(66) Wharton, 'The Queens of Society.' Mem. of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
After that period, the vast license given to those abominable engines of fraud, the E.O. tables,(67) and the great length of time which elapsed before they met with any check from the police, afforded a number of dissolute and abandoned characters an opportunity of acquiring property. This they afterwards increased in the low gaming houses, and by following up the same system at Newmarket and the other fashionable places of resort, and finally by means of the lottery, that mode of insensate gambling; till at length they acquired a sum of money nothing short of ONE MILLION STERLING.
(67) So called from the letters E and O, the turning up of which decided the bet. They were otherwise called Roulette and Roly Poly, from the balls used in them. They seem to have been introduced in England about the year 1739. The first was set up at Tunbridge and proved extremely profitable to the proprietors.
This enormous wealth was then used as an efficient capital in carrying on various illegal establishments, particularly gaming houses, the expenses of a first-rate house being L7000 per annum, which were again employed as the means of increasing these ill-gotten riches.
The system was progressive but steady in its development. Several of these conspicuous members of the world of fashion, rolling in their gaudy carriages and associating with men of high rank and influence, might be found on the registers of the Old Bailey, or had been formerly occupied in turning, with their own hands, E.O. tables in the public streets.
The following Queries, which are extracted from the Morning Post of July the 5th, 1797, throw considerable light upon this curious subject, and show how seriously the matter was regarded when so public a denunciation was deemed necessary and ventured upon:—
'Is Mr Ogden (now the Newmarket oracle) the same person who, five-and-twenty years since, was an annual pedestrian to Ascot, covered with dust, amusing himself with "PRICKING in the belt," "HUSTLING in the hat," &c., among the lowest class of rustics, at the inferior booths of the fair?
'Is D-k-y B—n who now has his snug farm, the same person who, some years since, DROVE A POST CHAISE for T—y, of Bagshot, could neither read nor write, and was introduced to THE FAMILY only by his pre-eminence at cribbage?
'Is Mr Twycross (with his phaeton) the same person who some years since became a bankrupt in Tavistock Street, immediately commenced the Man of Fashion at Bath, kept running horses, &c., secundum artem?
'Is Mr Phillips (who has now his town and country house, in the most fashionable style) the same who was originally a linen-draper and bankrupt at Salisbury, and who made his first family entre in the metropolis, by his superiority at Billiards (with Captain Wallace, Orrell, &c.) at Cropley's, in Bow Street?