University of Virginia Library

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-

twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at Hazard. He swore a great oath — "Now, if I had been playing deep I might have won millions!'' His cousin, Charles Fox, shines equally here and in the House of Com-mons.'

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

adorned with flowers and ribbons; they also wore masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinz.[35] Each gamester had a small neat stand by him, to hold his tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold the rouleaus of guineas. [35] Quinze, the French for fifteen. This is a game at cards, in which the winner is he who counts fifteen, or nearest to that number, in all the points of his hand. Three, five, or six might play at it. Two entire packs of cards are used, so disposed that the spades and clubs are on one side, and the hearts and diamonds on the other. The entire art of the game consists in making fifteen; below that number the party loses.