ATROCITIES, DUELS, SUICIDES, AND EXECUTION OF
GAMBLERS. The gaming table : its votaries and victims, in all times and countries,
especially in England and in France. Vol. 2 | ||
THE history of all nations is but the record of their cupidity; and when the fury of gaming appears on the scene, it has never failed to double the insolence and atrocities of tyranny.
The atrocious gambling of the Hindoo Rajas has been related;[14] and I have incidentally adverted to similar concomitants of the vice among all nations. I now propose to bring together a series of facts specially elucidative of the harrowing theme. [14] Chapter II.
One of the Ptolemys, kings of Egypt, required all causes to be submitted to him whilst at play, and pronounced even sentence of death according to chance. On one occasion his wife, Berenice, pro
Tolomnius, King of the Veii, happened to be playing at dice when the arrival of Roman ambassadors was announced. At the very instant he uttered the word Kill, a term of the game; the word was misinterpreted by the hearers, and they went forthwith and massacred the ambassadors. Livy suggests that this was an excuse alleged after the commission of the deed; but gamesters are subject to such absence of mind that there is really nothing incredible or astonishing in the act. `Sire,' exclaimed a messenger to the Caliph Alamin, `it is no longer time for play — Babylon is besieged!' `Silence!' said the caliph, `don't you see I am on the point of giving checkmate?' The same story is told of a Duke of Normandy.
Wars have arisen from very trivial causes — among the rest gambling. Henry, the son of William the Conqueror, was playing at chess with Louis, the son of Philip, King of France. The
A gaming quarrel was the cause of the slap in the face given by the Duc Réné to Louis XII., then only Duc d'Orleans. This slap was the origin of a ligue which was termed `the mad war.' The resentment of the outraged prince was not appeased until he mounted the throne, when he uttered these memorable words: — `A King of France does not avenge insults offered to a Duke of Orleans.'
Many narratives of suicide committed by desperate gamblers are on record, some of which I now adduce.
ATROCITIES, DUELS, SUICIDES, AND EXECUTION OF
GAMBLERS. The gaming table : its votaries and victims, in all times and countries,
especially in England and in France. Vol. 2 | ||