Category: History - Other
Chevaliers d'industrie, or polite and accomplished sharpers, have always existed in every city, from the earliest times to the present. The ordinary progress of these interesting gentlemen is as follows. Their debut is often difficult, and many of them are stopped short in the...
Chevaliers d'industrie, or polite and accomplished sharpers, have always existed in every city, from the earliest times to the present. The ordinary progress of these interestin...
2. Chapter 2It may be proper to remark that the above list of officials was only calculated for gambling houses of an inferior order. In these it is evident that the fear of interruption an...
3. Chapter 3Although all the motives of human action have long been known--although psychology, or the science of soul and sentiment, has ceased to present us with any new facts--it is quit...
4. Chapter 4The history of all nations is but the record of their cupidity; and when the fury of gaming appears on the scene, it has never failed to double the insolence and atrocities of t...
5. Chapter 5Certain grandees and wealthy persons, more through vanity or weakness than generosity, have sacrificed their avidity to ostentation--some by renouncing their winnings, others by...
6. Chapter 6On the subject of Clubs Mr Cunningham in his 'Clubs of London,' and Mr Timbs in his 'Club Life in London,' have said pretty well everything that we want to know, and by their he...
7. Chapter 7Besides the aristocratic establishments just described, there were numerous houses or places of resort for gambling, genteel and ungenteel. In vain did the officers of the law s...
8. Chapter 8A distinction must be made between games of skill and games of chance. The former require application, attention, and a certain degree of ability to insure success in them; whil...
9. Chapter 9The knights of hazard and devotees of chance, who live in and by the rattle of the box, little know, or care, perhaps, to whom they are indebted for the invention of their favou...
10. Chapter 10Piquet is said to have derived its name from that of its inventor, who contrived it to amuse Charles VI. of France. The game was played with thirty two cards, that is, discardin...
11. Chapter 11Cock-fighting is a practice of high antiquity, like many other detestable and abominable things that still cling to our social fabric. It was much in vogue in Greece and the adj...
12. Chapter 12It appears that horse-races were customary at public festivals even as early as the times of the patriarchs. They originated among the eastern nations, who were the first to dis...
13. Chapter 13Such are the leading facts of horse-racing in England. One cannot help observing that the sturdy strength and muscular exertions of an Olympic charioteer of old exhibit a striki...
14. Chapter 14It must be admitted that this practice--however absurd in its object and application--does great credit to human ingenuity. Once admitting the possibility of such conjuring, it...
15. Chapter 15Although my work is a history of gambling, in all its horrors, and with all its terrible moral warnings, I gladly conclude it 'happily,' after the manner of the most pleasing no...