The Gaming Table | Page 8

women of quality are permitted to hold banks,
and there are many whose faro-banks bring them in a clear income of a
thousand guineas a year. The lady to whom I was introduced is an old
countess, who has lived nearly thirty years on the profits of the
card-tables in her house. They are frequented every day, and though
both natives and foreigners are duped of large sums by her, and her
cabinet-junto, yet it is the greatest house of resort in all Madrid. She
goes to court, visits people of the first fashion, and is received with as

much respect and veneration as if she exercised the most sacred
functions of a divine profession. Many widows of great men keep
gaming-houses and live splendidly on the vices of mankind. If you be
not disposed to play, be either a sharper or a dupe, you cannot be
admitted a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented
to the lady than she offered me cards; and on my excusing myself,
because I really could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from
me, and said to another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any
foreigner could have the impertinence to come to her house for no other
purpose than to make an apology for not playing. My Spanish
conductor, unfortunately for himself, had not the same apology. He
played and lost his money--two circumstances which constantly follow
in these houses. While my friend was thus playing THE FOOL, I
attentively watched the countenance and motions of the lady of the
house. Her anxiety, address, and assiduity were equal to that of some
skilful shopkeeper, who has a certain attraction to engage all to buy,
and diligence to take care that none shall escape the net. I found out all
her privy-counsellors, by her arrangement of her parties at the different
tables; and whenever she showed an extraordinary eagerness to fix one
particular person with a stranger, the game was always decided the
same way, and her good friend was sure to win the money.
`In short, it is hardly possible to see good company at Madrid unless
you resolve to leave a purse of gold at the card- assemblies of their
nobility.'[10]
[10] `Observations in a Tour through Spain.'
We are assured that this state of things is by no means `obsolete' in
Spain, even at the present time. At the time in question, however, the
beginning of the present century, there was no European nation among
which gaming did not constitute one of its polite and fashionable
amusements--with the exception of the Turks, who, to the shame of
Christians, strictly obeyed the precepts of Mahomet, and scrupulously
avoided the `gambling itch' of our nature.
In England gambling prevailed during the reign of Henry VIII.; indeed,
it seems that the king was himself a gamester of the most unscrupulous

sort; and there is ample evidence that the practice flourished during the
reign of Elizabeth, James I., and subsequently, especially in the times
of Charles II. Writing on the day when James II. was proclaimed king,
Evelyn says, `I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and
profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total
forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight
I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines,
Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing
love-songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great
courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table;
a bank of at least L2000 in gold before them, upon which two
gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Six
days after all was in the dust!'
The following curious observations on the gaming in vogue during the
year 1668 are from the Harleian Miscellany:
`One propounded this question, "Whether men in ships at sea were to
be accounted amongst the living or the dead--because there were but
few inches betwixt them and drowning?" The same query may be made
of gamesters, though their estates be never so considerable--whether
they are to be esteemed rich or poor, since there are but a few casts at
dice betwixt a person of fortune (in that circumstance) and a beggar.
`Betwixt twelve and one of the clock a good dinner is prepared by way
of ordinary, and some gentlemen of civility and condition oftentimes
eat there, and play a while for recreation after dinner, both moderately
and most commonly without deserving reproof. Towards night, when
ravenous beasts usually seek their prey, there come in shoals of hectors,
trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, prigs, divers, lifters, kidnappers, vouchers,
mill kens, piemen, decoys, shop-lifters, foilers, bulkers, droppers,
gamblers, donnakers, crossbiters, &c., under the general appellation of
"rooks;" and in