The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1889-03-13
GAMBLING IN ENGLAND AND
ON THE CONTINENT.


one of the most fully attended meetings
of the recent (English) Church Con-
gress was devoted to discussion of
gambling and betting" the most
prevalent vice of the age"
The Reviewers undoubtedly correct
in characterising Gambling as "the
most prevalent vice of the age" 1t
has taken possession, in large degree,
of our business operations, and has per-
meated our entire social life, down to
the most minute matters, and has in
fected Childhood as we'll as Age.
1t has, in fact, says the Quarterly, be-
come ga trade or profession -" it is
not so much that cards or dice abound,
as that betting is universal" This is
true, not merely of cards and horse
racing, and the old established paths
of the gamester; but it is true in
much larger and more important sense
of the indirect gambling in our whole
commercial-and even our social-life.
Gambling was distinctively one of
the vices during the reign of George
III. Charles James Fox was a prince
among gamblers-"King of the Gam
blers," he is styled, cat Twenty-Five"
In 1873 his father, Lord Holland,
cleared off his debts, which amounted
to 9140,000-an enormous sum in
that day. We read a number of
anecdotes of the gamesters of this
period in Steinmetz' volume London,
1870, entitled "The Gaming Table:
Sir J. B. lost 100000 in one night, and
shot himself; Lord F., who died in SO,
played away an estate of 918,0O0
year, and 100000 in ready money; a
certain Duchess, wife of ci-deUdnt
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was feeced
Of 100000, &c. In those days men
seemed, as at present, to bet on every
thing. The notorious betting book at
Brooks's has preserved for us records
of some of those transactions, which
illustrate the morals of that period
Fifty guineas that Lord Thurlow
gets tellership of the Exchequer for
his son; fifty that Lord Leicester gives
his first vote in Opposition, and kills his
first ten pheasants; hundred guineas
that consols fall 10 per cent before
they rise 10 per cent (1778); three
guineas to receive five hundred if the
allied armies are out of Paris at Christ
mas, 1894; ten that Free Trade is
abolished before Episcopacy; five hun.
dred to ten that none of the cabinet
were beheaded in three years. &C., &c.
At Almack's, Walpole writes to
Horace Mann, that "the young men
lost ten, fifteen, twenty thousand
pounds in an evening" At the
Cocoa Tree" in 1880, there was
cast at hazard, the difference of which
amounted to 918O,OOO.
After Victoria assembled the throne
play grew into disfavor at court,
where the Prince Consort entirely alb
horred it, and the leading statesmen and
men of wealth discountenanced it. Gam
bling, driven about the Same time out
of France, took refuge at the German
watering places-Baden Baden, Wies.
baden, Homburg During the season,
men and women of all nations and all
classes thronged the luxurious salons
de jeu. Statesmen and fnanciers sat
side by side at the roulette and trente ct
IN tables with turf men and cheUalterS
d'induStrte Ambassadresses, wives of
ministers, and owners of the proudest
names in the aristocracy of Russia,
France, Italy, Spain, England, we're
jostled by the cruchecass5es and
cocottes Of European capitals. "At
least one-half of the company" said
Mr.. G. Sala, writing on the subject,
"may be assumed to be arrant rascals,
male and female, the off scourings of
all the shut-up gambling houses in
Europe demreps and loretteS, single
and married women innumerable."
The thing grew so bad that in 1868
the Prussian Government took the
matter up with a high hand, and in
1872 tho gaming tables at Wie5baden,
Ems, and Homburg were closed by
legislative enactment. Monte Carlo