University of Virginia Library

ATTACKS ON GAMING HOUSES.

In 1797 the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden, kept by one John Twycross, was attacked, under warrant. The gaming-room stood an hour's siege, for the doors were so plated with iron that the repeated blows of a sledge-hammer made no impression on them. The officers at length entered the back through the window. They found fifteen persons at table, but not actually playing, so no conviction could take place.

In the same year a party of Bow Street officers searched a gaming house at 19, Great Suffolk

Street. They were an hour in effecting their entrance. Two very stout doors, strongly bolted and barred, obstructed them. All the gamesters but one escaped by a subterraneous passage, through a long range of cellars, terminating at a house in Whitcomb Street, whence their leader, having the keys of every door, conducted them safely into the open air.

In the previous year a party, mostly French emigrants, were taken at a house in Oxendon Street, with the table, cards, &. A city magistrate and a city officer had a dispute at cards, and a knock-down game ensued.

In 1799 the Marlborough Street officers apprehended at the gaming house, No. 3, Leicester Square, thirteen out of twenty persons, from the first floor, playing at Rouge et Noir. One of the gamblers, when they first entered, threw up the sash, and, stepping from the leads, fell into the area, and died in being conveyed to the hospital.

In the same year, two notorious gaming houses, Nos. 1 and 3, King's Place, were attacked, by authority of a search warrant. All the paraphernalia of the profession, as tables, dice, count-ers, &., were seized; but the inmates effected their

escape over the roofs of the adjoining houses. The proprietor of No. 3 was smoked in a chimney, and three French emigrants intercepted in their retreat. On one of them was found a gold watch, which appeared, by the robbery-book, to have been stolen about five years previously. The banks had been conveyed away, — at least, they were not among the captures.