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 | ||
TWO GAMBLERS TOSSING WHO SHOULD HANG THE OTHER.
In the year 1812 an extraordinary investigation took place at Bow Street. Croker, the officer, was passing along Hampstead Road; he observed at a short distance before him two men on a wall, and directly after saw the tallest of them, a stout man, about six feet high, hanging by his neck from a lamp-post attached to the wall, being that instant tied up and turned off by the short man. This unexpected and extraordinary sight astonished the officer; he made up to the spot with all speed, and just after he arrived there the tall man, who had been hanged, fell to the ground, the handkerchief with which he had been suspended having given way. Croker produced his staff, said he was an officer, and demanded to know of the other man the cause of such conduct; in the mean time the
The magistrates, continues the report in the `Annual Register,' expressed their horror and disgust; and ordered the man who had been hanged to find bail for the violent and unjustifiable assault upon the officer; and the short one, for hanging the other — a very odd decision in the
Innumerable duels have resulted from quarrels over the gaming table, although nothing could be more Draconic than the law especially directed against such duels. By the Act of Queen Anne against gaming, all persons sending a challenge on account of gaming disputes were liable to forfeit all their goods and to be committed to prison for two years. No case of the kind, however, was ever prosecuted on that clause of the Act, which was, in other respects, very nearly inoperative.
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 | ||