Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers

by John Philip Quinn

In its day, “Fishmonger’s Hall” was the most celebrated den of the metropolis. A description of this place was given in a communication to the London Times, of July 22nd, 1824 as follows:

At the head of these infamous establishments is one yclept, “Fishmongers’ Hall,” which seeks more plunder than all the others put together, though they consist of about a dozen. This place has been fitted up at an expense of about £40,000, and is the most splendid house interiorly and exteriorly in all the neighborhood. It is established as a bait for the fortunes of the great, many of whom have already been very severe sufferers. Invitations to dinners are sent to noblemen and gentlemen, at which they are treated with every delicacy, and the most intoxicating wines. After such enjoyment a visit to the French hazard table in an adjoining room is a matter of course, where the consequences are easily divined. A man thus allured to the den may determine not to lose more than a few pounds, which he has about him, but in the intoxication of the moment and the delirium of play, it frequently happens that notwithstanding the best resolves he borrows money upon his checks, which being known to be good, are readily cashed for very considerable amounts. In this manner £10,000, £20,000, £30,000, or more, have often been swept away. The profits for the last season over and above expenses, which cannot be less than £100 a day, are said to be fully £150,000 ($750,000).[).] It is wholly impossible, however, to come at the exact sum unless we could get a peep at the ledger of accounts of each day’s gains at this pandemonium, which, though, of course, contains no name, as it might prove awkward, if at any time that book fell into other hands. Some idea can be formed of what has been made, when it is understood that £1,000 alone was given to be divided among the waiters at the end of the last season, besides the “Guy Fawkes” of the place, the head servant having that amount given him last year as a New Year’s gift.

“It would be well for the frequenters of this resort to understand that it is their money that pays the rent and superb embellishments of the house, the good feed and fashionable clothes which disguise the knaves of the establishment, the refreshments and wine with which they are regaled, and which are served with no sparing hand in order to bewilder the senses, to prevent from being seen what is going forward, and which will not be at their service longer than they have money to be fleeced of; they may also understand that it is their money which has gone to make the vast fortunes of which two or three of the keepers are possessed. The ‘hellites’ at all the ‘hells,’ not content with the gains by the points of the game in favor of the bank, and from the equal chances, do not fail to resort to every species of cheating. The dealers and croupiers are especially selected for their adeptness in all the mysteries of the black art. Sleight-of-hand tricks at rouge et noir, by which they make any color when they wish, false dice and cramped boxes at French hazard, are all put in practice with perfect impunity, when every one save the banker and croupiers are in state of delirium of intoxication. About two years ago false dice were detected at the French hazard bank in Piccadilly, in which the proprietors of the ‘Fishmongers’ Hall’ had a share. A few noblemen and gentlemen had been losing largely, (it is said about £50,000) when the dice became suspected, one gentleman seized them, conveyed them away, and found the next morning that they were false.

“The[“The] ‘hells’ generally are fitted up in a very splendid style, and their expenses are very great. Those of the ‘Fishmongers’ Hall’ are not less than £1,000 per week. The next in importance are about £150 per week, and the minor ones from £40 to £80.

“The inspectors, or over-lookers, are paid from £6 to £8 a week each, the croupiers or tailleurs £3 to £6, the waiters and porters £2, and a looker-out for the police officers, to give warning of their approach £2. What may be given to the watchman upon the beat of the different houses, besides liquor, etc., is not known, but they receive no doubt according to the services they are called upon to render. Then comes rent, and incidental expenses, such as wines, etc. There is another disbursement, not easily ascertained, but it must be very large, viz.: the money annually given in a certain quarter to obtain timely intelligence of any information laid against a ‘hell’ at a public office, to prevent sudden surprises. This has become the more necessary since by recent act the parties keeping the houses, and those playing and betting at them are, when sufficiently identified, subject to a discipline at the tread mill. The houses are well fortified with strong iron-plated doors, to make the ingress into them a tardy and difficult matter. There is one at the bottom of the stairs, one near the top, a third into the room of play. These are opened or closed one after another as the person ascends or descends, for the doorkeeper to take a bird’s eye view of the person. The appearance of the houses, attention of the waiters, civility of the dealers, condescension of the bankers, refreshments and wine, all combined, have an intoxicating influence upon the inexperienced and unreflecting mind. The proprietors, or more particularly speaking, the bankers of these houses of robbery are composed for the most part of a heterogenous mass of worn out gamblers, blacklegs, pimps, horse dealers, jockeys, valets, pettifogging low tradesmen that have been dealers at their own, and at other tables. They dress in the first style of fashion, keep good houses, women, carriages, and fare sumptuously, bedizen themselves out with valuable gold watches, chains, diamonds, and rings, costly snuff boxes, etc.—property with but little exception originally belonging to unfortunates who had been fleeced out of everything, and who, in the moment of disaster, parted with them for a mere trifle. Some have got into large private mansions, and keep very respectable establishments, but persons with a superficial knowledge of the world can very easily see through the disguise of the gentlemen they assume. They are awkward and vulgar in their gait, nearly all without education and manners, and when they discourse, low slang bespeaks their calling—escapes them in spite of their teeth. There is not a single constant player who can say that he is a winner by them.”

In 1830 “Crockford’s” was one of the most prosperous gambling establishments in London. It was situated on the west side of St. James street, Piccadilly, and was built by the man whose name it bore. Although devoted to gambling purposes, “Crockford’s” was a private club, and numbered among its members several gentlemen of eminent respectability. It was from this fact, doubtless, that the place succeeded in maintaining a fair reputation and was not interfered with by the authorities. Mr. Crockford, early in life, had been a fishmonger, which occupation he abandoned to become a gaming-house keeper. With a man named Taylor, he for a time, managed the “Waiters’ Club,” which had for its patrons employes and well-to-do trades-people. In little more than a year Crockford amassed a large sum of money. Being ambitious, he next constructed a net for higher game, in his St. James street palace. In its meshes he would entangle the aristocratic and wealthy. In this he succeeded to a remarkable degree, and, within a few years, accumulated a colossal[colossal] fortune. His “club house” was most magnificent within and imposing without. The interior comprised a grand drawing-room, library, billiard room, supper room, and several “parlors” devoted to play. All the apartments were embellished and furnished at enormous expense and with a magnificence quite beyond description. From the start every precaution was taken to make the membership as select as possible; the founder sagaciously perceiving that no surer course to success could be adopted. The most distinguished personages of the day, including the Duke of Wellington, were members, and “Crockford’s” became the “fad” in fashionable London. Play was heavy in this palatial “hell,” and repeatedly £10,000, £15,000, £20,000, and even more, were lost at a single sitting by members of the nobility. It is said that not less than a dozen lost £100,000 each at this fashionable “den.” Crockford’s policy extended a liberal credit to his noble dupes. A score or more of the heads and scions of great families were indebted to him constantly to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He retired in 1840 but long before that was a millionaire. Building for himself an expensive town residence and buying an estate at Newmarket, once the property of a proud nobleman, Crockford lived like a prince, and that, too, without losing favor with the titled dupes whom he bled. It would seem as if the aristocrats deemed it a privilege to impoverish themselves in his “gilded hell.” It was said, perhaps in the bitterness of irony, that Crockford retired only because there were not remaining enough unplucked noblemen to make it an object to continue his business.

“White’s Club,” established as a “chocolate house” in 1698, near the bottom of St. James street, was the most famous gaming resort of its time. Dean Swift, in his essay on Modern Education, says of the place: “I have heard that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never passed by White’s Chocolate House, a common rendezvous of famous sharpers and noble cullies, without bestowing a curse on that famous ‘academy’ as the bane of half the English nobility.” White’s was the place where the nobility indulged their passion for play, and of the number who frequented its baneful precinct, were the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Chesterfield, Chalmanely, Colley Cibber, Major John Churchill, and Budd Doddington. It was there that Chesterfield uttered many of his celebrated witticisms, and afforded delightful entertainment to a distinguished company. He gambled, although fully aware of the inevitable results of the practice. Indeed, according to Walpole, he once told his son that “a member of a gambling club should be a cheat or he would soon be a beggar.” Pelham, the Prime Minister, was a life-long gambler, and, even when holding his exalted office, divided his time between attending to its duties and playing at White’s. In a letter to Dr. Doddridge, in 1750, Lord Littleton said: “I tremble to think that the rattling of the dice box at White’s may, one day or other, if my son should become 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 town, what devastations are made by that destructive power, the sport of play.” Faro was the principal game at White’s, and professional gamblers, provided they were thought honest, were admitted. “Heavy” betting was the practice, and Lord Carlisle lost £10,000 at one sitting. During the game he stood to win £50,000 of Sir John Bland, of Kippax Park, who, himself, after losing £32,000 one night, succeeded[succeeded] in winning back the greater part of it. In 1755, however, he gambled away his whole fortune at hazard. At this period almost every difference of opinion regarding expected occurrences was made the subject of a bet. A book for the recording of such bets was kept at White’s and some of the entries were of the strangest character. One member bet that the first baronet to be hung would be Sir William Burdette, who seems to have been the black sheep of a very respectable family. Bets were recorded on the duration of the ministry, the receiving of titles, on earthquakes, scandals, births, deaths, marriages, and countless other events. One day a man fell to the pavement in front of White’s and instantly a member bet that he was dead and the wager was accepted. When it was proposed to bleed the man the gamesters protested vigorously on the ground that the use of the lancet would interfere with a fair settlement of the bet. Walpole writes: “A person coming into the club on the morning of the earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing up of a powder mill, went away in a hurry, protesting that they were such an impious set that he believed ‘if the last trumpet were sounded they would bet puppet show against judgment.’” And in another place he says, “One of the youths at White’s has committed murder and intends to repeat it. He bet £12,000 that a man could live twelve hours under water, hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not been heard of since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives instead of the real murderers.” “Lord Digby,” wrote Guy Williams, “is very soon to be married to Miss Fielding. Thousands might have been won at White’s on his lordship not knowing that such a being existed.” One of the entries in the book read, “Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland 20 guineas that Nash outlives Colley Cibber.” Neither won the bet, for both committed suicide before either Nash or Cibber died. Bets were also made that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, would out-live the Duchess of Cleveland.

Play at White’s was believed to be “on the square,” but there is much information to the effect that it was not. The fact that professional gamblers were admitted ought to be conclusive on the point. Hogarth, in his representation of gambling at White’s, places a highwayman at the fireside, waiting until the heaviest winner shall depart and thus furnish his opportunity.

“Brooks’ Club” was founded in 1764, immediately south of White’s, on St. James street. Of the celebrities who frequented it, one time or another, were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick, Hume, Gibbon, Sheridan, Fox, Pitt, Lords Euston and Chatham, Wilberforce, Horace Walpole, the Dukes of Roxburgh and of Portland, the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Crew, afterwards Lord Crew. It did not flourish at first and Brooks, its proprietor, died in poverty in 1772. The club then became known as “Almack’s” and for a time enjoyed prosperity as the favorite rendezvous of the rich and great men of London. That the betting was heavy there may be inferred from the fact that a certain Mr. Thynne, because he won only 12,000 guineas ($63,000.) in two months, retired in disgust on March 21st., 1772. Fast scions of noble families were accustomed to lose or win from £10,000 to £25,000 in an evening at “Almack’s”. It was asserted that when play was in progress there was rarely less than £10,000 in bets on the table. Lord Starbordale, one night while he was still in his minority, lost £10,000, but won it back by one fortunate turn at hazard, whereupon he exclaimed, with a great oath: “Now if I had been playing deep I might have won millions.”

The fashionable young men of the day were veritable dudes and affected foreign notions and tastes and wore curls and eyeglasses. When about to sit down to play, they replaced their embroidered coats with others of frieze, or turned them wrong side out for luck. They slipped on leather wristlets to save their lace ruffles. To avoid disarranging their hair and to protect their eyes from the light, high-crowned broad-brimmed hats were worn by them. Pitt put his whole soul in play while at it, as into all else that he did. When Wilberforce returned in triumph to Parliament and to London, in 1790, he was at once elected to membership in all the “clubs.” “Almack’s,” however, was his favorite resort, where he became very intimate with Pitt, whom he had known at Cambridge. Wilberforce was not a heavy gambler and did not continue the practice long. It has been handed down that he once lost £100 and that on another occasion[occasion] he kept the bank and won £600.