THE HISTORY OF GAMBLING IN ENGLAND _All Rights Reserved_ THE HISTORY OF GAMBLING IN ENGLAND BY JOHN ASHTON AUTHOR OF “SOCIAL LIFE IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE,” “A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LOTTERIES,” ETC. [Illustration: LOGO] LONDON DUCKWORTH & CO. 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1898 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTORY Difference between Gaming and Gambling—Universality and Antiquity of Gambling—Isis and Osiris—Games and Dice of the Egyptians—China and India—The Jews—Among the Greeks and Romans—Among Mahometans—Early Dicing—Dicing in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries—In the Seventeenth Century—Celebrated Gamblers—Bourchier—Swiss Anecdote—Dicing in the Eighteenth Century 1 CHAPTER I Latimer and Cards—Discourse between a Preacher and a Professor—The Perpetual Almanack, or Soldier’s Prayer Book—Origin of Playing Cards—Earliest Notice—Royal Card Playing 28 CHAPTER II Legislation as to Cards—Boy and sheep—Names of old games at Cards—Gambling _temp._ Charles II.—Description of a gaming-house, 1669—Play at Christmas—The Groom Porter—Royal gambling discontinued by George III.—Gambling in church 40 CHAPTER III Gambling early Eighteenth Century—Mrs Centlivre—E. Ward—Steele—Pope—Details of a gaming-house—Grub Street Journal on Gambling—Legislation on gambling—Peeresses as gaming-house keepers—A child played for at cards—Raids on gaming-houses—Fielding 51 CHAPTER IV Gambling at Bath—Beau Nash—Anecdotes of him—A lady gambler—Horace Walpole’s gossip about gambling—Awful story about Richard Parsons—Gambling anecdotes—C. J. Fox 64 CHAPTER V The Gambling ladies—Ladies Archer, Buckinghamshire, Mrs Concannon, &c.—Private Faro Banks—Card-money—Gaming House end of Eighteenth Century—Anecdotes—The profits of Gaming Houses—C. J. Fox and Sir John Lade—Col. Hanger on gambling 76 CHAPTER VI The Gambling Clubs—White’s, Cocoa Tree, Almack’s—A few gamblers described—Stories of high play—White’s and its frequenters—Brookes’ and its players—Captain Gronow and his reminiscences of gambling—Gambling by the English at Paris—The Duke of Wellington—Ball Hughes—Scrope Davies—Raggett of White’s 90 CHAPTER VII Hanging, the penalty for losing—Suicide—Officer cashiered—Reminiscences of an exiled gambler—Description of the principal gaming-houses at the West End in 1817 103 CHAPTER VIII