nor any higher stake than guinea
points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner.'

CHAPTER VII. DOINGS IN GAMING HOUSES.

Besides the aristocratic establishments just described, there were
numerous houses or places of resort for gambling, genteel and ungenteel.
In vain did the officers of the law seem to exert their utmost
vigilance; if they drove the serpent out of one hole it soon glided
into another; never was the proverb--'Where there's a will there's a
way'--more strikingly fulfilled.

COFFEE-HOUSE SHARPERS.

Sir John Fielding thus describes the men in the year 1776. 'The
deceivers of this denomination are generally descended from families
of some repute, have had the groundwork of a genteel education, and are
capable of making a tolerable appearance. Having been equally profuse
of their own substance and character, and learnt, by having been undone,
the ways of undoing, they lie in wait for those who have more wealth
and less knowledge of the town. By joining you in discourse, by admiring
what you say, by an officiousness to wait upon you, and to assist you
in anything you want to have or know, they insinuate themselves into the
company and acquaintance of strangers, whom they watch every opportunity
of fleecing. And if one finds in you the least inclination to cards,
dice, the billiard table, bowling-green, or any other sort of Gaming,
you are morally sure of being taken in.

For this set of gentry are adepts in all the arts of knavery and
tricking. If, therefore, you should observe a person, without any
previous acquaintance, paying you extraordinary marks of civility; if
he puts in for a share of your conversation with a pretended air of
deference; if he tenders his assistance, courts your acquaintance, and
would be suddenly thought your friend, avoid him as a pest; for these
are the usual baits by which the unwary are caught.'(42)

(42) The Magistrate: Description of London and Westminster.

In 1792, Mr Br--gh--n, the son of a baronet, one day at a billiard-table
in St James's Street, won L7000 from a Mr B--, but the latter, at the
close of the day, recovered the loss, and won L15,000 more. Payment
was thus arranged--L5000 on the death of the father of the former, and
L10,000 secured by a reversionary annuity, to commence on the father's
decease, on the life of the Duc de Pienne, between whom and B-- a
previous gaming account existed.

In 1794, Mr ---- was a billiard player of the first class