The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, by
Andrew Steinmetz

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Title: The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims
Volume I (of II)

Author: Andrew Steinmetz

Release Date: March, 1996 [Etext #466]
Posting Date: November 29, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GAMING TABLE ***

Produced by Mike Lough

THE GAMING TABLE:

ITS VOTARIES AND VICTIMS,

In all Times and Countries, especially in England and in France.

IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.

By Andrew Steinmetz, Esq.,

Of The Middle Temple, Barrister-At-Law; First-Class Extra Certificate
School Of Musketry, Hythe; Late Officer Instructor Musketry, The Queens
Own Light Infantry Militia.

Author Of 'The History Of The Jesuits,' 'Japan And Her People,' 'The
Romance Of Duelling,' &C., &C.

'The sharp, the blackleg, and the knowing one, Livery or lace,
the self-same circle, run; The same the passion, end and means the
same--Dick and his Lordship differ but in name.'

TO HIS GRACE

The Duke of Wellington, K.G. THIS WORK IS DEDICATED, WITH PERMISSION, BY
HIS GRACE'S MOST DEVOTED SERVANT

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

To the readers of the present generation much of this book will,
doubtless, seem incredible. Still it is a book of facts--a section of
our social history, which is, I think, worth writing, and deserving of
meditation.

Forty or fifty years ago--that is, within the memory of many a living
man--gambling was 'the rage' in England, especially in the metropolis.
Streets now meaningless and dull--such as Osendon Street, and streets
and squares now inhabited by the most respectable in the land--for
instance, St James's Square, THEN opened doors to countless votaries of
the fickle and capricious goddess of Fortune; in the rooms of which
many a nobleman, many a gentleman, many an officer of the Army and
Navy, clergymen, tradesmen, clerks, and apprentices, were 'cleaned
out'--ruined, and driven to self-murder, or to crimes that led to the
gallows. 'I have myself,' says a writer of the time, 'seen hanging in
chains a man whom a short time before I saw at a Hazard t