The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-02-10
DARING OF THE OLD
ENGLISH GAMBLERS
Nobility Conducted Temples of
Chance and Advertised
BRIDGE A POPULAR GAME
Prevalence of Gambling In 1906 So
cety Compared With That of GEN
erations Aeo-Braddocks
Sister Lost Fortune.
BRIDGE A POPULAR GAME

The gambling mania. which seems to
have a firm grip on English society, has
been frequently termed something pecu-
liar to the year 1906 The extent to which
both sexes indulge in games of chance at
present, in contrast to early English So
ciety's fondness for gambling, was re-
Gently the subject of an interesting ar
ticle in the London Chronicle. The writer
says:
Il cannot in the least agree with writ
ers when they try to make out that
the gambling mania which is sweeping
over English society is something pecu-
liar to the year 1906, either in ferver,
pervasiveness, or resultant harm. There
may possibly be details in it that have
not occurred before, and could not be
paralleled from the history, let us say
of the eighteenth century-the great
gambling age of English annals. If so,
am not aware of them.
1T is constantly said. for instance, that
the extent to which girls and young mar
ried women gamble nowadays at bridge
is entirely novel; but in the files of the
Times for 1877 you will find this illumin-
ating paragraph: AT some of cur first
taught whist and casno'-not, one sus-
poets, for arts sake alone.
Follies of 6ysone Days.
"And l rather fancy that all the other
features of the bridge mania, which are
roundIy denounced as unprecedented,
might, if examined, be found to be merely
reproductions of bygone follies. An i'm
partial judgment would probably go no
further than to say that gambling in
English society has now scaled a height
unreached since the most rolicking days
of the latter eighteenth and the earlier
nineteenth century, that 1t is certainly
more widespread today than it has been
for the last seventy years, and that
while Individual losses are less sensa-
tional than they used to be, the proper
ton of gamblers to population was never
at any time greater than at this mo-
ment.
in small nonessentals there has, of
course, been certain change. A hundred
years ago more than one peeress kept
gambling shops openly, and advertised
them as such. Today it would be more
correct to say that, though many titled
woman's house is a gambling shop in sub
stance and practice, the fact is not ad-
vertised.
Shortly before queen Victoria came to
the throne, Crackford's. on st. James
street now the home of the Devonshire
club was the gambling center of the me-
tropolis, and as much as a million ster-
ling was known to change hands in sim
gle evening / do not think that any,
thing like that would be possible now.
Gibbon tells us how be watched Fox lose
$500 an hour for twenty-five hours on
end. That too, one may fairly class
among the. incidents of an age that has
passed.
Ladies' Heavy PIungers.
"In one of his letters to Horace Mann,
Walpole makes the astounding statement
that a loss of e1OO,0OO at a single sitting
was not rare enough to be surprising. 1t
would certainly create some talk nova
days One of Braddock's sisters gambled
away her whole fortune Of G12,00O in
month Ladies are luckier today in get
ting some one to help them out of such
predicaments.
There is we'll known tale of four men
who sat down to whist at Raggett's club
one Monday evening, about 1920, and did
not rise till II o'clock the following
Wednesday morning, one of them being
the richer by 100000. l have not heard of
such hercuean feats being performed
today, and, indeed one has only to look
at the betting book of Brooks to realize
that the age of heroic plungers is dead.
For the rest England is simply living
over again the life of its great grand
fathers-and its great grandmothers. So
cety lives to gamble, and a considerable
section of it CANDLES to live. The reign
of bridge for the moment is supreme and
autocratic. But in other days roulette
had its innings. and baccarat and poker,
and whist.
Fair Sex Played Faro.
1.-THE ladies of the regency stayed in
doors all day, with the blinds drawn,
playing faro. The ladies of King Ed
ward reign are not behind them in their
devotion to bridge, but who shall say
they are ahead of them?
when you hear anyone complaining
that he is a social outcast because he can
not play bridge; that house parties are
arranged simply with view to bridge;
that is spelling dinners and weekend
parties, running hunts. and turn