In the early part of the year 1805 the West End was much excited by a statement in a morning paper referring to the supposed discovery by the Duke of Devonshire of immense losses at play, principally to gamesters of her own sex, incurred by his lovely Duchess. Her Grace's whole loss, chiefly at faro, was declared to amount to £176,000, of which a private gentlewoman and bosom friend, Mrs. ---- was said to have won no less than £30,000. The discovery was made to the Duke one Sunday; the Duchess rushed into his library, and, in a flood of tears, told him she was ruined in fame and reputation, if these claims of honour were not instantly discharged. His Grace was thunderstruck when he learned the extent of her requisition, and the names of the friends who had contributed in so extraordinary a manner to such extreme embarrassments. Having soothed her in the best manner he was able, he sent for two confidential friends, imparted to them all the circumstances, and asked them how he should act. Their answer was promptly given--"Pay not one guinea of any such infamous demands!" and this advice, it was supposed, would be strictly adhered to by the Duke. Her Grace was said to have executed some bonds, to satisfy, for a moment, these gambling claimants; but, of course, they could be of no avail. Two gentlemen and five ladies formed the snug flock of rooks that had so unmercifully stripped this female pigeon of distinction. A few days later, however, _The Morning Herald_, which was responsible for the startling news, declared that the fiction of the female gamblers of distinction in a house fitted up near St. James's Street for their ruinous orgies, began to die away; for it had been discovered that the supposed pigeoned Duchess, declared to have sacrificed half a million sterling of her lord's fortune, had never gambled at any game of chance, whilst her amiable companion, who was a pattern of domestic propriety, instead of having helped to pluck her Grace, had never played for a guinea in the course of her life. This denial was probably inspired from influential quarters. The gambling ladies seem to have fallen into obscurity when the nineteenth century began; the "faro dames," as they were called, found their occupation gone. Their game, at which few of them had "cut with honours," was up, and their "odd tricks" were no longer of any avail in London. One of the most notorious, Mrs. Concannon, migrated to Paris, where her house continued for some time to be the meeting-place of those fond of deep play.