1855.1 this exemption we have to thank the great disaster, if we might so term what has turned out a blessing. At one fell swoop it cleared the city, and swept away for ever the dangerous congregation of wooden buildings and narrow streets which were always affording material for the flame. The means to be adopted to prevent the flames spreading, resolve themselves into taking care not to open doors or windows, which create a draught. The same rule should be observed by those outside; no door or glass should be smashed in before the means are at hand to put out the fire. Directions for aiding persons to escape from premises on fire. 1. Be careful to acquaint yourself with the best means of exit from the house both at the top and bottom. 2. On the first alarm reflect before you act. If in bed at the time wrap yourself in a blanket, or bedside carpet; open no more doors or windows than are absolutely necessary, and shut every door after you. 3. There is always from eight to twelve inches of pure air close to the ground: if you can not therefore walk upright through the smoke, drop on your hands and knees, and thus progress. A wetted silk handkerchief, a piece of flannel, or a worsted stocking drawn over the face, permits breathing, and, to a great extent, excludes the smoke. 4. If you can neither make your way upwards nor downwards, get into a front room: if there is a family, see that they are all collected here, and keep the door closed as much as possible, for remember that smoke always follows a draught, and fire always rushes after smoke. 5. On no account throw yourself, or allow others to throw themselves, from the window. If no assistance is at hand, and you are in extremity, tie the sheets together, and, having fastened one end to some heavy piece of furniture, let down the women and children one by one, by tying the end of the line of sheets round the waist and lowering them through the window that is over the door, rather than through one that is over the area. You can easily let yourself down when the helpless are saved. 6. If a woman's clothes should catch fire, let her instantly roll herself over and over on the ground; if a man be present, let him throw her down and do the like, and then wrap her in a rug, coat, or the first woollen thing that is at hand. 7. Bystanders, the instant they see a fire, should run for the fire-escape, or to the police station if that is nearer, where a "jumping-sheet" is always to be found. Dancers, and those that are accustomed to wear light muslins and other inflammable articles of clothing, when they are likely to come in contact with the gas, would do well to remember, that by steeping them in a solution of alum they would not be liable to catch fire. If the rule were enforced at theatres, we might avoid any possible recurrence of such a catastrophe as happened at Drury Lane in 1844, when poor Clara Webster was so burnt before the eyes of the audience, that she died in a few days. From Colburn's New Monthly. GAMBLING IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE idle, the desperate, the sanguine, and | bers, every device was resorted to in order the hopeless, the knave and the fool, have been in all generations, and ever will be, gamblers. There is a charm in the uncertainty, the suspense, the speculation, the hazard of gaming, which dazzles the young, and even sometimes attracts the wary. The courtier, the statesman, the general, the stockjobber and the merchant, are they not all, in a greater or less degree, gamblers? For riches or honor depend on how they play their cards"-chance has something to do with all their gains and losses. In the recognized gambling of stockjob. False re to influence the stock-market. even on June the 22d, 1787, we find a wo. per cent.! But in the more contracted sense in which we understand the word "gambling," our grandsires appear to have been more attached to it than the generations which went before them. The actor and the politician, the divine and the tradesman, were alike infected with a rage for gaming. The Duke of Devonshire lost his valuable estate of Leicester Abbey to Manners at a game at basset. Peers were impoverished, and estates mortgaged in a single sitting, and the man who had entered the room in a state of affluence, rushed madly into the streets at night penniless, and probably in debt to a large amount. The chocolate rooms in the neighborhood of Charing-cross, Leicester-fields, and Golden-square, were the principal "hells" of the West-end, and it was not far for ruin, disgrace and despair to find oblivion in the bosom of the Serpentine or the Thames. The coffee-houses, we are told, most notorious for gambling, were "White's Chocolate House," for picket or basset clubs, in 1724; "Littleman's" for faro, which was played in every room; Oldman's," [May, "1. A commissioner, always a proprietor, who looks in of a night, and the week's account is audited by him and two other proprietors. "2. A director, who superintends the room. "3. An operator, who deals the cards at a cheating game called faro. "4. Two crowpers (croupiers), who watch the cards and gather the money for the bank. "5. Two puffs, who have money given them to decoy others to play. "6. A clerk, who is a check upon the puffs, to see that they sink none of the money given them to play with. serves at half-pay salary while he is learning bank has been stripped. money lost at play. "10. A waiter, to fill out wine, snuff candles, and attend the gaming room. "11. An attorney-a Newgate solicitor. 12. A captain, who is to fight any gen The green-rooms of the theatres even, were the scenes of great doings in the gaming way; and Miss Bellamy tells us that thousands were frequently lost there in a night-rings, brooches, watches, professional wardrobes, and even salaries in advance, being staked and lost as well as money. "Tom's," "Will's" and "Jonathan's" Coffee-Houses, for ombre, picket and loo. About 1730, the "Crown" Coffee-house, intleman who is peevish at losing his money." Bedford-row, became the rendezvous of a game of whist players. Early in the century, although Swift mentions it as a clergyman's game, whist appears to have been less in vogue, except with footmen and servants, among whom it kept company with put and all-fours. From the frequent mention of it in Swift's "Journal to Stella," we should surmise that ombre was in great fashion about 1710 to 1713, as was crimp among the ladies, according to Steele; and, in 1726 we find, in "Gay's Correspondence," a letter to Swift, in which he alludes to the favor in which the game of quadrille was then held: "I can find amusement enough without quadrille, which here is the universal employment of life." Nay," cries honest parson Adams, in the True Briton of January the 28th, 1746, "the holy Sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings, and card-playing goes on as publicly as on any other day! Nor is this only among the young lads and damsels, who might be supposed to know no better, but men advanced in years, and grave matrons are not ashamed of being caught at the same pastime." The Daily Journal of January the 9th, 1751, gives a list of the officers retained "in the most notorious gaming-houses," showing how these matters were then managed. The first twelve were: rake It was in vain that essays, satires and sermons were written with a view to checking this universal vice. Hogarth has depicted it in all its horrors, whether in the scene where it first leads the idle apprentice into sin, or in the other, where it shows the young the way to jail. But its dreadful consequences were most forcibly placed before the eyes of the infatuated town by Edward Moore, in a tragedy, first performed at Drury Lane, in 1753, and entitled the "Gamester." How did "the town" receive this lesson? The "New Theatrical Dictionary" says: "With all its merits, it met with but little success, the general cry against it being that the distress was too deep to be borne. Yet we are rather apt to imagine its want of fect approbation arose in one part (and that no inconsiderable one) of the audience from a tenderness of another kind than that of compassion, and that they were less hurt by the distress of Beverley than by finding their darling vice-their favorite folly-thus vehemently attacked by the strong lance of reason and dramatic execution." per But this absorbing passion was not confin- I throw around the whole concern, people's ed to the harsher sex. Coteries of ladies, curiosity was excited, and a general but young and old, single and married, had their vague impression got abroad, that one of the regular nights of meeting; and the house- South-Sea Company's bonds was talismanic, hold expenses were occasionally not a little and there was no reckoning the amount of increased by the loss, in a single evening, of profit it would bring to the fortunate posthree times the last night's winnings, which sessor; the smallest result expected from the had pacified the husband, or, may be, been enterprise was, that in twenty-six years it already laid out in a new brocaded dress, would pay off the entire amount of the Nastomacher, commode, or fan. Who does not | tional Debt! remember the terrible moral contained in How it was to be done no one knew, or the "Lady's Last Stake"?-doubtless, when cared to inquire; it was sufficient to know jewels and trinkets had been successively it was to be done. Trade and business of staked and lost, the pearl of greatest value all kinds was suspended, every pursuit and -the most brilliant ornament of the sex-calling neglected, and the interest of the was in danger. Swift draws a true but whole nation absorbed by this enchanting satirical picture of this state of things in his dream. Money was realized in every way, "Journal of a Modern Lady;" and Hogarth and at every sacrifice and risk, to be made records the participation of the fair in this available in the purchase of South-Sea engrossing vice, and, in his "Taste in High Stock, which rose in price with the demand, Life," we see a complete pyramid, composed from £150 to £325 per cent. Fresh specof a pack of cards, and, on the floor beside ulators came pouring in, and the price went them, a memorandum, inscribed "Lady up to £1000 per cent! This was at the latBasto, Dr. to John Pip, for cards, £300." ter end of July; but lo! a whisper went Nay, so far did the ladies carry this infatua- forth that there was something wrong with tion, that women of fashion at length estab- the South-Sea Company-the chairman, Sir lished in their levees regular whist-masters John Blunt, and some of the directors had and professors of quadrille. This was a sold their shares-there was "a screw loose most distressing feature in the domestic life somewhere;" and, on the 2d of September, of the century-the "mothers and wives of it was quoted at £700. An attempt to allay England"-(the gentle reformers that they the panic was made by the directors, who ought to be!)--following the examples of called a meeting on the 8th, at Merchant their husbands, or setting them to their Tailors' Hall; but in the evening it fell to £640, children--making their home literally a and, next day, stood at £540. The fever "hell," and their unborn children paupers ! had been succeeded by a shivering fit, and it If not the earliest, at least the most re- was rapidly running down to zero! In this markable instance of this national spirit of emergency the king, who was at Hanover, gambling which displayed itself in the last was sent for, and Sir Robert Walpole called century, was the infatuation which led all in when the case was desperate. He enclasses to commit themselves to the alluring deavored to persuade the Bank of England prospects held out to them by the South- to circulate the company's bonds, but in vain; Sea Company. The public creditor was of the stock fell to £135, and the bubble fered six per cent. interest, and a participa- burst. The duration of this public "detion in the profits of a new trading company, lirium," as Smollett has truly called it, may incorporated under the style of The Gov- be estimated when we state that the bill enernor and Company of Merchants of Great abling the company to raise the subscription Britain trading to the South Seas and other received the royal assent on the 7th of parts of America." But, whatever chances April, 1720, with the stock at £150, that of success this company might have had, the price subsequently ran up to £1000, and were soon dispersed by the breaking out of that, on the 29th of September, it had again the war with Spain in 1718, which rendered sunk to £150, and the delusion was over, necessary for the concoctors of the scheme and the nation in a state of panic, with pubto circulate the most exaggerated reports, lic credit shaken to its centre. Investigafalsify their books, bribe the members of the tions were now made into the conduct of the government, and resort to every fraudulent managers of this marvellous fraud. A bill means for the purpose of propping up their was first passed through parliament to pretottering creation. Wonderful discoveries vent the escape of the directors from the of valuable resources were trumped up, and, kingdom, and then a committee of secresy by the mystery which they contrived to appointed to examine into their accounts. It it then came out that books had been destroy-proving gardens and raising fruit-trees, at ed or concealed, entries erased and altered, Garraway's-for insuring horses against natand accounts falsified; that the king's mis- ural death, accident or theft, at the Crown tress even, the Duchess of Kendal, had re- Tavern, Smithfield-another at Robin's, of ceived stock to the amount of £10,000; the same nature, capital £2,000,000-for inanother favorite, the Countess of Platen, troducing the breed of asses (!)—an insur£10,000; the Earl of Sutherland, £50,000; ance company against the thefts of servants, each of the Countess of Platen's two nieces, 3000 shares of £1000 each, at the Devil £10,000; Mr. Aislabie, Chancellor of the Tavern-for a perpetual motion, by means Exchequer, £70,000; Mr. Craggs, father of of a wheel moving by force of its own weight, the Secretary of State, £659,000; the Earl capital £1,000,000, at the Ship Tavern," of Sutherland, £160,000; Mr. Craggs, jun- &c., &c. The Prince of Wales became govior, £30,000; and Mr. Charles Stanhope, ernor of a Welsh Copper Company; the Secretary of the Treasury, two amounts, one Duke of Chandos was chairman of the Yorkof £10,000, and another of £47,000! The buildings Company, and of another commanner in which these worthies, who were pany for building houses in London and in the secret, could anticipate and influence Westminster. the markets, is obvious. Poor Gay had received an allotment of stock from Mr. Secretary Craggs, which was at one time worth £20,000; but he clung fast to the bubble, refused to sell at that price, and waited till it was worthless, when he found himself hugging the shadow of a fortune! The amount of the company's stock at the time of the inquiry was found to be £37,800,000, of which £24,500,000 belonged to individual proprietors. As some compensation to these rash and ruined speculators, the estates of the directors were confiscated. Sir George Caswell was expelled the House of Commons, and made to disgorge £250,000; Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expelled, and committed to the Tower; Sir John Blunt, the chairman, was stripped of all but £5000; and Sir John Fellowes was deprived of £233,000; and the excitement and popular resentment was so intense, that it is marvellous that they escaped with their lives. The South-Sea frenzy was not sufficient to engross the gambling spirit that it had generated; simultaneously there oozed up a crowd of smaller bubbles, of which Malcolm counted one hundred and fifty-six. The titles of some of them were sufficient to illustrate the madness which had seized upon the nation! "Companies for carrying on the undertaking business and furnishing funerals, cap, ital £1,200,000 at the Fleece Tavern " (ominous sign!), "Cornhill-for discounting pensions, 2000 shares, at the Globe Tavern -for preventing and suppressing thieves, and insuring all persons' goods from the same (!), capital £2,000,000, at Cooper'sfor making of Joppa and Castile soap, at the Castle Tavern-for sweeping the streetsfor maintaining bastard children-for im Many of these speculations were jealously prosecuted by the South-Sea Company, but they all succeeded, in a greater or less degree, in spreading the general panic. The amount of capital proposed to be raised by these countless schemes was three hundred millions sterling-exceeding the value of all the lands in England! The most amusing instance of the blind credulity of the public was in the success which attended one wily projector, who, well knowing the value of mystery, published the following proposal: This day, the 8th instant, at Sam's Coffee-house, behind the Royal Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened for entering into a joint co-partnership for carrying on a thing that will turn to the advantage of all concerned." The particulars of this notable scheme were not to be revealed for a month, and, "in the mean time," says Smollett, "he declared that every person paying two guineas should be entitled to a subscription of one hundred pounds, which would produce that sum yearly. In one forenoon the adventurer received a thousand of these subscriptions, and, in the evening, set out for another kingdom!" Some curious satires of these several schemes are preserved in the British Museum, in the shape of a pack of playing-cards. Thus, one is a caricature of York-buildings, with the following lines beneath it: You that are blest with wealth by your Creator, A ship-building company is thus ridiculed: Who but a nest of blockheads to their cost Would build new ships for freight when trade is lost? To raise fresh barques must surely be amusing, to the servant who raised the sum (often, as has been proved, by pilfering) necessary to purchase a sixteenth. Long and serious was The Pennsylvanian Land Company comes the consideration in the choice of an agent. in for a share of the satire : Come, all ye saints, that would for little buy Great tracts of land, and care not where they lie, Deal with your Quaking friends-they're men of light The spirit hates deceit and scorns to bite. The Company for the Insurance of Horses' Lives against Death or Accident is thus dealt with: You that keep horses to preserve your ease, an Smollett gives us a more dismal picture. "The whole nation," he says, "was infested with the spirit of stock-jobbing to astonishing degree. All distinctions of party, religion, sex, character, and circumstances were swallowed up. Exchange-alley was filled with a strange concourse of statesmen and clergymen, churchmen and dissenters, Whigs and Tories, physicians, lawyers, tradesmen, and even with females; all other professions and employments were utterly neglected." The In this state of the public feeling, it is not to be wondered at that lottery schemes were received with favor, when the government were forced to resort to them as a means of raising the supplies; but what is remarkable, is the amount of superstition which was connected with the working of them. chance of a twenty or thirty thousand pound prize was too dazzling, and the tickets were bought up almost as soon as they were issued; nay, scarcely had the scheme" of the "New State Lottery" made its appearance in the London Gazette, before the offices of the agents and contractors to whom the distribution of the tickets fell, were besieged by impatient applicants; for, as Fielding says in his farce of the "Lottery," A lottery is a taxation 'Hazard" was a famous name; nay, "Winpenny" was better, and his office was the King's Arms, Saint Dunstan's Church: he had sold the twenty thousand prize in the last lottery (and our speculator never paused to think that this very fact would reduce the amount of probability of his selling one in the present); but then "Goodluck"-that had a more musical sound! The case was perplexing, and the anxious speculator long wavered in doubt and hesitation, till a bill is, perchance, thrust into his hand with some doggerel song, ending in such a chorus as The rage for a "ticket in the lottery" was a species of monomania with which few people were not infected, from the nobleman who could afford to purchase a whole ticket, VOL. XXXV.-NO. I. For oh! 'tis Bish, 'tis BISH, 'tis BISH, I only wish a friend in Bish, And thirty thousand pound! or a glance at the long list of "Prizes sold by Bish!!!" in former lotteries decides his choice, and to Bish's office, accordingly, he hies. But now interposes another momentous question. What number shall he choose? Three is lucky-so is twelve-seven is decidedly unlucky: there must not be a seven in the number, nor must it be divisible the multiples of twelve-or he will consult a by seven; no, it shall be twelve, or one of selections: he chose Gideon Goose's number friend, who has been fortunate in his former for him, and it was a prize; he advised Tom Fool in his purchase, and it turned up a thousand pounds; yes, he would seek his number likely to win the grand prize. Such lucky friend, and have his opinion as to the ber in the choice of a lottery-ticket; but was the usual manner of fixing upon a numoccasionally a fortune-teller was consulted, and the figures which she pretended to discern-and which the credulity of her dupe readily pointed out in the grounds of coffee or the formation of the fire, were instantly noted down, and the ticket whose number corresponded with them anxiously secured, even at a heavy premium; or, as was the cant term for buying a ticket, "the horse" was "hired." This is no exaggerated picture; the recollection even of many who may read these pages will testify to its truth (for lotteries lingered into the present century). The superstition and credulity of lottery speculators were truly ridiculous. A squinting woman, auguring ill-luck, was the most hideous demon they could encounter; whilst a man, 2 |