London Clubs, Their History & Treasures by Ralph Nevill--A Project Gutenberg eBook

3rd. Ld. Montfort gives Ld. Waldegrave one guinea, to receive 10 gs. when he rides 20 miles within the third day.

4th. Ld. Montfort gives Mr. Watson 1 guinea, to receive 10 gs. when he rides 15 miles within the fourth day.

5th. Ld. Montfort gives Ld. Downe 1 guinea, to receive 10 gs. when he rides 10 miles within the fifth day.

6th. Ld. Montfort gives Ld. Howe 1 guinea to receive 10 guineas when he rides 5 miles within the Sixth day.

Another wager of this nobleman dealt with the matrimonial intentions of the proprietor of White’s:

Ld. Montfort wagers Ld. Ravensworth one hundred guineas, Duke of Devonshire Fifty guineas, and Ld. Hartington fifty guineas, that Mr. Arthur is not married in three year from ye date hereof, March 11th, 1754.

N.B. Bob goes Twenty guineas with Ld. Montfort in this bet.^[3] (Now Sir Robt. Mackreth.)

3. A note added: “‘Bob,’ the waiter, married the daughter of Mr. Arthur, the proprietor of the club, became prosperous, and was afterwards knighted. He was subsequently Member for Castle Rising.”

The following are a few of the very numerous bets of which account is given in this curious record:

Mr. Cadogan engages to pay Mr. Willis twenty guineas, in consideration of one guinea received from him, whenever he has in his possession, either by purchase or gift, a Post Chaise with a crane neck.

The following bet, recorded in 1813, would appear to refer to some incident in the life of Mr. Creevy which has escaped notice:

Col. Osborn bets Sir J. Copley 5 gs. that Mr. Creevy is imprisoned before the announcement of the capture of Dantzic is received.

Mr. Methuen bets Col. Stanhope ten guineas to 1, that a certain worthy Baronet understood between them does not of necessity part with his gold ice-pails, before this day twelvemonth; the ice-pails being found at a pawnbroker’s, will not entitle Col. Stanhope to receive his ten guineas.

Mr. Raikes bets Sir Joseph Copley ten guineas that he does not play at cards or dice at any Club in London in a year from this date.

Lord Binning bets Lord Falmouth five guineas that a Roman Catholic Bishop upon formally abjuring his Catholic faith, may be made a Protestant Bishop without any new ordination in the Protestant Church.

Lord George Bentinck bets Col. Walpole a Rouleau that the Duke of St. Albans marries Mrs. Coutts within six months of this day. Ld. Elliott stands half the bet with Ld. G. Bentinck.

Lord Maidstone bets Ld. Kelburne six bets of £50 each that he has six horses now in his own stable which he will ride over and shall clear a 5 feet wall in the Leath country in Lincolnshire.

Lord Adolphus FitzClarence bets Mr. George Bentinck £10 that there is not a shot fired in anger in London during the year 1851.

Mr. F. Cavendish bets Mr. H. Brownrigg 2/1 that he does not kill the bluebottle fly before he goes to bed.

At one time very large sums changed hands over the whist-table at White’s. One of the most distinguished gamblers was Lord Rivers, known in Paris as Le Wellington des Joueurs. This nobleman, it is said, once lost £3,400 at whist by not remembering that the seven of hearts was in! He played at hazard for the highest stakes that anyone could be got to play, and at one time was supposed to have won nearly £100,000; but all, together with a great deal more, went at Crockford’s.

In earlier days White’s appears to have been an occasional resort of very queer characters indeed. In Hogarth’s gambling scene at White’s we see the highwayman, with the pistols peeping out of his pocket, waiting by the fireside till the heaviest winner takes his departure, in order to recoup himself of his losings. And in the “Beaux’ Stratagem,” Aimwell asks of Gibbet: “Ha’n’t I seen your face at White’s?”

M’Clean, the fashionable highwayman, had a lodging in St. James’s Street, over against White’s; and he was as well known about St. James’s as any gentlemen who lived in that quarter, and who, perhaps, went upon the road, too. When M’Clean was taken, in 1750, Horace Walpole tells us that Lord Mountfort, at the head of half White’s, went the first day; his aunt was crying over him. As soon as they were withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White’s: “My dear, what did the Lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of them?”

Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, who had originally been an officer, was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table at White’s, to which he resorted even when in high office—a habit alluded to in the following lines:

General Scott, the father-in-law of George Canning and the Duke of Portland, was known to have won at White’s £200,000, thanks to his notorious sobriety and knowledge of this game. The General possessed a great advantage over his companions by avoiding the excesses which used not unfrequently to muddle their brains. He confined himself to dining off something very light, such as a boiled chicken with toast and water, and in consequence always came to the whist-table with a clear head. Possessing a remarkable memory, with great coolness of judgment, he was able honestly to win the enormous sum of £200,000.

At Almack’s, a rival institution to White’s, there was also much high play. According to the rule of the house, every player had to keep not less than twenty to fifty guineas on the table in front of him, and often there was as much as £10,000 in gold on the table. The players, before sitting down at the gaming-table, removed their embroidered clothes and substituted frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside out for luck. They also put on short leather sleeves to save their lace ruffles, and in order to guard their eyes from the light and keep their hair in order they wore high-crowned straw hats, with broad brims adorned with flowers and ribbons; whilst to conceal their emotions they also wore shades or masks.

George Selwyn, one evening at White’s, saw a member connected with the postal service, Sir Everard Fawkener (the present writer’s great-grandfather, and an indifferent card-player), losing a large sum of money at piquet. Selwyn, pointing to the successful player, remarked: “See now, he is robbing the mail!”

On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr. Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a hazard-table at Newmarket, “Look,” he said, “how easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!”

Of the gambling at White’s in former days so much has been written that it would be superfluous to dwell upon this phase in the history of the club when George Selwyn played night after night. Selwyn, however, was something more than a mere gambler, and possessed in a conspicuous degree the power of scourging folly and self-pretension. The following is an instance of his powers in this direction:

One morning, when Selwyn was at the home of the Duke of Queensberry, a newly-appointed Commissioner of Taxes made his appearance. This man was in a tumult of joy at his preferment; but, though it was to the Duke he had primarily been indebted for his good fortune, he hardly thanked him; for he was possessed with the notion that it was from his own merit that he had acquired the promotion. Entering the room, he assumed several consequential airs, thinking that he was now as great a man as the Duke himself.

“So, Mr. Commissioner,” said Selwyn—“you will excuse me, sir, I forget your name—you are at length installed, I find.” The word “installed” conveyed an awkward idea; for the new Commissioner’s grandfather had been a stable-boy.

“Why, sir,” replied the other, “if you mean to say that I am at length appointed, I have the pleasure to inform you that the business is settled. Yes, I am appointed; and though our noble friend, the Duke here, did oblige me with letters to the Minister, yet these letters were of no use; and I was positively promoted to the office without knowing a syllable about the matter, or even taking a single step in it.”

“No, not one, upon my honour,” replied the new-fledged placeman. “Egad, sir! I did not walk a foot out of my way for it.”

“And egad, sir!” retorted Selwyn, “you never before uttered half so much truth in so few words. Reptiles, sir, can neither walk nor take steps—nature ordained they should creep.”

Like many men of his day, Selwyn did and said many things which a later age would call very snobbish. Happening to be at Bath when it was nearly empty, he was induced, for the mere purpose of killing time, to cultivate the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman he was in the habit of meeting in the Rooms. In the height of the following season Selwyn encountered his old associate in St. James’s Street. He endeavoured to pass unnoticed, but in vain. “What! do you not recollect me?” exclaimed the indignant provincial. “I recollect you perfectly,” replied Selwyn, “and when I next go to Bath I shall be most happy to become acquainted with you again.”

Though Selwyn appears to have preferred White’s, he did not entirely confine his attention to it. It was in his day the fashion to belong to as many clubs as possible—Wilberforce, indeed, mentions no fewer than five to which he himself belonged: Brooks’s, Boodle’s, White’s, Miles and Evans’s in New Palace Yard, and Goosetree’s, on the site of which stands the Marlborough. As their names imply, all these clubs were originally mere coffee-houses, kept by men of the above names, the most celebrated of whom, next to the proprietors of White’s, was Brookes, or Brooks, who founded the present club in St. James’s Street.