The various changes in the health of any one who was the subject of heavy betting naturally gave rise to many serious reflections in the minds of the people who had wagered large sums on his life or death. Some would closely watch all the stages of a total stranger's illness, more impatient for his death than the undertaker who expected to have the care of his funeral; others would be very solicitous about his recovery, and send every hour to know how his health progressed, taking as great care of him as any clergyman's wife who has no other fortune than the living of her husband. Great consternation was caused by an unexpected demise. Considerable odds were laid upon a man with the constitution of a porter, who was pitted against an individual expected to die every week. The porter, however, unexpectedly shot himself through the head, and the knowing ones were taken in.

The main supporters of gaming at White's at this time were George Selwyn, Lord March, Fox, and Lord Carlisle.

The latter was of a rather more serious disposition than the others, and had a wife and children to whom he was devoted. Though at times a high gambler himself, he wrote several letters to Selwyn, warning him of the dangers of hazard.

On one occasion Lord Carlisle won £13,000 from a peer, which he never seems to have got, and again indulged in some disastrous play in 1776, after which he wrote to George Selwyn to say that he had never lost so much at five different sittings as on this occasion in one night. A note by Selwyn in the letter puts the sum at £10,000. In after-life Lord Carlisle entirely abandoned gaming, and settled down into an exemplary country gentleman.

Another constant player for high stakes at White's was Sir Everard Fawkener, the writer's great-grandfather, who held an important office in connection with the Post Office. He played cards very badly, and George Selwyn used to say that playing with him was as bad as "robbing the mail."

In the hall of White's Club hangs a carved wooden copy of the whimsical old coat of arms of the Club--the original painting of which is at Arthur's. This was painted by Dick Edgecumbe after the design had been concocted one wet day at Strawberry Hill by the painter, George Selwyn, George (known as Gilly) Williams, and their host Horace Walpole, who had the arms engraved.

The original arms were as follows:--

"Vert (for a card-table); between three parolis, proper, on a chevron sable, two rouleaux in saltire between two dice, proper. In a canton sable, a ball (for election), argent. Supporters, an old knave of clubs on the dexter, a young knave on the sinister side; both accoutred proper. Crest, issuing out of an earl's coronet (Lord Darlington's) an arm shaking a dice-box, all proper. Motto alluding to the crest '_Cogit amor nummi_'.[5] The arms encircled with a claret bottle ticket by way of order."

The old betting-book at White's contains many curious entries, the first of which dates from 1743. A number of the earliest wagers are concerned with the probabilities of the birth of children to well-known ladies of the day, the duration of life to be enjoyed by certain individuals, and the like.

On 21st March 1746, Mr. John Jeffries bets Mr. Dayrolle five guineas that Lady Kildare has a child born alive before Lady Catherine Petersham. A note is appended "miscarriages go for nothing."

On the 8th of October in the same year Lord Montfort bets Mr. Greville one hundred guineas that Mr. Nash is alive on the same day four years to come.

The Lord Montfort in question was a typical gamester of the time. In the betting-book at White's no less than sixty wagers, amounting to £5500, are recorded against his name. Most of these were about births, marriages, and deaths. On sporting wagers, the nobleman in question seems to have been content to risk only small sums. A true gambler, he preferred to hazard his fortune, and, as it turned out, his life, on the unforeseen.

On the 4th of November 1754, is entered the following: "Lord Montfort wagers Sir John Bland one hundred guineas that Mr. Nash outlives Mr. Cibber." This refers to two very old men, Colley Cibber, the actor, and Beau Nash, the "King of Bath." Below the entry in the betting-book, written in another handwriting, is the significant note: "Both Lord M. and Sir John Bland put an end to their own lives before the bet was decided."