CHAPTER XXXIV.
Gambling—Downfall of Lady Archer, &c.—Card playing in the Royal Circle—Card money—High play—Play at the Clubs—Lotteries—The method of drawing them—Horse racing—Turf and horses better than now—Curious names of race horses—Ladies Lade and Thornton—Lady Thornton’s races—Tattersall and Aldridge.
ONE VICE the women of that age had, in common with the men, and that was Gambling—which, perhaps, was not so bad among the former, as during the last years of the preceding century, when Ladies Archer, and Buckinghamshire, and Mrs. Concannon were pilloried, and scourged metaphorically by the Satirists, as they were promised to be treated, physically, by Lord Kenyon. Their race was run—as expressed in the Morning Post, January 15, 1800: “Society has reason to rejoice in the complete downfall of the Faro Dames, who were so long the disgrace of human nature. Their die is cast, and their odd tricks avail no longer. The game is up, and very few of them have cut with honours.”
Mrs. Concannon still kept on, but not in London, as is seen by the following paragraph. Morning Herald, December 18, 1802: “The visitors to Mrs. Concannon’s petits soupers, at Paris, are not attracted by billets previously circulated, but by cards, afterwards dealt out, in an elegant and scientific manner; not to mince the matter, they are the rendezvous of deep play: and the only questionable point about the matter is, whether the Irish, or the French, will prove victors at the close of so desperate a winter’s campaign.”
Still, we find even in the Royal circle, where the utmost gravity of demeanour, and purity of manner, were to be found, the card table was the evening’s amusement. “The evening is, as usual, passed at cards, in the Queen’s Drawing Room, where three tables are set out.” And cards were still the staple entertainment both for men and women, at night. Naturally, the latter did not play for such high stakes as the men did; but they contrived to make, or lose, a sufficient sum, either to elate, or to depress them, and experience, as far as in them lay, all the fierce feelings of the gambler. Nay, some made a pitiful profit out of their friends—in the shape of “card money”—which meant that the players put so much, every game, into a pool (generally the snuffer tray) to pay for the cards, and something for the servants.
It was a practice in its death throes, having been mortally wounded, by public opinion, at the end of the last century; but the little meanness still obtained—vide the Morning Herald, December 15, 1802: “In a pleasant village near the Metropolis, noted for its constant ‘tea and turn out parties,’ the extortion of Card Money had, lately, risen to such a pitch, that it was no unusual thing for the Lady of the House, upon the breaking up of a table, to immediately examine the sub-cargo of the candlestick, and, previous to the departure of her guests, proclaim aloud the lamentable defalcation of a pitiful shilling, which they might, perchance, have forgot to contribute. We are happy to find that some of the most respectable people in the place have resolved to discountenance and abolish this shabby genteel custom, which has too long prevailed; a shameful degradation of everything like English hospitality.”
But they sometimes played as high as did the opposite sex—the climax, perhaps, coming in the following, from the Morning Post, April 5, 1805: “The sum lately lost at play by a Lady of high rank is variously stated. Some say it does not amount to more than £200,000, while others assert that it is little short of £700,000. Her Lord is very unhappy on the occasion, and is still undecided with respect to the best mode to be adopted in the unfortunate predicament.”
The men lost and gained large sums of a night; and, for that age, gaming had reached its climax. Little birds whisper[51] that it is not much better now; but, at all events, it is not so open. From the highest to the lowest—from the Heir Apparent, and the two great leaders of party, Fox and Pitt, down to the man who could only afford to punt his shilling, or half-crown, at a “silver hell”—all were bitten, more or less, by this mania of gaming. The magistrates lashed the petty rogues when they were caught, but winked discreetly at the West-end Clubs, and ordered no raids upon them. There they might win or lose their thousands, secure that the law would not stretch out its arm to molest them. There the nobility, legislators, country gentlemen, and officers of the army, met together on a common footing, to worship the Demon of Play.