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Volume I Volume II

The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER VI. page 13


It appears, however, that the gentleman changed his mind and
did not commit suicide, but surrendered at the Insolvent Debtor's
Court to be dealt with according to law, which was a much wiser
resolution.

To the games of Faro, Hazard, Macao, Doodle-do, and Rouge et
Noir, more even than to horse-racing, many tradesmen, once
possessing good fortunes and great business, owed their
destruction. Thousands upon thousands have been ruined in the
vicinity of St James's. It was not confined to youths of fortune
only, but the decent and respectable tradesman, as well as the
dashing clerk of the merchant and banker, was ingulfed in its
vortes.

The proprietors of gaming houses were also concerned in
fraudulent insurances, and employed a number of clerks while the
lotteries were drawing, who conducted the business without risk,
in counting-houses, where no insurances were taken, but to which
books were carried, as well as from the different offices in
every part of the town, as from the _Morocco-men_, who went from
door to door taking insurances and enticing the poor and middling
ranks to adventure.

It was gambling, and not the burdens of the long war, nor the
revulsion from war to peace, that made so many bankruptcies
in the few years succeeding the Battle of Waterloo. It was the
plunderers at gaming tables that filled the gazettes and made the
gaols overflow with so many victims.

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