Online Casino Players.com

Home / History / The rise and progress of modern gaming in England
Volume I Volume II

The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER VI. page 17


`For several years deep play went on at all these clubs,
fluctuating both as to amount and locality, till by degrees it
began to flag. It had got to a low ebb when Mr Crockford came to
London and established the celebrated club which bore his name.

`Some good was certainly produced by the system. In the first
place, private gambling (between gentleman and gentleman), with
its degrading incidents, is at an end. In the second place, this
very circumstance brings the worst part of the practice within
the reach of the law. Public gambling, which only existed by and
through what were popularly termed _hells_, might be easily
suppressed. There were, in 1844, more than twenty of these
establishments in Pall Mall, Piccadilly, and St James's,
called into existence by Crockford's success.'[69]

[69] Private MS. (Edinburgh Review, vol. LXXX).

Whilst such was the state of things among the aristocracy and
those who were able to consort with them, it seems that the lower
orders were pursuing `private gambling,' in their `ungenteel'
fashion, to a very sad extent. In 1834 a writer in the
`Quarterly' speaks as follows:--

`Doncaster, Epsom, Ascot, and Warwick, and most of our numerous
race-grounds and race-towns, are scenes of destructive and
universal gambling among the lower orders, which our absurdly lax
police never attempt to suppress; and yet, without the slightest
approach to an improperly harsh interference with the pleasures
of the people, the Roulette and E.O. tables, which plunder the
peasantry at these places for the benefit of travelling sharpers
(certainly equally respectable with some bipeds of prey who drive
coroneted cabs near St James's), might be put down by any
watchful magistrate.'[70]

[70] Quarterly Review, vol. LII.

Page   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24