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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 18


I fear that something similar may be suggested at the present
day, as to the same notorious localities.

Mr Sala, writing some years ago on gambling in England, said:--

`The passion for gambling is, I believe, innate; but there is,
happily, a very small percentage of the population who are born
with a propensity for high play. We are speculative and eagerly
commercial; but it is rare to discover among us that inveterate
love for gambling, as gambling, which you may find among the
Italians, the South American Spaniards, the Russians, and the
Poles. Moro, Baccara, Tchuka--these are games at which
continental peasants will wager and lose their little fields,
their standing crops, their harvest in embryo, their very wives
even. The Americans surpass us in the ardour of their
propitiation of the gambling goddess, and on board the
Mississippi steamboats, an enchanting game, called _Poker_, is
played with a delirium of excitement, whose intensity can only be
imagined by realizing that famous bout at "catch him who can,"
which took place at the horticultural _fete_ immortalized by
Mr Samuel Foote, comedian, at which was present the great
_Panjandrum_ himself, with the little round button at top, the
festivities continuing till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of
the company's boots.

`When I was a boy, not so very long--say twenty years--
since, the West-end of London swarmed with illicit gambling
houses, known by a name I will not offend your ears by repeating.

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