CROCKFORD.
There is a story relating to the life of Crockford, or rather to his death, which has been so often told that it has come to be accepted as true. I have never myself, however, given credence to it, inquiry having satisfied me that the narrative is simply in the nature of a fable; but for all that it is worth repeating as being in some degree illustrative of the more "hectic" features of sport as it was carried on fifty or sixty years ago.
As all versed in our racing records already know, the race for the Oaks in the year 1844 was won by Princess, an animal which had been very heavily backed by William Crockford, both on his own account and for the benefit of a band of followers who "stood in" with him; but as on the previous night the mighty gambler was seized with an attack of paralysis which resulted in his sudden demise, there was consternation among the clique. It being an understood law of the turf that death cancels all bets, those interested in the victory of Princess (should the filly win) saw at once they would lose their money, unless by the adoption of a stratagem of some kind they could avert that misfortune; the cry among them, therefore, was, "What can we do to get our money?" As the sum at issue was rather a large one, it was resolved that an effort should be made to obtain it, and the gruesome plan was hit upon of exhibiting the dead man in his habit as he lived at one of the windows of his club. Only two or three persons knew of Crockford's death, and as they were interested in the Princess affair, they might be depended on to hold their tongues. It was therefore arranged that the sportsmen, as they returned from Epsom, should be shown the corpse; and, by various little stratagems, be made to believe the man was alive.
The matter was managed in the following way: persons were sent to Epsom to see the race, and note the result; the moment the winning-post was reached by the winner, they were told at once to despatch pigeons with the fateful news; the confederates were also instructed to say, to all whom they spoke to, that Mr. Crockford was waiting anxiously at the club, in the hope of hearing that Princess had proved victorious. In due time the anxiously expected bird arrived at its loft, the despatch it carried bore only the brief legend "Princess." So far all had gone as well as could be wished: the right horse had won the race. Then came the second part of the ghastly drama. The corpse, dressed in the clothes which the living body wore, being placed on a chair in front of the window, was made, by various arts, to look as life-like as possible; and many of the gentlemen as they passed on their coaches saw the old man quite plainly, and looking, as some of them said, "rather lively."
In beginning this brief sketch by recording the death of Crockford, it may be said I have begun at the wrong end of my story; but as I do not aim at making a story, it is not of great consequence how what I have to say about that once notorious person is arranged. The prosperous "hell-keeper" died in the sixty-ninth year of his age; his birth having taken place in 1775, five years before the first race for the Derby took place. As a child he might have witnessed the beginning of that great series of turf events, with some of which in after years it was his fate to be connected. Not very much is known regarding the early life of Crockford, nor in what year he saw his first Derby. In the days of his youth he had been a fishmonger, and was well versed in the ways of London's great piscatorial bourse, where at one time he was known as a successful trader.
Like many of his fellows at "the gate," Crockford acquired that taste for gambling which, like the ancient and fish-like smell that dominates Lower Thames Street, has long been a characteristic of the locality, and fortune is reported to have favoured him in his little ventures from the beginning. In his business most of his deals proved successful, as he was possessed of the happy knack of knowing what to do and the right time to do it. Finding out what kind of fish were likely to prove scarce, he used to buy up all that came to hand, and then by dealing them out to other buyers, secure a good profit without much trouble. Twenty years ago there were men in Billingsgate who had known Crockford. One of the number was a porter who used to carry fish to a shop he had taken close to Temple Bar, and was paid with a liberal hand as being an old friend, and always with forcible injunctions not to spend the money in beer or gin. This person had many stories to tell about his "old pal," as he designated Crockford, both as to his doings at "the gate" and after he became more celebrated or, as may be said, more notorious. The following is one of them: a Billingsgate salesman with whom Crockford had often done business fell into misfortune, having become security for the sum of a thousand pounds on behalf of a near relative of his wife. One morning he found himself called on to pay, but unfortunately, with several bad debts of magnitude in his books, he had no alternative but to cry peccavi; to crown the poor man's distress, as one of his children lay on her death-bed, his furniture was seized, and, but for Crockford, would have been sold. He it was who came to the rescue, and brought comfort to the parents in their day of misfortune; he purchased not only the furniture, but the lease of the man's house as well, paid the funeral expenses of the child also; and after doing all that, lent the salesman a couple of hundred to be going on with, and was never the man to say he had done it. Many other good actions of a similar kind might, were the details known, be placed to the credit side of Crockford's account.
There is no doubt that Crockford did many kind acts in his day which never could be chronicled, because none but he knew of them. When a boy I was taken once or twice to see "Crockford's," and on many occasions I heard of his doings. He had one virtue—"for days and days," I was told, "he never drank liquor stronger than water." Abstinence from intoxicants was one of the aids by which he made the half-million with which at one time he might have retired into private life, and been free of gambling evermore.
There is, I think, as much gambling of all kinds to-day as there was during the days of the great hell in St. James's Street. There is this difference, however: we hear less about it, even though we have ten times the number of newspapers telling us of our sins. To-day gambling goes on everywhere. There may be no hells in London at the present time to compare in splendour and luxury with that kept by William Crockford, but there is hardly a club in the mighty town in which speculation of some kind is not constantly carried on. As for betting on horse-racing, ten times more money, much of it, however, in small amounts, now changes hands over a big race than changed hands sixty years since.
Summing up the situation as between then and now, the case may be thus stated: in the days of Crockford there might perhaps be a thousand persons each betting or gambling their occasional thousand or two in the course of the season, but at the present time, as has been already said, there will not be fewer in the United Kingdom than half a million persons, each betting or gambling to the tune of from half-a-sovereign to five pounds per diem. These figures do not include, at either period, the score of big speculators who know no bounds to their ventures, and are only given by way of illustration; nor do they include the greatest gamble of all—that which takes place on the Stock Exchanges of the kingdom, where, speaking in figurative language, tens of thousands of pounds are passed every hour of the day from account to account all the year round.
Crockford soon learned the art, and began the business of gambling. The times favoured him. Gambling in his time—that is, gambling by means of cards, dice, and more elaborate machinery—was more of an open practice than it is now. A number of small, or, as they were called, "silver" hells were in existence in those days, where persons could risk shillings or half-crowns, and to one or other of these the young fishmonger was a constant visitor after he had closed his shop. He became in time a painstaking speculator, and soon began to make money in steady fashion whilst others were losing it. As a contemporary remarked, "he was lucky from the first; whatever he tried turned up trumps." Along with a partner picked up in a gambling-house—he was a clever person, who seemed to be always fortunate in his dealings—Crockford made his début on the turf with a roulette-table constructed after a somewhat rude fashion; it was, in fact, a revolving handle fixed on a board, which at the end of each revolution pointed to one or other of several figures painted on a piece of white cloth, by means of which winnings were determined. Many similar tables were to be found on the racecourses of the period. At Ascot, Epsom, and Doncaster tents were at one time fitted up in which gambling was carried on all day long; and there was no concealment, the frequenters of the racecourse being openly invited to "walk in; roulette," or "walk in; hazard," as might happen. Cards with addresses upon them were also distributed at race meetings, so that those inclined to try their fortunes might know where they could tempt the fickle goddess. To many, attendance at a race meeting was simply—about the time referred to—an excuse for a gambling bout, which nearly always resulted in favour of those who kept the bank.
The methods of gambling in the days of Crockford were ruthlessly exposed during the trial of the well-known case of Smith v. Bond, then a well-known partner in one of the superior London hells. At the time indicated (1820 to 1845), the parishes of St. George's and St. James' swarmed with gambling-houses, where large or small sums of money could nightly be gained or lost, as might happen, and the play at the majority of such houses was well known to fall out largely against the players, as by many well-planned devices the bankers had points in their favour. The Bonds, who had named their place the Junior St. James' Club, waxed wealthy and fat over the game which was oftenest played there, namely, French hazard. In the course of the trial much interesting information was elicited as to the gambling practices which then prevailed; in the end a heavy verdict was returned against the defenders and in favour of the men who had the courage to sue them. The amount given by the jury was £3,508, being treble the sum which Smith had lost. If it had pleased some of the noblemen and gentlemen who gave evidence to play the part of plaintiff, the amount of the verdict might easily have been quintupled, so high and extensive did play run in the house of the Bonds—"a place of bondage," as one of the counsel wittily described it as being.
Coming back to the doings of my hero, it has to be stated with regard to Crockford that, although at one period he was in possession of a stud of race-horses, among the lot being Sultan, which made some mark on the turf, he never took a great amount of interest in the noble animal, preferring to regard it, like many other men, as an instrument of gambling; but the owner of the St. James' gambling-house was well versed in turf chicanery of all kinds, and knew in his day most of the prominent spirits of the racing world. The year in which Crockford saw his first Derby is not known, but in the course of his lifetime it is said he saw the race run on thirty-five consecutive occasions. Whether that be correct or not, it is certain that the Derby was a race in which he evinced great interest, and he was reputed to have landed more than one large stake on the winner of the Blue Ribbon. One year Crockford was the owner of a Derby favourite in Ratan, a horse which had made its mark as a two-year-old. Although the horse was very carefully watched, seeing that its owner had backed it to win an enormous sum of money, it was "got at," and it is supposed poisoned by means of arsenic introduced into its drinking trough.
Crockford started a house at Newmarket, which became an agreeable resort to those visitors to whom he offered hospitality, and he was no niggard in dispensing the good things of life at his table. Nor did he invite persons to his house so that, when heated with liquor, he might rob them at cards or dice. Crockford was then a betting man and bookmaker, laying or backing as he thought best for his own interest; and his visitors, to use a slang phrase, were "as fly as he was." They were not all spiders who walked into his Newmarket parlour, his visitors were known to have, on many occasions, their pockets well stuffed with crisp Bank of England notes. Another feature of Crockford's behaviour helped him to connection and wealth; when he lost he never required to be asked for money, he was a prompt payer; nor did he, when he was reputed to be rolling in wealth, ever forget himself, he was invariably polite and courteous. The devil, indeed, never was so black as he has been painted, and Crockford, gambler though he was, was not the fiend that some writers described him as being. As well as being a betting man and the keeper of a hell, Crockford was also a keen operator on the Stock Exchange; but on that stage of speculation he generally came to grief, and much of the cash made in St. James's Street was paid away to the stockbrokers. Another branch of turf business which Crockford conducted at one time was that of "squaring" the books of smaller betting men than himself; he could always be relied upon, even at the last moment—that is, immediately before a race—to lay the odds against such horses as a bookmaker was "bad" against, and required therefore to back back again, so as not to run greater risk than was compatible with an honest desire to meet engagements, and pay what was seen to be due after the race was determined.
The palatial gaming club erected by Crockford was at one time looked upon as one of the wonders of London; two or three houses had been knocked down to provide a site for it, and no expense was spared to render it commodious and luxurious, and make it attractive to visitors, who were waited upon by footmen in gorgeous liveries, and had their palates tickled by the gastronomic delicacies of Monsieur Ude. There were over eight hundred members, and the house was placed under the management of a committee, to whom Crockford conceded all they asked. Gambling, as a matter of course, was the business or recreation of all who came to the place; figuratively speaking, the rattle of the dice was heard morning, noon, and night, thousands of pounds changing hands as if they were so many halfpence. "Crockford's" cost an enormous sum of money; the building of it, I have been told, was carried on regardless of expense by night as well as by day. All its appointments were sumptuous, the cellars were filled with the finest of wines, and the culinary arrangements were for months the talk of the town.
Much capital has from time to time been drawn by philanthropic gentlemen out of what took place at "Crockford's," when the amounts at stake were practically unlimited, a bank of £10,000 being put down every evening at about eleven o'clock, the chief game of the house being French hazard. Play of some kind was always, however, going forward in every room of the large establishment, which was lit by hundreds of wax candles all night long. Sad pictures have been painted of the ruin that overtook men in the St. James' club-house; but many of these men who went there were simply fools who brought on their own fate, and who, had they not been ruined at Crockford's, would have been ruined in some other hell. There were plenty of such places, and although public gambling-houses are now not tolerated, it is quite certain that card-playing goes on nightly in all the clubs in London, and that in several of them large sums of money are lost and won. Crockford was not in any degree worse than his neighbours, and no one has ventured to say that undue advantage of any kind was ever taken of the persons who frequented his house by the proprietor or his servants. It should be kept in mind as well that visitors to Crockford's went there to try and obtain his money, and if in doing so they lost their own, they scarcely require to be sympathised with.
It is not my intention to defend gambling, or to become the apologist of Crockford, but such matters should be looked straight in the face, because, if there be sin in the matter, it is unfortunately of universal occurrence and among all classes of society; but surely it is not more sinful to stake one's sovereign on the turning up of a particular card than it is to do so on the rise or fall of the stock of a particular railway, or the loan bonds of some foreign country.