at a race, and accepted. The proposer asked the Colonel where lay his estates to answer for the amount if he lost? 'My estates! by Jasus,' cried O'Kelly. 'Oh, if that's what you mane, I've a map of them here.' Then, opening his pocket book, he exhibited bank notes to ten times the sum in question, and, ultimately, added the enquirer's contribution to them."

"An advertisement copied from the Courier, 5 Mar. 1794. As Faro is the most fashionable circular game in the haut ton, in exclusion of melancholy Whist, and to prevent a company being cantoned into separate parties, a gentleman, of unexceptionable character, will, on invitation, do himself the honour to attend the rout of any lady, nobleman, or gentleman, with a Faro Bank and Fund, adequate to the style of play, from 500 to 2000 guineas. Address G. A. by letter, to be left at Mr Harding's, Piccadilly, nearly opposite Bond Street.-N.B. This advertisement will not appear again."

"On Sunday night, towards the end of December 1795. Gen. Tarleton lost £800 at Mrs Concannon's; Mr Hankey, £300. The Prince was to have been there, but sent a late excuse. Mr Boone of the Guards; Mr Derby, son of the late Admiral, and Mr Dashwood, frequently rise winners or losers of £5000 nightly. Lord Cholmondeley, Thompson & Co. were Faro Bankers at Brookes's, till which there was no Faro Bank of male celebrity, except at the Cocoa Tree." "Henry Weston, who was hanged for forgery, was nephew to the late Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser.

Having an unlimited control of the whole large property of his employer, Mr Cowan, during his absence from town he was tempted, first to gamble in the funds, where, being unfortunate, he went next to a Gaming House in Pall Mall, and lost a very large sum, and, at length, gamed away nearly all his master's property. This, he hoped to patch up by forgery of Gen. Tonyn's name, by which he obtained from the Bank of England above £10,000. Even this only lasted two nights; and, procuring a woman to personate the

General's sister, he obtained another large supply, and went off. He was soon taken, and cut his throat on his return; but not effectually. He was convicted at the Old Bailey on the 18th March 1796, and suffered on the 6th July, aged only twenty-three years.

"He sent Lord Kenyon a list of a number of professional gamblers, and, among them, was a person of very high rank. Weston, at different times, lost above £46,000 at play; and, at a house in Pall Mall, where he lost a considerable part of it, three young officers also lost no less than £35,000.

"It was stated, some time since, in the Court of King's Bench, that the dinners given by gambling houses in and about Oxendon Street, amounted to £15,000 per annum !"

"The following facts were disclosed on a motion in the Court of King's Bench, 24 Nov. 1797. Joseph Atkinson and Mary, his wife, had, for many years, kept a Gaming House, No. 15, under the Piazza, Covent Garden. They, daily, gave magnificent play dinners; cards of invitation for which were sent to the clerks of merchants, bankers and brokers in the city. Atkinson used to say he liked citizens, whom he called flats, better than any one else, for, when they had dined, they played freely; and, after they had lost all their money, they had credit to borrow more. When he had cleaned them out, when the Pigeons were completely plucked, they were sent to some of their solvent friends. After dinner, play was introduced, and, till dinner time the next day, the different games at cards, dice and E.O. were continually going on.

'Theophilus Bellasis had long been an infamous character, well known at Bow Street, where he had been charged with breaking into the counting-house of Sir James Sanderson, Bart. Bellasis was sometimes clerk, and sometimes client, to John Shepherd, an attorney of that Court; and at other times, Shepherd was the prosecutor of those who kept Gaming Houses, and Bellasis attorney. Sir William Addington was so well aware that these two men commenced

prosecutions solely for the purpose of hush money that he refused to act. Atkinson at one time gave them £100, at another £80; and, in this way, they had amassed an immense sum, and undertook, for a specific amount, to defend keepers of Gaming Houses against all prosecutions!

"Mr Garrow, on a former occasion, charged Atkinson with using dispatches, that is, loaded dice, which in, five minutes, would dispatch £500 out of the pocket of any young man when intoxicated with champagne."

"Jan. 26, 1798. A notice came on in the King's Bench, Cornet William Moore, 3rd Dragoon Guards, v. Captain Hankey. The former had won off the latter, at play, £14,000, for which Hankey had given his bond; but a Court of Inquiry having declared that Moore had cheated him out of it, he made his application to set aside the bond."

It will be remembered that in that famous prosecution, in 1797, of Lady Buckinghamshire and her friends, their manager, Henry Martindale, was fined £200. Next year he was bankrupt, and we read that "The debts proved under Mr Martindale's commission amounted to £328,000, besides Debts of Honour, which were struck off to the amount of £150,000.

"His failure is said to be owing to misplaced confidence in a subordinate, who robbed him of thousands. The first suspicion was occasioned by his purchasing an estate of £500 a year, but other purchases followed to a considerable extent, and it was soon discovered that the Faro Bank had been robbed, sometimes of two thousand guineas a week!

"On the 14th of April 1798, other arrears to a large amount were submitted to and rejected by the Commissioners, who declared a first dividend of one shilling and fivepence in the pound."

"The Right Honourable Charles James Fox had an old gambling debt to pay to Sir John Lade. Finding himself in cash after a lucky run at Faro, he sent a complimentary card to the knight, desiring to discharge the claim.

Sir

John no sooner saw the money than he called for pen and ink, and began to figure. 'What now,' cried Fox. 'Only calculating the interest,' replied the other. 'Are you so,' coolly rejoined Charles, and pocketed the cash. 'I thought it was a debt of honour. As you seem to consider it a trading debt, and as I make it an invariable rule to pay my Jew creditors last, you must wait a little longer for your money.''

Before leaving the eighteenth century, let us hear what Col. Hanger1 (4th Lord Coleraine) says of private gambling in his time, and undoubtedly he mixed in the very highest society. "If a gentleman in these days has but a few guineas in his purse, and will walk directly up to the Faro table, he will be the most welcome guest in the house; it is not necessary for him to speak, or even bow, to a single lady in the room, unless some unfortunate woman at the gamingtable ask him politely for the loan of a few guineas; then his answer need be but short- No, Dolly, no; can't'; for this ever will be received as wit, though the unfortunate lady's bosom may be heaving, not from the tenderer passions, but with grief and despair at having lost the last farthing.

"When I first came into the world (1751?) there was no such thing as a Faro table admitted into the house of a woman of fashion; in those days they had too much pride. to receive tribute 2 from the proprietor of such a machine. In former times there was no such thing as gaming at a private house, although there was more deep play at the clubs at that time than ever was before, or has been since. It is lamentable to see lovely woman destroying her health and beauty at six o'clock in the morning at a gaming-table. Can any woman expect to give to her husband a vigorous and healthy offspring, whose mind, night after night, is thus distracted, and whose body is relaxed by anxiety and the fatigue of late hours? It is impossible."

1 Life, Adventures, and Opinions of Col. George Hanger, written by himself. London, 1801.

2 In some houses in this age the lady of the house is paid fifty guineas each night by the proprietor of the Faro table.-G. H.

CHAPTER VI

The Gambling Clubs-White's, Cocoa Tree, Almack's-A few gamblers described - Stories of high play-White's and its frequenters-Brookes' and its players-Captain Gronow and his reminiscences of gamblingGambling by the English at Paris-The Duke of Wellington-Ball Hughes-Scrope Davies-Raggett of White's.

HANGER speaks of gambling at the clubs, but in his time there were very few of them, and the oldest of all was "White's" in St James Street. Originally a Chocolate House, established in 1698, it was the rendezvous for the Tories in London. It was destroyed by fire on 28th April, 1733, a fact which is immortalised by Hogarth in his sixth picture of the Rake's Progress. The earliest record of it, as a Club, that remains, is a book of rules and list of members of the old Club at White's, dated 30th October 1736. In 1755 it removed to the east side of St James Street to No. 38, and there it still remains. In 1797, according to the rules of the Club, "Every Member who plays at Chess, Draughts, or Backgammon, do pay One Shilling each time of playing by daylight, and half-a-crown each by candlelight." We have had many references to the gambling that took place at White's, and when betting is discussed, the Club's famous betting-book will be duly noticed. It is now one of the most aristocratic clubs in London.

The Cocoa Tree Club, which was, probably, made into a Club before 1746, and was somewhat lower down St James Street than White's, was the Whig Club, but it does not seem to have been so much used for gambling as its elder confrére.

Almack's Club was essentially for gambling, and was founded in 1764 by twenty-seven noblemen and gentlemen. Among its original rules are the following: