if there were not six in the game.' These wishes were several
times
repeated both then and afterwards. Upon this the candle
was put out by a party present, who said he was shocked with the
oaths and expressions he heard, and that he put out the candle
with a design to put an end to the game. Presently upon this
they adjourned to another house, and there began a fresh game,
when Parsons and his
partner had great success. They then played
at Loo again till four in the morning. During the second playing
Parsons complained to one Rolles, his
partner, of a bad pain in
his leg, which from that time increased. There was an appearance
of a swelling, and afterwards the colour changing to that of a
mortified state. On the following Sunday he took advice of a
surgeon, who attended him until his death. Notwithstanding all
the applications that were made the mortification increased, and
showed itself in different parts of the body. He was visited by
a
clergyman, who administered the sacrament to him, without any
knowledge of what had happened before--the man appearing to be
extremely
ignorant of religion, having been accustomed to swear,
to drink, to game, and to
profane the Sabbath. After receiving
the sacrament he said--'Now, I must never sin again.' He hoped
God would
forgive him, having been
wicked not above six years,
and that
whatever should happen he would not play at cards again.
After this he was in great agony--chiefly delirious; spoke of his
companions by name, and seemed as if his
imagination was engaged
at cards. He started, had distracted looks and gestures, and in
a
dreadful fit of shaking and trembling died on the 4th of March,
just about a
fortnight after the
utterance of his terrible
imprecation.
The
worthysheriff of Gloucestershire goes on to say that the
man's eyes were open when he died, and could not be closed by the
common method, so that they remained open when he was put into
the
coffin. From this circumstance arose a report that he WISHED
HIS EYES MIGHT NEVER CLOSE; 'but,' says the
sheriff, 'this is a
mistake; for, from the most creditable witnesses, I am fully
convinced no such wish was uttered; and the fact is, that he did
close his eyes after he was taken with the mortification, and
either dozed or slept several times.
'When the body came to be laid out, it appeared all over
discoloured or spotted; and it might, in the most literal sense,
be said, that his flesh rotted on his bones before he died.'
At the request of the
sheriff, the
surgeon (a Mr Pegler) who
attended the
unfortunate man, sent in the following report:--
'Sir,--You desire me to
acquaint you, in
writing, with what I
know relating to the
melancholy case of the late Richard Parsons;
a request I
readilycomply with, hoping that his sad catastrophe
will serve to
admonish all those who
profane the
sacred name of
God.
'February 27th last I visited Richard Parsons, who, I found, had
an inflamed leg, stretching from the foot almost to the knee,
tending to a gangrene. The tenseness and redness of the skin was
almost gone off, and became of a duskish and livid colour, and
felt very lax and flabby. Symptoms being so dangerous, some
incisions were made down to the quick, some spirituous
fomentations made use of, and the whole limb dressed up with such
applications as are most approved in such desperate
circumstances, joined with proper
internal medicines. The next
day he seemed much the same; but on March the 1st he was worse,
the incisions discharged a sharp fetid odor (which is generally
of the worst consequence). On the next day, which was Sunday,
the symptoms seemed to be a little more favourable; but, to my
great surprise, the very next day I found his leg not only
mortified up to the knee, but the same began anew in four
different parts, viz., under each eye, on the top of his
shoulder, and on one hand; and in about twelve hours after he
died. I shall not
presume to say there was anything supernatural
in the case; but, however, it must be confessed, that such cases
are rather
uncommon in subjects so young, and of so good a habit
as he had always been
previous to his illness.'
On one occasion Justice Maule was about to pass
sentence on a
prisoner, who upon being asked to say why judgment should not be
pronounced, 'wished that God might strike him dead if he was not
innocent of the crime.' After a pause, the judge said:--'As the
Almighty has not thought proper to
comply with your request, the
sentence of the court is,' &c.
A SAD REMINDER.
Every Englishman recollects the fate of that
unhappy heiress, the
richest of all Europe, married to a man of rank and family, who
was plundered in the course of a few years of the whole of his
wealth, in one of those club houses, and was obliged to surrender
himself to a common prison, and
ultimately fly from his country,
leaving his wife with her relations in the greatest
despair and
despondency.'[23]
[23] Rouge et Noir: the Academicians of 1823.
GEORGE IV.
There are few departments of human
distinction in which Great
Britain cannot boast a 'celebrity'--genteel or ungenteel. In the
matter of gambling we have been unapproachable--not only in the
'thorough'
determination with which we have exhausted the
pursuit--but in the vast, the
fabulous millions which make up the
sum total that Englishmen have 'turned over' at the gaming table.
I think that many thousands of millions would be 'within the
mark' as the
contribution of England to the insatiate god of
gambling.
I have presented to the reader the record of gambling all the
world over--the gambling of savages--the gambling of the ancient
Persians, Greeks, and Romans--the gambling of the gorgeous
monarchs of France and their impassioned subjects; but I have now
to introduce upon the
horrible stage a Prince Royal, who
surpassed all his predecessors in the gaming art, having right
royally lost at play not much less than a million
sterling, or,
as stated, L800,000--before he was twenty-one years of age!
If the following be facts, vouched for by a
writer of
authority,[24] the results were most atrocious.
[24] James Grant (Editor of the Morning Advertiser), Sketches in
London.
'Every one is aware that George IV., when Prince of Wales, was,
as the common
phrase is, over-head-and-ears in debt; and that it
was because he would
thereby be enabled to meet the claims of his
creditors, that he consented to marry the Princess Caroline of
Brunswick. But although this is known to every one,
comparatively few people are
acquainted with the circumstances
under which his debts were
contracted. Those debts, then, were
the result of losses at the gaming table. He was an inveterate
gambler--a habit which he most probably
contracted through his
intimacy with Fox. It is a well-ascertained fact that in two
short years, after he attained his majority, he lost L800,000 at
play.
'It was with the view and in the hope that marriage would cure
his propensity for the gaming table, that his father was so
anxious to see him united to Caroline; and it was
solely on
account of his marriage with that
princess constituting the only
condition of his debts being paid by the country, that he agreed
to lead her to the hymeneal altar.
'The
unfortunate results of this union are but too well known,
not only as regarded the parties themselves, but as regarded
society generally. To the gambling habits, then, of the Prince
of Wales are to be ascribed all the unhappiness which he entailed