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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 23


[71] Mr Sala is here in error. Colton was a prosperous gambler
throughout, and committed suicide to avoid a surgical operation.
A notice of the Rev. C. Colton will be found in the sequel.

`We gamble in England at the Stock Exchange, we gamble on horse-
races all the year round; but there is something more than the
mere eventuality of a chance that prompts us to the _enjeu;_
there is mixed up with our eagerness for the stakes the most
varied elements of business and pleasure; cash-books, ledgers,
divident-warrants, indignation meetings of Venezuelan bond-
holders, coupons, cases of champagne, satin-skinned horses with
plaited manes, grand stands, pretty faces, bright flags, lobster
salads, cold lamb, fortune-telling gipsies, barouches-and-four,
and "our Aunt Sally." High play is still rife in some
aristocratic clubs; there are prosperous gentlemen who wear clean
linen every day, and whose names are still in the Army List, who
make their five or six hundred a year by Whist-playing, and have
nothing else to live upon; in East-end coffee-shops, sallow-faced
Jew boys, itinerant Sclavonic jewellers, and brawny German sugar-
bakers, with sticky hands, may be found glozing and wrangling
over their beloved cards and dominoes, and screaming with
excitement at the loss of a few pence. There are yet some occult
nooks and corners, nestling in unsavoury localities, on passing
which the policeman, even in broad daylight, cannot refrain from
turning his head a little backwards--as though some bedevilments
must necessarily be taking place directly he has passed--
where, in musty back parlours, by furtive lamplight, with
doors barred, bolted, and sheeted with iron, some wretched,
cheating gambling goes on at unholy hours.

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