Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1893-04-13
LONDON GAMBLING HELLS.
Their Hcydcy Ended when Vie
tOria Came to the Throne.
70. A. Sala, in the london Telegraph

~. a.
1t is perhaps a fact known to very
few save systematic students of old
newspapers that the remote cause OF the
ruin and the dreadful end of Arthur
Thistlewood the chief of the Cato-street
conspirators, who, with their leader,
were hanged and behesded before the
Debtors Door, Newgate, in 1920, was
misadventurc which he met with IN
gaming house. Thistlewood was the son
of country gentleman of lair estate.
When quite a young man he was sentup
to London with very large SUN OF
money-reaching four figures, If | re-
member aright--in his possession to
make some investment on behalf OF
relative. He had this money about him
In bank notes, when, having dined much
too copiously at IA tavern, he was entlced
by some improvised acquaintance. OF
the Greek order TO try his luck IN
gambling house. There he was stripped
of every farthing of the money be
had about him. lie made subsequently
some Intellectual attempts to show that
the play had been unfair and to recover
some portion of his losses. but the
wretched mishap in the gambling-house
led, step by step, to his utter ruin, and
he became an impoverished desperate,
who drifted first into seditiOn and then
into treason, very possibly because
ne had become altogether a social
leper and pariah. II was impossible
that the evils at which 1 have
briefly glanced could he allowed
to 90 unchecked for any considerable
time after the accession OF the
Queen and the presence by her side OF
the Prince Consort. whose polished, de-
corous, and blameless character became
at once model to all English gentle
men. Even the great Crockford felt the
influence Of the new standard Of morals
which had been set up ut the British
court. The frequenters Of the gambling
palace in Pail Mall gradually dwindled
away, and not very long after the death,
in debt and discredit. Of one OF the most
brilliant OF Crockford's circle-Theodore
Hook-the club was dIsestablished for
ever.
The hour OF doom for the common
gaming-houses now rapidly approached,
and the complete breaking up OF these
bells was to a very great extent the work
of an exceptionally energetic and re-
sourceful superintendent OF Police
named Beresfor /, who, with strong con
tingents of constables, successfully and
successfully raided every one OF the
West End dens. Doors lined with
sheet-iron, bolts, bars, and chains,
contrivances by which the dice, rakes,
and cards could he cast down a
pipe connecting with the sewer, and an
ingenious device by means of which a
roulette wheel could be elevated by
cords and pulleys and made to tit into
the disk of the oyerhanging chandelier,
were all tried by the gambling house
proprietors. But their game was up for
good, and Inspector Beresford and bis
merry men cleaned ont the hell
keepers, their touts, and their bon
nets )" quite as eflicaciously as the
rascals themselves had cleaned ont innu-
merab,e dupes. Many OF the gambling
house proprietors had realized handsome
fortunes and in after life | came casual
lv across few OF them who like the
Shums in Thackeray's story-after Mr..
Shum had retired from the crossing
sweeping business-passed for " quite
respectable people" Joe Martingale,
if | remember Alright, dabbled IN
old plate, and Fred Elbowshake cul-
tivated a taste for the old masters
1t would be an insult to the common
sense OF my readers were to at
tempt to contend that illegal gambling
is not to some extent prevalent in the
metropolis at the present moment; but
I do maintain that we have in our midst
nowadays no state of society even re-
motely approximating to that which eX-
listed when Crockford had twenty tribu-
taries little less palatial than itself, IN
the parish OF st. James alone, and when
Regent street and its vicinity literally
swarmed with common and private hells'