268 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



culinary arrangements were for months the talk 

 of the town. 



Much capital has from time to time been 

 drawn by philanthropic gentlemen out of what 

 took place at " Crockford's," when the amounts 

 at stake were practically unlimited, a bank of 

 ^10,000 being put down every evening at 

 about eleven o'clock, the chief game of the 

 house being French hazard. Play of some kind 

 was always, however, going forward in every 

 room of the large establishment, which was lit 

 by hundreds of wax candles all night long. Sad 

 pictures have been painted of the ruin that over- 

 took men in the St. James' club-house ; but many 

 of these men who went there were simply fools 

 who brought on their own fate, and who, had 

 they not been ruined at Crockford's, would have 

 been ruined in some other hell. There were 

 plenty of such places, and although public gamb- 

 ling-houses are now not tolerated, it is quite 

 certain that card-playing goes on nightly in all 

 the clubs in London, and that in several of them 

 large sums of money are lost and won. Crock - 

 ford was not in any degree worse than his 

 neighbours, and no one has ventured to say that 

 undue advantage of any kind was ever taken of 

 the persons who frequented his house by the 

 proprietor or his servants. It should be kejjt 

 in mind as well that visitors to Crockford's went 

 there to try and obtain his money, and if in doing 

 so they lost their own, they scarcely require to be 

 sympathised with. 



It is not my intention to defend gambling, or 

 to become the apologist of Crockford, but such 

 matters should be looked straight in the face, 



