CROCKFORD'S GAMING HOUSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7329, 15 February 1902, Page 2

CROCKFORD'S GAMING HOUSE.

Interest Revived ia a Famous London Club. Beerbohm Tree's production of Clyde Fitch's " Last of the Dandies " has aroused interest in two features of the mid-nine-teenth century, Crockford's gambling house and the fashions in men's clothing at that period (writes a London correspondent). With regard to the former, Wyatt, the most eminent architect of the day, • "was employed to design the building. Its ■ magnificent vestibule arid staircase, its' fine domed hall, its nobly proportioned rooms and its gorgeous internal decorations, on which alone Crockford is said to have ■ spent £94,000, were the wonder and admiration of all. who beheld them. A contemporary account describes the drawing-rooms, or "real hell of this new pandemonium," as consisting of only four chambers, "the first an ante-room, opening to a saloon embellished to a degree which baffles description, thence to a small, curiously formed cabinet, or boudoir, whioh opens to the supper-room." These rooms, we are told,, were " panelled in the most gorgeous manner, .spaces being left to 'be filled up with. 'mirrors and silk. or gold embellishments," the ceilings being as superb as the walls." - A billiard-room on the upper floor completed the number of apartments " prof essedly dedicated to the use of the members." But the writer of this evidently inspired account adds, "Whenever any secret manoeuvre is to be carried on there are smaller and more retired places^ both under this roof and the next, whoso walLs will tell no tales." . • The place was regularly organised as • a club, and the election of members, who paid an annual subscription of £25, -was ■ vested in a comml'tWe .61 nobletnen and" ' gentlemen, in order tok^ep the company as select as possible. Crockford's quickly became the rage. The Duke of Wellington was one of the original members, and its habitues, in addition to a thousand: or twelve hundred of the best-known men in London, included all the great foreign diplomatists, such as Prince Talleyrand, Count Pozzo di Borgo, General Alava, the Duke of Palmella, Prince Esterhazy, the .French, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Austrian Ambassadors. In fact/ all persons of distinction and eminence who arrived in England seem to have belonged to Grockford's.as a matter . of course. f .-.'.■ .:.•.■■■ ': ■:"• The cuisine was of unrivalled 1 excellence, and among other advantages of membership was the privilege 6f dining at a very low price from a- bill of fare provided by those great culinary artists, Ude and Francatelli. Ude, with whom the establishment opened, received a salary of £1200 a year, with, we may presume, other NOT* INCONSIDERABLE EMOI/OMENTS. Abraham Haywaid used 1 to tell an amusing story showing that even this great artist sometimes failed of- ihis -dae recognition. Colonel Darner, happening to enter ' Crockford's one evening 'to 'dine 'early, found Ude walking up arid down in a towering (passion, and inquired) what was the matter. "The matter, Monsieur le Colonel! Did you see that man who has just gone out? Well, he ordered a red mullet for his dinner. I made him a delicious little sauce with my own hands. The price of the mullet marked on the carte was 2s; I added 6d for the sauce. He refuses to pay the 6d. That imbecile apparently believes that the red mullets come out of the sea. with my sauce in their -pockets !" But although the 'iflenibers vof ' Cropkv. ford's were a particularly exacting set of gourmets, it was gerierally admitted xtaat both Ude and Francateili, in their turn, were unsurpassable in London. Captain Gronow, in his entertaining "Beniiniscences and Recollections," a book which has evidently been carefully studied by the management of Her Majesty's Theatre, gives a lively description of the dandies who nightly thronged Crockford's rooms. Beards, he says, were completely unknown, and the rare moustache was only seen on the lips of officers of the Household Brigade or of Hussar regiments. Stiff, white neckcloths, blue coats; with, 'brass buttons, rather -shbrt-waisted white waistcoats, and tremendously embroidered shirt-fronts with gorgeous studs of great value, were considered the right thing. " A late deservedly popular colonfel in the Guards used to give Storr and Mortimer £25 a year to furnish him with a new set of studs every Saturday night during the London season." Gronow declares that the tone of the club was excellent and entirely free from rudeness, familiarity and ill-breeding, such as he found in some London club 3 of a later date. Not only was there, he says, the most agreeable conversation,, interesting anecdotes, and brilliant sallies of wit, but also "grave political discussion and acute logical reasoning on every, conceivable subject," among the soldiers, scholars, statesmen, poets and men of pleasure who^ when the House was up, and balls and parties at an end, " delighted to finish their evening with a little supper and a good deal of hazard at Old Crockey's." The little supper cost them no-thing, for all who patronised the hazard-tables were provided with every luxury of the season, accompanied by the best wines in the world, gratis and ad libitum ;. but the hazard cost them usually the greater part of whatever they happened to risk. HEAVY LC-SERS. A nobleman known as "Le Wellington des Joueurs " one night lost £23,000 at a sitting, and he and three other noblemen are said to have lost in all at Crockford's about £100,000 apiece. Toward the end of his life Lord Sefton beoame a constant attendant at the table; and it was generally believed that he left behind him there no less a sum than £200,000. Captain Gronow admits that enormous stakes were played for by Lords Lichfield and Chesterfield, Count D'Orsay and others whom he names; but the magnitude of the losses impressed him less than the extraordinary equanimity with which they were borne, " a gentlemanly bearing and calm and unmoved demeanour" being, we are told, a characteristic of all the men of that generation. They must certainly have needed all the stoical philosophy they could summon up, for their eulogist goes on to say that ."Crockford won the whole of the ready money of the then existing generation." 1 By the agreement with his committee, Crockford was bound to put down a bank of £5000 nightly "during the sitting of Parliament," and it appears that a large number of our legislators, hereditary and elective, made themselves much more conspicuous in his rooms in St James's Street than they did in St Stephen's. One of the popular skits of the day says: — Large money 'bills and loans they tried to raise; ' , - , King Crockford took their means, and praised their ways. Crockford, says a . contemporary writer who knew him. was a walking Domesday

Book, in which were registered the day and hour of birth of each rising expectant of fortune. He could tell with the nicest exactitude the rent rolls of property in. perspective, to wbafc cxtenb such rent rolls had been anticipated hy apparent heirs, and Avhat further encumbrance they would reasonably bear. His i-ecommeiidation seldom failed to secure the election of a candidate lor membership of the club, and all who came, " Counts and Commoners, peers and professionals, senators and stock jobbers, were plucked bare as pigeons for a, pasty to swell the enormous gains of this great Demon of Pandemonium." It has never been suggested that the play at Crockford's was not perfectly fair. In fact, there was no need for cheating. The odds at hazard are so largely in favour of the keeper of the bank that • most of such harpies as have had sufficient capital to hold out have AMASSED CONSIDERABLE FORTUNES. The extent of the business done at Crockford's may he gauged by the fact that the dice, used in playing, costing about a guinea a set, entailed on him an expenditure of about £2000 a year. While still a comparatively young man, and in partnership with Gye, who afterward became his steward, agent and general- factotum at the club in St James's Street, Crockford is said 1 to have won at a single sitting from Lords Thanet and Gran* ville, Mr Ball Hughes and two other< gentlemen, whose names are unknown to fame, the enormous sum of £100,000. Gye must have received a. salary at least equal to that of a Cabinet Minister ; for when, in consequence of some difference with his employer, he was dismissed, it turned out that he had managed to save no less a sum than £30,000. With this capital in hand, he became first a betting man on the turf, then a speculating builder, and lastly, in imitation of his old master, the proprietor o£ a gaming "hell" in St James's Street. But all his undertakings proved! •unsuccessful, and he died a pauper, in the workhouse of his native place in Essex. Crockford's career was less in accordance with poetic justice. ' ... HE STARTED IX LIFE AS A SMALL FISHMONGER in a shop adjoining Temple Bar. Subsequently he became a prominent and successful man at TattersaU's. Then he developed into the owner of a racing stud, with a fine house and grounds at Newmarket. And afterward', when hazard became a popular game in London, in 1820, he set up his first gaming house in the West End of the town. After carrying on this lucrative business for some years in partnership with others, an exceptionally profitable season induced him to open the palatial club in St James's Street, which was known toy his name., When he retired from the management of this club, in five years' :time, -he owasesti?. mated to be worth about fil^OO^OO.- Some of his later speculations turned out ill. He invested largely in unprofitable building speculations, and sank a large sum of money in a disastrous mining . venture in .Flintshire. But he had too much in reserve to suffer the fate of his mdnion Gye. _, When he died, at the age of sixty-nine, in his .princely mansion in Carlton House Terrace, his personal property was sworn at £200.000, while his real estate amounted to £150,000 more. After the passing of the Act of 1846, which made gambling debts irrecoverable in a court? of law, the gambling houses of London began to decline. « "' " . , . " CrtfekfordV at ttertoecoming a'military,nava'l and county service club of 'short duration," and afterward a cheap restaurant, called "The Wellington," finally, settled down into the decorous Devonshire Club of the present day.