We have our gambling clubs still. From time to time there comes a rumour of high play, a scandal, or an action in the High Court of Justice for the recovery of one’s character. Baccarat is played all night by the young men; champagne is flowing for their refreshment, and sometimes a few hundreds are lost by some young fellow who can ill afford it. But these things are small and insignificant compared with the gambling club of fifty years ago.
CROCKFORD’S, ST. JAMES’S STREET
He who speaks of gambling in the year Thirty-seven, speaks of Crockford’s. Everything at Crockford’s was magnificent. The subscription was ten guineas a year, in return for which the members had the ordinary club- and coffee-rooms providing food and wine at the usual club charges—these were on the ground floor—and the run of the gambling-rooms every night, to which they could introduce guests and friends. These rooms were on the first floor: they consisted of a saloon, in which there was served every night a splendid supper, with wines of the best, free to all visitors. Crockford paid his chef a thousand guineas a year, and his assistant five hundred, and his cellar was reputed to be worth 70,000l. There were two card-rooms, one in which whist, écarté, and all other games were played, and a second smaller room, in which hazard alone was played. Every night at eleven the banker and proprietor himself took his seat at his desk in a corner; his croupier, sitting opposite to him in a high chair, declared the game, paid the winners, and raked in the money. Crockford’s ‘Spiders’—that is, the gentlemen who had the run of the establishment under certain implied conditions—introduced their friends to the supper and the champagne first, and to the hazard-room next. At two in the morning the doors were closed, and nobody else was admitted; but the play went on all night long. Crockford not only held the bank, but was ready to advance money to those who lost, and outside the card-room treated for reversionary interests, post-obits, and other means for raising the wind. The game was what is called ‘French Hazard,’ in which the players play against the bank. Thousands were every night lost and won. As much as a million of money has been known to change hands in a single night, and the banker was ready to meet any stake offered. Those who lost borrowed more in order to continue the game, and lost that as well. But Crockford seems never to have been accused of any dishonourable practices. He trusted to the chances of the table, which were, of course, in his favour. In his ledgers—where are they now?—he was accustomed to enter the names of those who borrowed of him by initials or a number. He began life as a small fishmonger just within Temple Bar, and, fortunately for himself, discovered that he was endowed with a rare talent for rapid mental arithmetic, of which he made good use in betting and card-playing. The history of his gradual rise to greatness from a beginning so unpromising would be interesting, but perhaps the materials no longer exist. He was a tall and corpulent man, lame, who never acquired the art of speaking English correctly,—a thing which his noble patrons—the Duke of Wellington was a member of his club—passed over in him.
Everybody went to Crockford’s. Everybody played there. That a young fellow just in possession of a great estate should drop a few thousands in a single night’s play was not considered a thing worthy of remark; they all did it. We remember how Disraeli’s ‘Young Duke’ went on playing cards all night and all next day—was it not all the next night as well?—till he and his companions were up to their knees in cards, and the man who was waiting on them was fain to lie down and sleep for half an hour. The passion of gambling—it is one of those other senses outside the five old elementary endowments—possessed everybody. Cards played a far more important part in life than they do now; the evening rubber was played in every quiet house; the club card-tables were always crowded; for manly youth there were the fiercer joys of lansquenet, loo, vingt-et-un, and écarté; for the domestic circle there were the whist-table and the round table, and at the latter were played a quantity of games, such as Pope Joan, Commerce, Speculation, and I know not what, all for money, and all depending for their interest on the hope of winning and the fear of losing. Family gambling is gone. If in a genteel suburban villa one was to propose a round game, and call for the Pope Joan board, there would be a smile of wonder and pity. As well ask for a glass of negus, or call for the Caledonians at a dance!
Scandals there were, of course. Men gambled away the whole of their great estates; they loaded their property with burdens in a single night which would keep their children and their grandchildren poor. They grew desperate, and became hawks on the lookout for pigeons; they cheated at the card-table (read the famous case of Lord De Ros in this very year); they were always being detected and expelled, and so could no more show their faces at any place where gentlemen congregated; and sank from Crockford’s to the cheaper hells, such as the cribs where the tradesmen used to gamble, those frequented by City clerks, by gentlemen’s servants, and even those of the low French and Italians. They were illegal cribs, and informers were always getting money by causing the proprietors to be indicted. It was said of Thurtell, after he was hanged for murdering Weare, that he had offered to murder eight Irishmen, who had informed against these hells, for the consideration of 40l. a head. When they were suffered to proceed, however, the proprietors always made their fortunes. No doubt their descendants are now country gentry, and the green cloth has long since been folded up and put away in the lumber-room, with the rake and the croupier’s green shade and his chair, and the existence of these relics is forgotten.
S. T. Coleridge
-SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE-