thus managed to win at White’s no less than £200,000, so that when his daughter, Joanna, married George Canning he was able to give her a fortune of £100,000. Another club founded specially for gambling was Almack’s, the original Brooks’s, which was opened in Pall Mall in 1764. Some of its members were Macaronis, the fops of the day, famous for their long curls and eye-glasses. ’At Almack’s,’ says Walpole, ’which has taken the _pas_ of White’s ... the young men of the age lose £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 in an evening.’ The play at this club was only for rouleaux of £50 each, and generally there was £10,000 in gold on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze garments, or turned their coats inside out for luck. They put on pieces of leather to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and sometimes masks to conceal their emotions. Almack’s afterwards was known as the ’Goose-Tree’ Club—a rather significant name—and Pitt was one of its most constant frequenters, and there met his adherents. Gibbon also was a member, when the club was still Almack’s—which, indeed, was the name of the founder and original proprietor of the club. Another gaming-club was Brooks’s, which at first was formed by Almack and afterwards by Brooks, a wine-merchant and money-lender. The club was opened in 1778, and some of the original rules are curious: ’21. No gaming in the eating-room, except tossing up for reckonings, on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present. 30. Any member of this society that shall become a candidate for any other club (old White’s excepted) shall be _ipso facto_ excluded. 40. Every person playing at the new quinze-table shall keep fifty guineas before him. 41. Every person playing at the twenty-guinea table shall keep no less than twenty guineas before him.’ According to Captain Gronow, play at Brooks’s was even higher than at White’s. Faro and macao were indulged in to an extent which enabled a man to win or to lose a considerable fortune in one night. George Harley Drummond, a partner in the bank of that name, played only once in his life at White’s, and lost £20,000 to Brummell. This event caused him to retire from the banking-house. Lord Carlisle and Charles Fox lost enormous sums at Brooks’s. At Tom’s Coffee House, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, there was playing at piquet, and the club consisting of seven hundred noblemen and gentlemen, many of whom belonged to the gay society of that day (the middle of the last century), we may be sure the play was high.