Gibbon, the historian, spent much of his time at “Almack’s”, and was far from averse to play. He was accustomed to indite his correspondence from there and in one letter, dated June 24th, 1776, wrote: “Town grows empty, and this house, where I have passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant, and notwithstanding the range for play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any other club to which I belong.”
Six years before, Horace Walpole, in a letter to Mann, draws a less favorable picture. “Gaming at “Almack’s”, which has taken the place of “Whites”, is worthy the decline of our Empire, or the decline of the wealthy, as you choose.”
The “Berkley Club” enjoyed its greatest prosperity about the middle of the present century. It had spacious and finely furnished rooms and afforded every convenience to its members. French hazard was the principal game at this resort. No stake less than a sovereign was accepted and players were allowed to bet as high as they desired. The terms of play, as well as the management, were such as to exclude all except the wealthy elite. These frequented the place in considerable numbers, but it never had the patronage once enjoyed by “White’s”, “Almack’s”, and “Crockfords.”
The “Waiter’s Club,” in Piccadilly, flourished in the early part of the present century. For ten years, or more, the company wont to gather there was rather select, but the ruinous effects of play (dishonest play, it was quite generally believed) soon demoralized and actually forced them to disband. By an easy transition the place passed to the management of a set of blacklegs, who conducted it as a common gambling “hell.”
Gambling in the 18th century, in England, is thus described in the Eclectic Magazine for May, 1885: “In the more contracted sense in which we understand the word ‘gambling,’ our grandsires appear to have been more attached to it than the generations which went before them. The actor and the politician, the divine and the tradesman, were alike infected with the rage for gaming. The Duke of Devonshire lost his valuable estate of Leicester Abbey, to Manners at a game of basset. Peers were impoverished, and estates mortgaged, in a single night, and the men who had entered the room in a state of affluence, rushed madly into the streets at night, penniless, and probably in debt to a large amount. The chocolate rooms in the neighborhood of Charing-cross, Leicester-fields, and Golden Square, were the principal ‘hells’ of the West end, and it was not far for ruin, disgrace and despair to find oblivion in the bosom of the Serpentine, or the Thames. The coffee houses, we are told, most notorious for gambling, were ‘White’s Chocolate-house,’ for ficket or basset clubs, in 1724, ‘Littleman’s,’ for faro, which was played in every room; ‘Oldman’s,’ ‘Tom’s,’ ‘Will’s,’ and ‘Jonathan’s’ Coffee-houses, for ‘ombre,’ ‘picquet,’ and ‘loo.’ About 1730 the ‘Crown’ Coffee-house, in Bedford-row, became the rendezvous of a party of whist players. Early in the century, although Swift mentions it as a clergyman’s game, whist appears to have been less in vogue, excepting with footmen and servants, among whom it kept company with foot and all fours.
“From the frequent mention of it in Swift’s ‘Journal to Stella,’ we should surmise that ‘ombre’ was in great fashion about 1710 to 1730, as was crimp among the ladies, according to Steele, and, in 1726, we find in ‘Gay’s Correspondence’ a letter to Swift, in which he alludes to the favor in which the game of quadrille was then held: ‘I can find amusement enough without quadrille, which here is the universal employment of life.’ ‘Nay,’ cries honest parson Adams, in the ‘True Briton,’ on January the 28th, 1746, ‘the holy Sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings, and card playing goes on as publicly as on any other day. Nor is this only among the young lads and the damsels, who might be supposed to know no better, but men advanced in years, and grave matrons are not ashamed of being caught at the same pastime.’
“The Daily Journal of January 9th, 1751, gives a list of the officers retained ‘in the most notorious gaming houses,’ showing how these matters were then managed. The first twelve were:
“1. A commissioner, always a proprietor, who looks in of a night, and the week’s account is audited by him and two other proprietors.
“2. A director, who superintends the room.
“3. An operator, who deals the cards at a cheating game called ‘faro.’