Opposite this house is a hazard table, which never opens until midnight, and is attended by the ultra royalists and officers of all the regiments of guards, horse and foot, besides decided amateurs.
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BENNET STREET, ST JAMES’S.
Corner house—Red Baize Door—called a Club House.
Firm: Messrs Fielder, Miller and Carlos. Formerly Fielder, Roubel, Miller and Co.
This is what is called a topping house, where high rank and title resort. We mentioned in the poem the luck of a certain Duke’s son there; and, of late, there has been a lucky run in favour of the frequenters of the bank—but lauda finem. Its crisis has arrived.
The noble Marquess, on the night that he lost the money at No. 40 which was closed against him, went full charged with the Tuscan grape, and attacked poor Fielder, vi et pugnis, and, at length, was necessitated to leave this house also.
Here, all things are in a very high style, served on plate, et cetera. It is supposed that the customer’s specie is melted down to furnish this luxury, which is reversing the ordinary plan: it is, commonly, the family plate which is melted by the gamester into specie; but here it is the current coin which is molten and shaped into salvers, waiters, &c. This is, however, all in the way of business; for we have heard of parson’s wives having silk gowns made out of burial scarves, and we know a presbyterian minister who has converted mourning rings into a splendid piece of plate. Therefore, why should not these conveyancers of property, convey a portion into their wives and mistress’s pockets, or ridicules, and transform guineas into gold snuff boxes; or crowns, &c., into a service of plate?
The receipts of these houses are immense: We know the wife of a proprietor of a hell, not an hundred miles from St James’s Palace, who was so majestic in her deportment, and so magnificent in her attire, that she gained the name of Proserpine.