said the other, uncovering his breast and displaying it all
bloody with lacerations.
It is only at play that we can observe, from moment to moment,
all the phases of
despair; from time to time there occur new
ones--strange,
eccentric, or terrible. After having lost
quietly, and even with serenity, half his fortune, the father of
a family staked the
remainder, and lost it without a murmur.
Facere solent extrema securos mala.[9] The bystanders looked at
him; his features changed not; only it was perceived that they
were fixed. It seemed that he was
unconscious of life. Two
streams of tears trickled from his eyes, and yet his features
remained the same. He was
literally a
weepingstatue. The
spectators were seized with
fright, and, although gamesters, they
melted into pity.
[9] 'Great calamities render us CARELESS.'
At Bayonne, in 1725, a French officer, in a rage at billiards,
jammed a billiard-ball in his mouth, where it stuck fast,
arresting
respiration, until it was, with difficulty, extracted
by a
surgeon. Dusaulx states that he was told the fact by a
lieutenant-general, who was an eye-witness.
It is well known that
gamblers, like dogs that bite a stone flung
at them, have eaten up the cards, crushed up the dice, broken the
tables, damaged the furniture, and finally 'pitched into' each
other--as described by Lucian in his Saturnalia. Dusaulx assures
us that he saw an enraged
gambler put a burning candle into his
mouth, chew it, and
swallow it. A mad
player at Naples bit the
table with such
violence that his teeth went deep into the wood;
thus he remained, as it were, nailed to it, and suddenly expired.
The other
players took to
flight; the officers of justice visited
the place; and the
corpse was deprived of the usual
ceremony of
burial.[10]
[10] Gazette de Deux-Ponts, du 26 Novembre, 1772.
The following strange but
apparentlyauthentic fact, is
relatedin the Mercure Francois (Tome I. Annee 1610).
'A man named Pennichon, being a prisoner in the Conciergerie
during the month of September, 1610, died there of a wonderfully
sudden death. He could not
refrain from play. Having one day
lost his money, he uttered
frightful imprecations against his
body and against his soul, swearing that he would never play at
cards again. Nevertheless, a few days after, he began to play
again with those in his
apartment, and on a
dispute respecting
discarding, he
repeated his execrable oaths. And when one of the
company told him he should fear the Divine justice, he only swore
the more, and made such
confusion that there had to be another
deal. But as soon as three other cards were given him, he placed
them in his hat, which he held before him, and
whilst looking at
them, with his elbows on the table and his face in the hat, he so
suddenly expired that one of the party said--"Come, now play,"
and pushed him with his elbow, thinking he was asleep, when he
fell down dead upon the floor.'
In some cases the effect of losses at play is simply
stupefaction. Some
players, at the end of the sitting, neither
know what they do nor what they say. M. de Crequi, afterwards
Duc de Lesdiguieres, leaving a gambling party with Henry IV.,
after losing a large sum, met M. de Guise in the court-yard of
the castle. 'My friend,' said he to the latter, 'where are the
quarters of the Guards now-a-days?' M. de Guise stepped back,
saying, 'Excuse me, sir, I don't belong to this country,' and
immediately went to the king, whom he greatly amused with the
anecdote.
A dissipated buck, who had been sitting all night at Hazard, went
to a church, not far from St James's, just before the second
reading of the Lord's Prayer, on Sunday. He was scarcely seated
before he dozed, and the clerk in a short time bawled out AMEN,
which he
pronounced A--main. The buck jumped up half asleep and
roared out, 'I'll bet the caster 20 guineas!' The congregation
was thrown into a titter, and the buck ran out, overwhelmed with
shame. A similar
anecdote is told of another 'dissipated buck'
in a church. The grand
masquerade given on the
opening of the
Union Club House, in Pall Mall, was not entirely over till a late
hour on the following Sunday. A young man nearly
intoxicated--certainly not
knowing what he was about-- reeled
into St. James's church, in his
masquerade dress, with his hat
on. The late Rev. Thomas Bracken, attracted by the noise of his
entrance, looked directly at him as he chanced to deliver the
following words:--'Friend! how camest thou in
hither, not having
on a
wedding garment?' It seemed so to strike the
culprit that
he
instantly took off his hat and
withdrew in
confusion.
At play, a
winner redoubles his
caution and sang-froid just in
proportion as his
adversary gets bewildered by his losses,
becoming
desperate; he takes
advantage of the
weakness of the
latter, giving him the law, and striving for greater success.
When the luck changes, however, the case is reversed, and the
former loser becomes, in his turn, ten times more pitiless--like
that Roman prefect, mentioned by Tacitus, who was the more
inexorable because he had been
harshly treated in his youth, co
immmitior quia toleraverat. The joy at
winning back his money
only makes a gamester the more covetous of
winning that of his
adversary. A
wealthy man once lost 100,000 crowns, and begged to
be allowed to go and sell his property, which was worth double
the
amount he had lost. 'Why sell it?' said his
adversary; 'let
us play for the
remainder.' They played; luck changed; and the
late LOSER ruined the other.
Sometimes avidity makes terrible mistakes; many, in order to win
more, have lost their all to persons who had not a
shilling to
lose. During the depth of a
severe winter, a gamester beheld
with
terror the bottom of his purse. Unable to
resolve on
quitting the gaming table--for
players in that condition are
always the most stubborn--he shouted to his valet--'Go and fetch
my great sack.' These words, uttered without design, stimulated
the cupidity of those who no longer cared to play with him, and
now they were eager for it. His luck changed, and he won thrice
as much as he had lost. Then his 'great sack' was brought to
him: it was a BEAR-SKIN SACK he used as a cloak!
In the
madness of gaming the
player stakes everything after
losing his money--his watch, his rings, his clothing; and some
have staked their EARS, and others their very LIVES-- instances
of all which will be
related in the sequel.
Not very long ago a publican, who lost all his money, staked his
public-house, lost it, and had to 'clear out.' The man who won
it is alive and flourishing.
'The debt of honour must be paid: 'these are the terrible words
that haunt the gamester as he wakes (if he has slept) on the
morning after the night of horrors: these are the furies that
take him in hand, and drag him to
torture, laughing the while. .
. .
What a 'sensation' it must be to lose one's ALL! A man,
intoxicated with his gains, left one gaming house and entered
another. As soon as he entered he exclaimed, 'Well, I am filled,
my pockets are full of gold, and here goes, ODDS OR EVEN?'
'Odds,' cried a
player. It was ODDS, and the
fortunatewinnerpocketed the
enormous sum just boasted of by the other.
On the other hand, sudden
prosperity has deranged more heads and
killed more people than reverses and grief; either because it
takes a longer time to get convinced of utter ruin than great
good fortune, or because the
instinct of self- preservation
compels us to seek, in
adversity, for resources to mitigate
despair;
whereas, in the
assault of
excessive joy, the soul's
spring is distended and broken when it is suddenly
compressed by
too many thoughts and too many sensations. Sophocles, Diagoras,
Philippides, died of joy. Another Greek expired at the sight of
the three crowns won by his three sons at the Olympic games.