Although not quite so noxious as many queer classes in society, who surreptitiously endeavour to come at the contents of others' pockets, the everlasting wagerers whom we have denominated kiddies, from carrying their heads, or their hats, or both awry, when in full operation, are nevertheless equally troublesome and annoying to those, who having cash or credit, would preserve both from being impaired, when compelled by business or drawn by pleasure to mix in general companies.

The consideration of this subject, and the exposition of the whole class, will naturally lead

to some inquiries concerning the better-defined gamblers of whom they are imitators, followers, or apes. Conjoined, they constitute a great portion of the population, the sums they wield are immense, and their speculations often lead to the ruin of many. But, unlike the well-marked gamblers, our mere wagering kiddies scarcely leave to the objects of their choice the option of closing with their propositions, or of declining them. Like flies, they pitch upon every subject, alight upon every topic of discourse, blight every inquiry, are of all sizes, infest every part of town, and buz or bite, according to their capacity of infliction, at every in-door assemblage. Persons prone to laying of wagers pervade every class of society, nearly, including alike those who have no money to lose nor credit to stake in its stead, as well as they to whom addition can be no object, increase bring no new comfort, nor depletion weaken, to whom satiety has administered its full draught, and left nothing to hope for of this world's goods. No matter his station in life, whether he lay a thousand to fifty on the Derby, repeating the same daily, or demands, frequently, "which will you have for the Leger ?" or, not more simply, bet all are equally wagering kiddies.

I like the term vastly; I made it purposely for them, and the better, since 'tis a just one; for they wince at it, as if rebuked.

Unamiable propensity! Vulgar proposal, that is characteristic of the northerns and the Welsh in London; it even enters the shop and counting-house, and is sometimes emitted from the psalm-singing trachea and female lips. What will the reader think of the newmarried wife of our friend, (who has written several pages of the present volume,) the day after their nuptials, exclaiming and this, too, in the teeth of a well-planned excursion ! Though naive in the extreme, and perfectly confidential, it was so completely characteristic of the county (York), that it left an impression thirty years have failed to erase.

At those several places that are distinctly set apart for the purpose of laying wagers, the case is very different; there, where their whole object is clearly understood to be an adventurous speculation, that admits of no other periphrasis than one would define as the fit arena for speculatingin well-calculated chancesof hazard, risk, or odds, against any coming event, whether that be a horse-race, a ship's arrival, a manfight, or a wrestling match, we expect no other conduct. At Lloyd's Coffee-house, for example, the members will take ten to eight that a prince

survives a week from the date of the slip,

nominees; the first being a creditor, perhaps, or an annuitant, who only hopes for payment if the royal patient lives, the other a lessee who will be thrown out of his tenement and his income in case of death. The word

obliging

betting room

laying wagers is excelled in amount by the West-endians; in other words, the horse beat the foot, the room is bigger than the house. I shall return to visit those two places at a subsequent page, with the intention of delicately dissecting a few frequenters of both as samplers of all the rest; meantime

, in , and The St. James's Coffee-house, in the street of the same name, likewise maintain their separate rooms, for bettors upon horse-racing, much the same as at Tattersal's, but for lower amounts. Indeed, both may be considered as addenda to that more ancient place of resort; some of the party retiring, after the sales of the old one cease, to these more modern establishments, to take dinner, to renew their offers of giving and taking odds on races pending, and up to a late hour previous to the start, daring, coaxing, cozening, and cajoling one another into as improvident bets as such means are calculated to superinduce. By the same means was here bolstered up for the Derby of ; and here is much more done than is left undone at Tattersal's, with a stat verbis.

Gaffing.-Although this manner of obtaining the money of another, by apparently fair means, is as old as the Mint, at the same time that it is as juvenile as taw, yet does it deserve notice here, because of the large sums the practice occasions to change hands, notwithstanding its extreme lowness of character. Perhaps, however, this very humbleness, its juvenile origin,

and evident simplicity, combine to recommend it to inexperienced persons, in cash, who may have made up their minds not to play at anygame whatever; those persons mistakenly supposing that

the toss up of a halfpenny

heads or tails

flash-houses,

dibility of his ex parte testimony, by questioning the prosecutor as to his mode of life, place of domicile, trade, &c. Besides the flashhouses, some score, or so, in number, all situated in the vicinity of the theatres, or avenues leading from them, and assuming to be fishshops, coffee or chop houses, this gaffing extends to but few others, and these public-houses, all in the neighbourhood of Covent-garden. In the city, I know of but one such public-house, where gaffing is carried on to any amount, or is pressed upon the visitors, for we here speak of no other, and that is at Moorgate.

And, tospeak truly, the gaffing, though heavy, is carried on at this latter place with more appearance of fairness, as between party and party, than at the similar places in Westminster, just alluded to, viz. Benchester's, Bensols, the Grapes and Black Boy. At the house first- mentioned, a number of pieces are played with, say six, of all sizes, and if the person calling for

man

woman,

he slips the other into his palm, and puts down both. Upon the adversary calling for head, let us suppose, the leg presses the ball of his finger upon the head-piece, and gives it a jerk into his coat-sleeve, which lies flat on the table to receive it; then dropping his arm, the piece of money falls into his hand for a fresh put down, or to make his call in turn. Sometimes the piece to be taken up, or got rid of, lies under the palm of the thief's hand: he then contrives to squeeze his hand so hard upon the coin, that its inequalities press into the moist cuticle, by which means he lifts it from the table, and clasps it with his thieving irons.

Large sums, for such a game, occasionally change hands at the places indicated; ten pounds being no uncommon stake, and when the gaffer is sure of having his piece all correct, he waits and talks, ere he draws up his hand, (always with an air, or jerk,) after betting with all who will take, and doubling or trebling with the principal dupe: by these means, we have seen fifty pounds lost upon a single toss, or put down, and have heard of still larger stakes, that were decided in the same manner at the upper-house, in James-street. At this place, the most obnoxious gaffer, for some years, has been long Jerry, (the son of a respectable leather-man, in Oxford-street,) whom the three authors of Egan's

Life-in-London

first two numbers had come out, and convert into a farmer's son

just come up to see life.

one of the hells, further west,

play.

any gentleman would gaff for a pound, there or any where else;

try his luck once more.

Sporting-houses, in good number, and of every calibre, are spread all over town, from Mile-end-road to Kensington-gore, and in a transverse line, from Hampstead-heath to Cam-

berwell-grove; but, notwithstanding their number, where these are well-marked, or denoted as such without disguise, they elude our censure, though they never may attain our concurrence. Those public-houses, or taverns, that may be kept by men of the prize-ring, those of retired horse-jockeys, or adepts in any other athletic exercise, will ever be frequented by amateurs of such exercises; and in general, the offers of bets, wagers, and odds, on events that are coming off, not only are the natural consequences of such men going into business at all, but it would seem strange if such were not the case. Whoever enters them, must expect this and more, if they join in the heat of the debates that ensue all such for trials of skill, strength, or activity. The same disposition to lay wagers is discoverable every where, more or less: if our London rambler visits the Thames-tunnelling adventure, he may receive odds from its advocates that its completion is sure, and even that the proposer names the year; he may per contra, to advantage, by hedging off among the apocryphals on the spot, and much greater

odds against the undertaking,

rebuked, the ten thousand bets, annually made under his very nose, that Blackfriars' bridge would ruin each jolly young waterman, and the building of Waterloo send their wives and families to the workhouse.

We expect those occurrences, because we ought to believe that such questions would be mooted at the places indicated; but we may be excused from expecting that offers of betting would take root in a genteel private company, or in select parties of any sort, though in a tavern, because we can scarcely believe that, in the society of tradesmen, merchants, men of independence, any one would be found desirous of putting his finger into the purse of his companion, by means of a quirking wager. The jollity usual at a smoking club, may possibly be allowed to effervesce in the repression of hardy assertions, by punishing the offender with a wager, that acts in the way of a fine for over-officious dictation; or, we may smile fifty times at the jejune offer of a dish-of-coffee wager, or a penny-bun bet; but fifty times that number promotes no merriment, adds nothing to a negation of veracity, nor is it wit; and if a troublesome fellow carry a long purse, he pays without caring for the supposed punishment, feels not rebuke in the transaction, and rejoices in the notice he has attracted, if he really did not incur the penalty voluntarily, as a means of avoiding the contempt that total silence brings. How many were the bowls of punch

that we thus inflicted on our right jocund and jolly-faced good friend John Lord, of Newgate-street, during the revolutionary wars, who so far presumed upon our credulity-incited thereto, no doubt, by the dumpling face, and ox-noble cranium of his auditor, to publish frequently a Brussels' Gazette of military victories that never were fought, and of naval exploits, scarcely within the bounds of possibility! Yet was our hand-and-glove friend the beau ideal of Farringdon-within, at his day, all Tory as it then was; whose representatives in common-council looked up to John, as the vraisemblable prototype of our when tried by the two only senses by which royalty is approached. Many were the Jacobin wags who requested our friend to prove the goodness of their guineas, when the lean dogs had any to prove, by comparing his living profile with the obverse of their coin. They were absolutely merry, and wrinkled their parchment fizzes at the thought, when John having finished his eleventh pint of stout, knocked out his pipe, and propounded his new mode of destroying the French armies. He was a soldier, bearing the King's arms as well as his features and faculties, and as lordly a gentleman, let it be said without a pun, as any in the volunteer service; yet would he economise gunpowder in the land-service,

that our sailors might have abundance to throw away in long shot, because they could no otherwise

come at the rascals; but, upon land, depend upon it, no better way can be adopted than going up to them with long poles, and knocking them down, as they do penguins there.

Under none of those circumstances is the practice of laying wagers likely to influence the morals or the manners of the uncontaminated; they who put themselves voluntarily in a way to be so annoyed or taken in, doing so with their eyes open, if they do not, at first opening their eyes in the morning, resolve upon going to the sporting houses or elsewhere, for the express purpose of being taken in; or more disreputably with the ardent hope of taking in some unsuspecting noodle, more silly if possible than themselves. Danger to the pockets and purses of strangers to the ways of life, only begins when they are deluded by an imposing exterior of houses or persons, or mealy-mouthed professions, or some ostensible cause of meeting, that is to cover the ultimate intention of gambling in any of its varieties, of which laying wagers is incipient,introd uctory, and inaugural. says one leg to another;

accordingly the latter proposes, as a test, the height of Achilles, or the depth of the coffer-dam, the number of greyhorses that shall pass up against those that pass down before the clock strikes, for a sovereign--or something equally edifying, but quite unexpected in a party

met together over a friendly dinner,

without an essay pro gradu doctoris, from Scotland, price £3: 14: 7; the blow-up of this transaction and his pretensions in the

Medical Journal,

the Scourge, or monthly Satirist,

choking off

bane and antidote both lie before him?

they manage these things

Before we entirely quit the wagering kiddies and their practices, the reader would desire, probably, to come at a criterion for judging of both, and to know when and how it is they come forth of their chrysalis state, to become gamblers prepense, or finished legs. Whilst I was a citizen of London City, I was equally disposed with my neighbours to look over the conduct of others with an easy glance, and kind indulgence at their failings, provided these interfered nought with the comforts of others, nor attempted the coercion of thought or action. This state of the mind our citizens owe to a greasy atmosphere, fat- enveloped spleen, and general repose of the corporeal system. Hence it was, that, regarding the kiddies of our wagering genus without prejudice, though I could not deny that the practice of laying bets was but so many varied mean attempts to come at the money of others by undue, though excusable means, yet I dressed up my opinion of their motives for laying wagers, and the means of getting off, in the aphoristic form as follows, by way of rebuke.

Were the persons to whom those aphorisms apply downright thorough-paced blackguards and whores, in whom there is no deceit on the score of gentility of behaviour, or decency of conduct, no one ought to express surprise; but men of respectable appearance, some of known stability in trade, not only observe those rules with shameful precision throughout; but, here and there a few capital tradesmen are found to have connected themselves with fellows who undertake to perform certain feats of activity, with the known previous intention of losing the stakes, that their associates may win bets to very large amounts. Some of these last mentioned tricksters I have taken occasion to denounce and expose by name, elsewhere: they reform, I am told, or at least shrink from our ken, and I may, for this once, be excused from repeating the blow. They appear no more on the turf, or in the ring; and I ask for credence without further proof than my own assertion is worth, and this, I take it, goes as far as any man's, in all such affairs at least.

Is it not painful to sit down of an evening in sessions time, with the majority of an Old Bailey jury, and hear them laying quirkish bets that are to take in the unwary ? or, what is the same thing, brag of having done so, after sitting half the day and deciding the fate of poverty-stricken culprits for purloining much less sums than they themselves have stolen, under the semblance of a wager?

Stolen

word, as applied to such an act, and I-shall -not-alter it, notwithstanding an otherwise worthy old acquaintance is the subject of an exemplification of the fact. He read the rough copy in my first book, of , and assented to its justice every time we met, almost until his dying day.

For a great number of years that a friend of mine frequented the respectable companies of tradesmen meeting at the taverns in and about Covent-garden, he was greatly amused with the daily and nightly struggles there exhibited to take money out of each others' pockets, by means of tricky wagers. At one of those, a famous punch-house, nick named from the pattern of their bowls,

the Blue Mark

,

blue mark.

we cannot take it in.

choose to say done! asked the Welsh wagering kiddy. answered a glum old fellow, who did not so much relish the wordy warfare, as he did the smell of the blue mark.

This mode of deciding was greeted as just by the wagering kiddies, and agreed to by the Welsh one; who immediately told them he could

they said, and began to smell a rat.

Our Welshman resumed--

His companion had indeed been that foreman, and had given the verdict in a most peculiar manner on the occasion, but whether with any design upon the gentlemen of that room, is too much to say. Some of them called it and nothing better; whilst a broad-faced north countryman, rather lame of a foot, with snuffling speech, as if he had caught a cold in the Park, wanted to prove, (through his nose,) metaphysically, that the thing was impossible.

said Mr. James, in his usual dry manner, and This was a robbery, and nothing else. And so are all wagers that may be pressed upon any one regarding play, or the events of the turf, that may be coming off; the more general of which are the Derby, Oaks, and Leger-trotting matches, foot-races, and man-fights, many of which are knocked up with the previous knowledge which is to win. Without this guilty pre-knowledge, no doubt exists but that gentlemen may sport their money innocently enough; and so may every other class, order, and genus of society, without either being justly chargeable with more wickedness therefore; since it is to those sports we denominate athletic, that Britain owes her pre-eminence over the nations that hate her institutions, and fear her power, if they do not wonder in astonishment at her domestic feats just enumerated-- to which I will add, without permission, both cudgelling and wrestling. But, when the general predilection for those sports, or any others less conducive to the national glory, is made the handle to help themselves nefariously to the property of honest people, by sets of sharpers, cheats, and swindlers, we know not in what terms sufficiently to reprobate the acts and those engaged in them, as tending to bring odium on those truly British games; to say nothing of the money thus dishonestly subtracted by the kiddies,

from the pockets of the unsuspecting noodles, who carry about them more cash than sense.

Of the great horse-race stakes, just mentioned, it may truly be averred that no man yet born ever had previous knowledge which horse would win, even soon after whence we may safely infer he never will possess that guilty knowledge. Neither can he tell to a certainty which horses will start, even up to the week of running, as any horse may fall lame, die, or change owners in the meantime; but, whenever great sums are laid upon any given horse, pro and con, so many personsjockies, owners, and wagering kiddies, are interested in his defeat, that they join, though they may not conspire, in measures to

shut him out,

sporting-houses,

men, are the chief resort of those

out- and-out bettors

picked up,

If such are the measures pursued by in town, not so honest are those adopted by the wagering kiddies, in respect of the other sports mentioned, including matches of the two horses' race, got up by themselves or

their associates.

going against Time,

on time,

on the horse,

row in the boat,

honour, among thieves,

dog will not eat dog,

too refined for such phrases. Ditto, as regards the prize ring, where the cross-coves have effected similar inroads; ditto, in respect of some pigeon-shooting matches, lately, on the banks of Thames; ditto, as to nearly all foot races and walking-matches, whether against Aeriel, or a more fleshy opponent, in town or country.

In fact, these latter are commonly concocted in town, and

come off

such, but a marker) entered the lists, decidedly the favourite; the party backed him to the last, but with none save each other or their associates, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the bystanders. The racers started, the Captain lost to a nicety, Calfmeat's backers received the stakes, if he really had any besides the London party; and these, upon making up their receipts and payments, found a balance of £4600, to be divided into certain shares, between the worthies, Messieurs Grampias, Bronteman, Grouch, Priestby, and Barker.

At the settlement and division of the spoil. a boggle arose, which threatened a bubbery and split; and this was the manner in which the facts came out: Priestby had started a sum off to London, before the hour of settling came, and the Bronteman could no otherwise obtain his share of the plunder (some seven or eight hundred pounds) than by taking paper from Priestby, i. e. stiff, in the form of -a promise he has not kept to this day. * * * * * * * *

And this was the way the row began That told folks the way the cross-coves ran.

[] WAGERING, PERVADES ALL CLASSES.

[] BETTING AT LLOYD'S-THE SPEC.

[] TATTERSALS'-THE ODDS ON RACING

[] AND BOXING: COFFEE-HOUSE BETTING.

[] GAFFING, AT COFFEE-SHOP AND TAVERN;

[] TWO-SIDED PIECES, HOW FORMED.

[1] So managed, by rubbing down one side each of two pieces, to half the thickness, (or less) of either, and joining them together again, secundum artem, which may be done without soldering.

[] PRACTICE OF TOSSING: PASS, PRESTO.

[] JERRY, THE GAFFER, LIFE AND EXPLOITS.

[] SPORTING-HOUSES; WELL DEFINED.

[] WAGERS ON ALL TOPICS; PRIVATE PARTIES.

[] THE REAL CITIZEN, A CHARACTER.

[] PROFESSED WAGERERS, INVEIGLE.

[] PRIVATE LEG PRACTICES; A CHARACTER.

[] INSIGNIA OF GAMBLING, ADMONITORY.

[] BASE WAGERING APHORISMS;

[] APPLY TO DECENT PEOPLE.

[] A DEAD TAKE-IN WAGER.

[] WELSH WAGERING KIDDIES.

[] ATHLETIC SPORTS BENEFICIAL.

[] HORSE RACING BETS; SHUTTING OUT.

[] TROTTING, PIGEON MATCH, PUGILISTIC,

[] FOOT RACE AND WALKING WAGERS:

[] KNOWING ONES, DO EACH OTHER.