CLUB GAMBLING IN THE LASI CENTURY. (All the Year Round.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1847, 8 May 1884, Page 4

CLUB GAMBLING IN THE LASI CENTURY. (All the Year Round.)

The Cocoa Tree Club in St. James' street had its origin in a Tory ehocolate-housc of Queen Anne's days, and assumed the higher form of a club in 1746. Members of Parliament and persons high in life belonged to this clrb, which, it used to be said, exeicised a very impoitant influence on the course of politics. In those days Membeis ol Pailiamcnt were not always nbo\o taking a bribe, and many of the Cocoa-Trco gentlemen were only too easily induced to accept bank notes for two or tlnee hundred pounds each when the Ministry, haul pushed, were obliged to lesoit to such a device to obtain support ; and the Peace of Fontaineblcau is alleged to have cost the Go\einmeutin this way £2.">,000. Gambling also went on to a feaiful extent at the Coco.i-Ti cc Horace Walpole relates, in 17S0, tliat a Air O'Biine, an liiahman, won £100,000 from a young Mr Harvey. "You can never pay me," said O'Birnc. " I can," replied the young fellow ; "my estate will sell for the amount." "No," said the Irishman, "I will take £10,000, and we will thiow for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey won. At most of the fashionable clubs of the last century gaming was carried on in the most reckless manner. In the club-book of Almack's there is this note : " Mr Flynne, having won only > 2,000 guineas during the last two months, letued in disgust March 2 1st, 1772. To lose £20,000 in one evening was not unusual. Generally, £10,000 in specie lay on the table. A ciuious account is given of the way these desperate gambleis used to equip themselves for the spoit. They took otf their embroidered coots, put on fne/-e gaiments, protected their lace rulllea with pieces of leather, shaded their eyes with bioad-biimmed straw hats adorned with floweis and ribbons, and wore masks "to conceal their emotions !" That suicide Mas not <m unlrequent result of such high ul.iy can hardly be wondered at. Luid Mountfoid, a member of White's, w heie the gambling was tearful, got so tcinlily involved that he determined to ask for a Government appointment, and, failing that, to take his own life. He did fail, and after asking several personswhatwai theeasiestmode of dying, united some fnends to dinner on New Yeai 's Day, havingsupped the evening beforrat White's, where he played at whist until one o'clock in the morning. A follow-meinber drinking to him a happy new jcar, "he clapped his hand strangely to his eyes." In the morning he sent for a lawyer and thiec witnesses, made Mb will with gieat dchbeiation, and then asked the lawyer if it would st.ui<l uood though lie weie to shoot himsuli. The answer being yes, he said " JPiay stay while I step into the next room," and then, retiiing, shot himself dead. Accouling to Walpole, tlnee biothcis, membeis of White's, contiactcd .1 gambling debt of £70,000, while Loid Foleys two sons had to borrow money to such an enormous extent that the uiteiest alone amounted to €18,00 ) i year. The same vivacious chronicler of the inanneis of Ins times gives an almost incredible account of Fox's love of play and dissipation. In the debate on the Thiitynuie Aiticles, on February Gth, 1772, he spoke vciy indifferently, which, Walpole f^ays, was not surpiising under the circumstances. "He had sat up plajing hazaid at Almack's ftom Tuesday e\emng, the 4th, till five in the afternoon of the follow ing day An hour betoic lie had won back £12,000 that he had lost, but by dinner-time was at five o'c'ock, w lien play ended, he had 10-st £12,000 On the Thursday he spoke in the above debate; went to dinner at half-past eleven at night ; fiom thence to White .i w heie he diank till seven the next morning ; thence to Almack's, whcie he won £GOOO, and between three and four in the afternoon he set out ior New mai ket. His brother Stephen lost CIO, OOO two nights after, and Chailes £11,01)0 more on the 13th ; so that, in thiec in nil I, the three brothers, the eldest not twenty five, lost £32,000.'' Captain Gionoiv l elates that, about this tune, Lord Robert Spencer and General FiUpatuck were allowed to keep a faro-bank at Biookes', and that the loimer bagged, as his .sh.ue of the pioceeds, £100,000 ; after which he never again gambled. George Harley Drummond, the banker, only played once in bis life, when be lost £20,000 to Bimnmell, and was obliged to retire from the firm. In the first half of the eighteenth century ladies of title kept gambling-houses. Au entry in the Journals of the House of Lords, dated Apul 29th, 1743, shows that Ladies Mornington and Cassilis claimed privilege of peei age in resisting ceitain peaceoificeis ni doing their duty, " in suppressing the public gaming houses kept by the said ladies ;" but the claim was not allowed. Betting, also, was indulged in at the clubs with as much fi antic ze^t as play. Anything served as an excuse, and sometimes the occasions of the bets were .so shocking that men of the least decency would lui\e shrunk fiom associating them with any form of amusement. A man dropped down at the door of White's, and was caiiied into the house ; immediately the betting harpies were staking Luge sums on the question whether iic was dead or not; and when it was. proposed to bleed him, those who had taken odds that life was extinct, piotested against such a course on the giound that it would affect the fairness of the bet. Bad as this was, there was a woise case still, for which Walpole is again the authority. If true — though one would fain believe it an invention — it is sufficient to leave a stain of murder on the veiy name of White's. A youth betted £1500 that a man could live twehehouis under water. He accordingly hiied some poor wietch, probably m a most desperate plight, and sank him in ,i ship. Both ship and man disappoaicd, and were never hcaul of more. Walpole adds that these miscreants actually proposed to make the experiment a second time. It is a singular fact that Lord Mountford, whose suicide we have ]usti elated, betted Sir John Bland that Beau Nash would outlive Colley Gibber, and that both the persons, the subjects of the bet, survived the bettors, am 1 that Bland, as well as Mountford, died by his own act.

A Strange Ariiest. — " You say the officer arrested you "while you were quietly minding your own brsiness ?" " Yes, your honour. He caught me suddenly by the coat collar and threatened to strike me with his club unless I accompanied him to the station-house." " You were quietly attending to your own business ; making no noise or disturbance of any kind ?" " None whatever, sir." "It seems very strange. What is your business ?" "I'm a burglar." The wealth of gold in Venezuela seems likely to rival that of the Transvaal. The success of the El Callao mines— whose shares, of the nominal value of £420, are now wanted at £44,000 each, ,and whose dividend for the month September alone was £SOO per £420 share, equal to over £9000 per annum per share — has led to the formation in London of the Cartago, with thecapiial of £300,000 in £1 shares, to work at Cartago gold mines, which are situated only six miles distant from the El Callao property. The prospectus states that the Cartago will, it is considered, prove to be one of the richest mines ever discovered in V enezeuela since the

discovery of the wonderful El Callao. Life in the Bush— Then and Now. — It is generally supposed that in the bush we have to put up with many discomforts and privations in the shape of food. Formerly it was so, but now, thanks to T. B. Hat, who has himself dw«lt in the bush, if food docs consist chiefly of tinned meats his Colonial Saucu gives to them a most delectable flavour, making 1 them as well of the plainest food most enjoyable,' and instead as hard biscuits and indigestible damper his Improved Colonial Baking Powder makes the very best bread, scones, cakes, and pastry far superior and more wholesome than yeast or lo*ven,. Sq|d by all storekeepers who c«u ob* Hjn KtWQMZ f*PWty £!$&&, »V.*