If the information I mean to convey in this letter, was to reach no farther than the closets of men as well informed as yourselves, I should have spared myself the trouble of writing, and relieved you from the task of reading, at least two thirds of the subject now before you; for to tell men of erudition and legal knowledge, what were the laws and customs, vices and virtues, of the most celebrated antients, would be almost as futile and presumptuous, as to tell Sir Richard Ford, that the office he presides at, is in the parish of St. Paul, Covent Garden; but as this letter may get into the hands of men of a very opposite description, to them it may convey both information and admonition, as salutary to themselves, as beneficial to the community; or at least, should it fail, I have the satisfaction of a good intention, free from any apprehension of encountering the disapprobation of men whose good opinion is worth acquiring or preserving.
The prejudice of vulgar errors over the minds of Englishmen perhaps is more prevalent than in any other people, the major part of whom have as little idea that gaming exists in any other country as that roast beef can be met with in France or Italy.
To enter into an accurate history of the unbounded passion for gaming in all ages, and in all countries, and to recount the severity of those laws which have from time to time been enacted to restrain the evil, would be a work of more labour and time than I wish to devote to the subject, or indeed, than is necessary on the present occasion.
It is clear that the ruinous rage for gaming is not confined to this country, for history affords us too many proofs to establish a contrary conclusion.
The vice is not even confined to Europeans; for such is the unquenchable thirst for gaming in China, and such its melancholy effects, that they not only play for all the property they possess, but afterwards stake their wives and children, which are detained by the winner till they are redeemed. Their games are much the same as the Europeans, Hazard, Pas-dice, &c. &c.
With respect to the Italians, from the highest to the lowest, historians inform us they all manifest an inordinate passion for every species of gaming, and when they lose all they have, will stake themselves against so many dollars as the market goes at, for the price of slaves; and if they lose, are sold by the winner to the Gallies, and spend their lives at the oar, under a rigorous and cruel discipline, without a murmur.
The late excellent Judge Blackstone, and indeed many other authors, tell us that the antient Germans would also stake their persons against certain sums of money, and if they lost, would think it a disgrace not to become the slaves of the winner.
The Greeks and Romans were incurably addicted to gambling, the nature of which seems to have borne great similarity to that in most general use in this country, especially the games with dice thrown out of a box, the same as is practised at the Hazard tables with us.
Notwithstanding the severity of the Roman laws forbidding the use of dice, they paid little or no attention to the prohibition; nor indeed did they confine themselves to the rules of probity and fairness in the games, inasmuch that the art of cogging the die appears to be a laudable exertion of skill. Thus Dryden makes a Roman gamester exclaim:
“But then my study was to cog the dice,
And dext’rously to throw the lucky size;
To shun the ace that swept my stakes away,
And watch the box, for fear they should convey
False bones, and put upon me in the play.”