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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER VI. page 11


A traveller of the coachmakers, Messrs Houlditch of Long Acre,
embezzled or applied to his own use considerable sums of money
belonging to them. It appeared in evidence that the prisoner was
sent by his employers to the Continent to take orders for
carriages; he was allowed a handsome salary, and was furnished
with carriages for sale. The money he received for them he was
to send to his employers, after deducting his expenses; but
instead of so doing, he gambled nearly the whole of it away. The
following letter to his master was put in by way of explanation
of his career:--`Sir,--The errors into which I have fallen have
made me so hate myself that I have adopted the horrible
resolution of destroying myself. I am sensible of the crime I
commit against God, my family, and society, but have not courage
to live dishonoured. The generous confidence you placed in me I
have basely violated; I have robbed you, and though not to enrich
myself, the consciousness of it destroys me. Bankruptcy,
poverty, beggary, and want I could bear--conscious integrity
would support me: but the ill-fated acquaintance I formed led me
to those earthly hells--gambling houses; and then commenced
my villainies and deceptions to you. My losses were not large at
first; and the stories that were told me of gain made me hope
they would soon be recovered. At this period I received the
order to go to Vienna, and on settling at the hotel I found my
debts treble what I had expected. I was in consequence compelled
to leave the two carriages as a guarantee for part of the debt,
which I had not in my power to discharge. I had hoped such
success at Vienna as would enable me to state all to you; but
disappointment blasted every hope, and despair, on my return to
Paris, began to generate the fatal resolution which, at the
moment you read this, will have matured itself to consummation.

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