'A small boiled chicken and a glass of lemonade, perhaps?' This seemed an offensive question, and the captain said,—
'I believe never, and (with increased earnestness of manner) mind, I DENY THE LEMONADE ALTOGETHER; I never take lemonade. (Laughter, in which the noble lords on the bench joined involuntarily.)
Sir W. Ingilby entered into a description and practical illustration of the trick of sauter la coupe with a pack of cards, and it is said that the performance of the honourable baronet elicited demonstrations of laughter, which the judge suppressed, and even REPROBATED. Altogether, it must have been a most interesting and exciting trial.
As before stated, Lord Denman was the presiding judge; there was a special jury; the attorney-general, Sir W. Follet, and Mr Wightman appeared for the noble plaintiff; and the keen-witted and exquisitely polished Mr Thesiger (now Lord Cholmondeley), Mr Alexander, and Mr W. H. Watson for the defendant. A great many of the nobility were present, together with several foreigners of distinction.
4. BROOKES' CLUB, IN ST JAMES'S STREET.
This was a house notorious for very high gaming, and was frequented by the most desperate of gamblers, among the rest Fox, Brummell, and Alderman Combe. According to Captain Gronow:—
At Brookes's, for nearly half a century, the play was of a more gambling character than at White's. . . . On one occasion Lord Robert Spencer contrived to lose the last shilling of his considerable fortune given him by his brother, the Duke of Marlborough. General Fitzpatrick being much in the same condition, they agreed to raise a sum of money, in order that they might keep a Faro bank. The members of the club made no objection, and ere long they carried out their design. As is generally the case, the bank was a winner, and Lord Robert bagged, as his share of the proceeds, L100,000. He retired, strange to say, from the fetid atmosphere of play, with the money in his pocket, and never again gambled. The lowest stake at Brookes' was L50; and it was a common event for a gentleman to lose or win L10,000 in an evening. Sometimes a whole fortune was lost at a single sitting.(38)
(38) Walpole, passim.
5. WHITE'S CLUB.
White's Club seems to have won the darkest reputation for gambling. Lord Lyttleton, writing to Dr Doddridge, in 1750, says:—'The Dryads of Hogley are at present pretty secure, but I tremble to think that the rattling of a dice-box at White's may one day or other (if my son should be a member of that noble academy) shake down all our fine oaks. It is dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in the town, what devastations are made by that destructive fury, the spirit of play.' A fact stated by Walpole to Horace Mann shows the character of the company at this establishment:—'There is a man about town, Sir William Burdett, a man of very good family, but most infamous character. In short, to give you his character at once—there is a wager in the bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett.' Swift says:—'I have heard that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never passed by White's chocolate-house (the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies) without bestowing a curse upon that famous academy as the bane of half the English nobility.'