CHAPTER XXX
THE QUEEN’S SUBJECTS AT PLAY—ACTIVE OR SEDENTARY
The new Court as head of the old society. Social transformations which would most strike one revisiting the London West End in 1897. Going to Court. Multiplication of clubs in St James’s and Pall Mall, but disappearance of gambling clubs. Socially transforming effects of the Parliamentary Committee in 1844. Then and now. ‘Play and Pay’ betting modified by its recommendations. Necessary connection between horse breeding and horse racing. Cricket—then and now. The new football or the old prize ring. Indoor amusements. Transformation, by development, of Victorian chess. The men and events which have made it what it is. Ladies’ drawing room work. Middle class English ladies the great readers nowadays. Fashionable needlework of all kinds from 1837-97.
The transformed society of the Victorian age may be regarded as a new combination of old elements. The interests, and the pursuits represented in it have always existed. The grouping and the mutual relations are the only novelty. Even during the Prince Consort’s time, the Court had begun to be the federal head of the many coloured corporation which, under the name of society, has superseded the ‘genteel’ or ‘polite’ world of earlier days. That all liberal professions or worthy pursuits should find their natural head among the representatives of the Crown was the central idea of the Queen’s husband. So far as the opportunities of a short life allowed, he translated this notion into practice. It was reserved for his eldest son to witness, and himself largely to promote, the full realization of Prince Albert’s purpose. The result is that to-day not only diplomacy or soldiership, statemanship or wealth, sends its envoys to a transformed Court. There is no sort of human achievement or distinction that, directly it has won the approval of the people, lacks the recognition, personal or vicarious, of the people’s rulers.
Each of the callings noticed in the present survey, clerical or lay, sends its deputies to Marlborough House or Sandringham in the same way that diplomacy and arms are represented at a Royal drawing room or levée. For a reflection of the chief currents of thought, of the favourite pursuits of the most absorbing interests and influences of Victorian England, the historian will have to consult the list of visitors to the Heir Apparent’s house, or read the account of his doings. The Prince Consort was attacked by the Tories in 1846 because he listened to Peel’s speeches on Free Trade from the Peers’ Gallery in the Commons. In 1897 the Prince of Wales attends daily the State trial of South African celebrities at Westminster, and is praised for a fresh proof of his interest in Colonial affairs. No artist or author; no sailor, soldier, cricketer or actor, makes his mark upon his age without some tribute from a popular Court to prowess that is already a household word with the multitude.
Thus in its relations to those aspects of national life in which the people itself is most interested, the Court of to-day has been transformed into a federal head of the entire motley system. If the competition of individuals for personal recognition in the highest quarter sometimes embitters social life, that is not the Royal patron’s fault.
Among the changes which would make the fashionable quarter of the town most difficult of recognition to-day by one who knew it only in the early years of the reign, is the multiplication of joint stock palaces called clubs, which are really co-operative homes for poor gentlemen.[114] The absence of the gaming houses of which Crockford’s was only one among many; and the widely representative quality of the ladies and gentlemen whom our stranger might notice driving to Court on a presentation day during the season is as visible as the disappearance of the West End hells.[115]
In the seventh year after the Queen’s accession, the House of Commons’ Committee on Gambling began its sittings. It was presided over by Lord Palmerston. Among the witnesses it examined were men well known in every section of London or of national life. Trainers, jockeys, magistrates, policemen, all contributed to the remarkable picture of contemporary life and manners, contained between the covers of this document.
The state of the law as regards gambling was then, as now, obscure. Magistrates shrank from giving constables a chance of confirming their suspicions as to houses of shy-looking exterior; but generally in the streets off St James’s nearly every third house was a place of play. Between Pall Mall and the east side of Leicester Square, some 36 gambling houses were proved to exist. At Crockford’s itself the tables were honestly managed. It was the perversion of Crockford’s example which did the harm. Thus, some half dozen years before the Great Exhibition, Crockford’s ceased to exist; its humbler but more mischievous imitators were also weeded out. An improved epoch began. Before the twentieth anniversary of the Accession, the building at the top of St James’s Street described by Disraeli in the first chapter of Sibyl had become under the style of ‘The Wellington’ the best restaurant of the kind then, or for many years, known to London. Thereafter, indeed, it reverted to a club, the ‘Argus’ first, and then the ‘Devonshire;’ but a gambling club no more. The periodical flutter caused by rumoured scandals, is itself evidence of the improved standard of social morals. One other result of this Enquiry[116] is probably felt among sporting persons to-day.