THE VICTIM OF GAMBLING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 95, 4 December 1869, Page 6

THE VICTIM OF GAMBLING.

Mr. Greenwood in his book, " The Seven Curses of London," gives the ' following portrait drawn from life, of a victim of gambling : — " I had noticed him repeatedly, with his pale, haggard face and! his dull eyes, out of which nothing but weariness of life looked. He was a tall | slim young fellow, and wore his patched and seedy clothes as though he had been used to better attire ; and despite the shabbiness of his boots and his wretched tall black hat, he still clung to the respectable' habit of wearing black kid gloves, though it was necessary to shut his fists to hide the dilapidations at their fingertips. "He was not remarkable amongst the betting blackguards he mingled wifcu on account of the active share he took in the questionable business in which they were engaged ; on the contrary, he seemed quite out of place with them, and though occasionally one would patronise him with a nod, it was evident that he was ' nothing to them,' either as a comrade or a gull to be plucked, 'He appeared to be drawn towards them by a fascination he could not resist, but which he deplored and was ashamed of. It was customary in those times for the prosperous horse-betting gambler to aflect the genteel person who could afford to keep a ' man,' and to press into his service some poor ragged wretch glad to earn a sixpence by wearing his master's ' card of terms ' round his neck for the inspection of any person inclined to do business. The tall shabby young fellow's chief occupation consisted in wandering restlessly from one of these betting card-bearers to another, evidently with a view to comparing ' prices ' and ' odds ' offered to this or that horse ; but he never betted. I don't believe that his pecuniary affairs would have permitted him, even though a bet as low as t\yopencehalf penny might have been laid. " I was always on the look out for my miserable-looking young friend whenever I passed that way, and seldom failed to find him. He seemed ! to possess for me a fascination something like that which horse-betting , had possessed for him. One after- ' noon, observing him alone, and look1 ing even more miserable than I had yet seen him, as he slenched along the miry pavement towards Holborn, I found means to start a conversation ! with him. My object Was to learn ' who and what he wg.s, and whether | he was really as miserable as he i looked, and whether there was any help for him. , I was prepared to exer- ■ cisc all the ingenuity at my command to compass this delicate project, but L he saved me trouble, As though he was glad of the chance 1 of doing so, ! before we were half-way up Holborn 1 hill he turned the conversation ex1 actly into the desired groove, and by £h© tirpe Totteniiam-eoui-t-roacl was . reached (he turned down there), I knew even more of his sad history 1 than is here subjoined. ' " ' What is the business pursuit that ' takes me amongst betting-men ? Oh ! no, sir, I'm not at all astonished that you should ask the question ; I've asked it of myself often, that it doesn't come new to me. I pursue no busi- ' ness, sir. W-hat business could a ; wretched scarecrow like I am pu' sue ? Say that I am pursued, and you will 1 be nearer the mark. Pursued by what I can never get away from or , shake off.' ; "He uttered a concluding wicked word, with such decisive and bitter emphasis, that I began to thjnk that he had done with the subject ; but he began again almost immediately. " 'I wish to the Lord I had a business pursuit ! If ever- a fellow was ' tired of his life, I am. Well — yes, I am a young man; but it's precious small consolation that fact bi'ings me. 1 Hang it, no ! All the longer to endure it ? How long have I endured it? Ah, now you come to the point. For years, you think, I daresay. You look at me, and you think to yourself, '• There goes a poor wretch who has been on the downhill road so long that it's time that he came to- the end of it, or made an end to it." There you a,re mistaken. Eighteen months ago I was well dressed* and prosperous. I was second clerk to , the provision merchants, in St. Mary Axe, on a salary of £140 — rising £20 each year. Now look at me ! " ' You need not ask me how it came about. You say that you have seen me often in Farringdon-street with the betting-men, so you. can, give a good guess as to how I' eaine to ruin, I'll be bound. Yes, sh\ it was horse-betting that did my business. No, I did not walk to ruin with my eyes open, and because I liked the road. I was trapped in,to it, sir, as I'll be bound scores and scores of young fellows have been. I never had a passion for betting. I declare that, till within the last two years, I never made a bet in my life. The beginning of it was that, for the fun of the thing, I wagered ten shillings with a fellowclerk about the Derby that was just about to eotne off. I never book any interest in horse-racing before; but when I had made that bet I was curious to look over the sporting news, and to note 'the odds against the favourite. One unlucky day I was fool enough to answer the . advertisement of a professional tipster,. He

keeps the game going still, curse him ! 1 You may read his name in the papers i this morning. If I wasn't such an in- . fernal coward, you know, I should kill \ that man. If I hadn't the money to \ buy a pistol, I ought to steal one, and < shoot the jk'hief.' But, what do you i think? I 'met him on Monday, and 1 he chaffed me about my boots. It i was raining at the time "I wish I \ had a pair of water-proofs like yours, Bobby. ' Tou'll never take cold, while they jet all the water out at the heel they take it in at the toe!" Fancy me standing that after the way he had served" me ! Fancy this too — me borrowing a shilling of him, and saying " Thank you. sir " for it ! "Why, you know, I ought to he pumped for doing it ! "'I had wrote to "Eoberfc B— y, Esq., of Leicester," and sent the halfcrown's worth of stamps asked for. It doesn't matter what I got in return. Anyhow, it was something that set my mind on betting, and I wrote again and again. At first his replies were of a distant and business sort; but in a month or so after I had written to him to complain of being misguided by him, he wrote back a friendly note to say that he wasn't at all surprised to hear of my little failures — novices always did fail. They absurdly attempt what they did not understand. ' " Just to show you the difference," said he, "just give me a commission to invest a pound for you on the Ascot Cup. All that I charge is seven and a half per cent on the winnings. Try it just for once; a pound won't break you, and it may open your eyes to the way that fortunes are made." I ought to have known then, that he or somebody in London he had set on, had been making enquiries about me, for the other notes wei'e sent to where mine was directed from — my private lodgings — but this one came to me at the warehouse. " ' Well, I sent the pound, and within a week received a post-office order for £4< Bs. as the result of the investment. The same week I bet again — £2 this time — and won £1 15s. That was over £6 between Monday and Saturday. " This is the "way that fortunes ape made " I laughed to myself, like a fool. " ' Well, he kept me going, I don't exactly recollect how, between Ascoir and Goodwood, which is about seven weeks, not more Sometimes I won, sometimes I loat, but on the whole, I was in pocket. I was such a fool at last, that I was always for betting more than he advised, I've got his letters at home now, in which he says, " Pray don't be rash ; take my advice, and bear in mind that great risks mean great losses, as well as. great gains, at times." Quite fatherly, you know ! The scoundrel ! " ' Well, one day there came a telegram to the qffice for me. I was just in from my dinner. It was from B — y. " Now you may bag a £100 at a shot," said he. " The odds are sborfc, but the result certain. Never mind the money just now. You are a gentleman, and I will trust you. You know that my motto all along bas been ' Caution.' Now it is 'Go in and win.' It is sure. Send me ward immediately, or it may be too late ; and if you are wise, put a 'lump' on it." " ' That was the infernal document — the death-warrant of all my good prospects. It was the rascal's candour that deceived mo. He had all along said, " Be cautious, don't be impatient to launch out ;" and now this patient, careful villain saw his chance, and advised, "Go in and win." I was quite in a maze at the prospect of bagging a hundred pounds. To win that sum the odds were so shqrt on the horse he mentioned, that £50 had to be risked. But he said there was no risk, and I believed him. I sent him back a telegram at once to execute the commission. " ' The horse lost. I knew it next morning before I was up, for I had sent for the newspaper ; and while I was in the midst of my fright, up comes my landlady to say that a gentleman of the name of B — y wished to see me. " ' I had never seen him before, and he seemed an easy fellow enough. He was in a terrible way — chiefly on my account — though heaven only knew how much he had lost over the "sell." He had come up by express purely to relieve my anxiety, knowing how " funky " young gentlemen sometimes were over such trifles. Although he had really paid the fifty in hard gold out of his pocket, he was in no hurry for it. He would take my bill at two months. It would be all right, no doubt. He had conceived a liking for : me, merely from my straightforward way of writing. Now that he had had the pleasure of. seeing me,- he shouln't trouble himself a fig if the fifty I owed i him was five hundred. "I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn't know how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way to give it to him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness. That was the beginning of my going to the bad. If I hadn't been a fool, I might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it. But I was a fool. In the course of a day or two I got a note from B — y ; reminding me that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into one, and that a

little judicious ' backing ' would set me right before even my bill fell due. And I was foolish enough to walk into the snare. I wouldn't borrow to pay the £50, but I borrowed left and right, of my mother, of lny brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow the ' advice' B — y was constantly sending me. When I came to the end of their forbearance, I did more than borrow ; but that we won't speak of. In , five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own me or speak to me, and without an employer — cracked up, ruined. And there's B — y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots. ' What do I do for a living ? Well, I've told you such a precious lot, I may as well tell you that too. Where I lodge it's a 'leaving shop," and tbe old woman that keeps it can't read or write, and I keep her ' book ' for ber That's how 1 get a bit of breakfast and supper and abed to lie on."