The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims. Volume 2 (of 2)Steinmetz, Andrew
History
The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims. Volume 2 (of 2)
Steinmetz, Andrew
Gambling
SUICIDE AT VERDUN.
During the great French War, among other means resorted to in order to
ease the English prisoners at Verdun of their loose cash, a gaming table
was set up for their sole accommodation, and, as usual, led to scenes of
great depravity and horror. For instance, a young man was enticed into
this sink of iniquity, when he was tempted to throw on the table a
five-franc piece; he won, and repeated the experiment several times
successfully, until luck turned against him, and he lost everything he
had. The manager immediately offered a rouleau of a thousand francs,
which, in the heat of play, he thoughtlessly accepted, and also lost. He
then drew a bill on his agent, which his captain (he was an officer in
the English army) endorsed. The proceeds of this went the way of the
rouleau. He drew two more bills, and lost again. The next morning he was
found dead in his bed, with his limbs much distorted and his fingers
dug into his sides. On his table was found an empty laudanum bottle, and
some scraps of paper on which he had been practising the signature of
Captain B----. On inquiry it was found that he had forged that officer's
name to the two last bills.
'IN AT THE DEATH.'
In 1819 an inquest was held on the body of a gentleman found hanging
from one of the trees in St James's Park. The evidence established
the melancholy fact that the deceased was in the habit of frequenting
gambling houses, and had sunk into a state of dejection on account of
his losses; and it seemed probable that it was immediately after his
departure from one of these receptacles of rogues and their dupes that
he committed suicide. The son of the gate-keeper at St James's saw
several persons round the body at four o'clock in the morning, one of
whom, a noted gambler, said: 'Look at his face; why, have you forgotten
last night? Don't you recollect him now?' They were, no doubt, all
gamblers--in at the death.'
The three following stories, if not of actual suicide, relate crimes
which bear a close resemblance to self-murder.
A GAMBLER PAWNING HIS EARS.
A clerk named Chambers, losing his monthly pay, which was his all, at
a gaming table, begged to borrow of the manager's; but they knew his
history too well to lend without security, and therefore demanded
something in pawn. 'I have nothing to give but my ears,' he replied.
'Well,' said one of the witty demons, 'let us have them.' The youth
immediately took a knife out of his pocket and actually cut off all
the fleshy part of one of his cars and threw it on the table, to the
astonishment of the admiring gamesters. He received his two dollars, and
gambled on.
A GAMBLER SUBMITTING TO BE HANGED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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