THE GAMING CLUBS. The gaming table : its votaries and victims, in all times and countries,
especially in England and in France. Vol. 2 | ||
1. ALMACK'S.
`The gaming at Almack's,' writes Walpole to Horace Mann, `which has taken the pas of White's, is worthy of the decline of our empire, or commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one-and-
Among the rules of the establishment, it was ordered `that every person playing at the twenty-guinea table do not keep less than twenty guineas before him,' and `that every person playing at the new guinea table do keep fifty guineas before him.' That the play ran high may be inferred from a note against the name of Mr Thynne, in the Club-books: — `Mr Thynne having won only 12,000 guineas during the last two months, retired in disgust, March 21st, 1772.' Indeed, the play was unusually high — for rouleaus of £50 each, and generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and putting on frieze great coats, or turned their coats inside out for luck! They put on pieces of leather (such as are worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their laced ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and to keep their hair in order, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims
THE GAMING CLUBS. The gaming table : its votaries and victims, in all times and countries,
especially in England and in France. Vol. 2 | ||