The Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, at the time of which I am writing, was as crotchety a specimen of the old school as the Peninsular had ever turned out.  Clean shaved, with a Waterloo expression of countenance, Sir George Browne was about the last of Wellington’s veterans who held a high command.  Despotic and vindictive if thwarted, he had a squabble with the railway companies, and retaliated by vetoing henceforth the transit of troops by rail, and a regiment ordered from Londonderry to Cork did the entire distance by route march.  Not that the ordeal was without its advantages, for it enabled British regiments to form their own opinions of Irish hospitality and the numerous good qualities of that much-misunderstood race.  Proceeding in detachments of two and three companies, every night found them billeted in the towns or villages through which they passed, and it was no rare occurrence for the landed proprietors to ride out and insist that every officer should stay at the Manor House, and to send supplies of comforts wherewith to regale the men.

Riding out to welcome the regiment, no refusal was listened to, and within an hour every officer was comfortably settled at Borris Castle, and the men fared proportionately as well.

But the monotony of these tedious pilgrimages will not bear narration.  Suffice it that having landed at Cork we received orders, much to our delight, to proceed direct to Dublin instead of to dismal Templemore.

The craze for punting that we had experienced in London seemed, indeed, to have crossed the Channel, and when the officers had severally been elected honorary members, it was found that the Hibernian United Service Club was the hotbed of about the highest play they had yet encountered.  Nightly, with the precision of a chronometer, ten o’clock found the spacious card room crammed to its uttermost limits, and Irish banknotes, varying from one to ten sovereigns in value, were literally stacked a foot high on either side of the table.  All through the night these terrible duels continued, and it was no uncommon thing to leave the room and drive like blazes for morning parade at ten.  The garrison in this memorable year was an exceptionally “high-play” one, consisting, amongst others, of the 4th and 11th Hussars, 9th Lancers, the Royal Dragoons, Highlanders, and Rifle Brigade, and during that winter fabulous sums were lost by men incapable of meeting their obligations.

The Committee, meanwhile, were roused to action, and peremptory orders were given that the gas was to be turned off punctually at 2 a.m.; but the extinction of the gas was the signal for the appearance of substitutes, and out of some two hundred pockets wax candles were brought forth, and the game proceeded as vigorously as ever.

It may be explained that this really delightful club possessed a dozen bedrooms, and on the particular occasion of which we are writing, one was in the occupation of Sir James Jackson, G.C.B., as irritable an old Peninsular veteran as a merciful Providence had spared to the sixties.  A cavalry man of the old school, he invariably wore spurs, and no human eye had ever seen him without these useful appendages—a small blue moustache carefully waxed, and a bald head with blue tufts on either side completed the picture of this irritable old warrior who ate his dinner every day in the club, and never spoke to a soul.

Play, meanwhile, was proceeding apace, with calls of “King,” “Fifty more wanted this side,” “D— it, blaze away,” “The pool’s made,” gracefully interspersed, when the door suddenly opened, and an apparition in flowing dressing-gown, nightcap, slippers, and spurs demanded peremptorily that the game should cease.  To refuse the colonel-in-chief of the Carabineers would, of course, have been impossible, and as the old warrior retired to his couch the punters left the club.

Ruin, meanwhile, had overtaken many an irreproachable man, and L—, of the Royals, K— of the Rifle Brigade, and a score of others, had no alternative but to send in their papers, and then the Commander-in-Chief came upon the scene, and swore, as only a Waterloo veteran could, that if any officer again transgressed he would send the regiment to the worst station between Hell and Halifax.

Two-pound points to £10 on the rubber were the staple stakes of even the sober old Whist, and then one was looked upon as depriving a better man of the seat unless prepared to bet an extra hundred.  Old fogies, who had never previously risked a shilling, would cautiously creep to the table, and nervously tender half-crowns, till frightened out of their lives by Tony Fawcett, of the 9th Lancers, shouting, “D— it, sir, this isn’t a silver hell!” and then, not to be beaten, they would club together and make up the requisite sovereign.

Gus Anson, V.C., M.P., the most popular man of the day, was so impregnated with the epidemic that although at the time piloting an important Bill through Parliament, he had given me a standing order that as soon as a sufficient number were assembled for loo or baccarat, a telegram was to be despatched to him forthwith, and numerous were the messages that found their way to the sacred precincts of the House between ten and twelve at night, addressed to Colonel the Honourable Augustus Anson, V.C., M.P., presumedly from constituents.

Brighton, too, suffered from the epidemic, and during the Sussex fortnight the fever spread to an alarming extent.  The London detachments came down en bloc, and all the best houses and leading hotels were filled with roysterers, and high play was the rule from night till morning.

In preparation for the nightly orgies that commenced about ten, the bloods inaugurated a delightful system whereby the maximum of fresh air with the minimum of exertion might be obtained prior to the inhaling of the foul currents amid which they proposed to revel for the rest of the night.

To meet the requirements of the case, every wheelchair was bespoken or engaged for the entire week at a considerable advance in price, and a procession, usually headed by George Chetwynd, Billy Milner and Billy Call—to whom the honour of the inception is credited—might nightly be seen wending its way to the end of the pier, selecting the most suitable parts, and generally inconveniencing everybody not of the “inner circle.”

The costume de rigueur on these progresses was white tie, evening trousers and vest, and silk hat, with the oldest shooting coat in one’s wardrobe.

Later in the season some Hebrews of imitative dispositions aspired to emulate the bloods, but although their get-ups were irreproachable, the fraud was detected, and the jackdaws ruthlessly suppressed.

Not to have known Jinks was not in itself a reproach, but not to have known Jonas Hunt in the long-ago sixties was to have admitted that one was without the pale of Society, or certainly that section of it which gambled, raced, and drank all day and all night, if circumstances permitted.  A fine horseman of iron nerve and unbounded assurance, he had ridden in the Balaclava charge before he was out of his teens, and on retiring from the service a few years later, developed into one of the best gentleman riders ever seen in England or France.

In a chronic state of impecuniosity—as he insisted on asserting—he never omitted to add that a good knife and fork was always ready at home.  Jonas had certainly run through pretty well all he had had, but still he always possessed an income.

Always ready to gamble, and always cheery, Jonas, as may be supposed, was popular with a certain set, and if he had a fault it was a forgetfulness in regard to the settlement of small scores, which by some was attributed to the excitement when he rode in the “six hundred,” and by others to various causes not sufficiently interesting to enumerate.  Brave as a lion, he had actually been recommended for the Victoria Cross—in those days less lavishly awarded than now—and as he was quite ready to “go out” on the slightest provocation, timid natures preferred to put up with eccentricities arising out of his forgetfulness rather than risk a daylight meeting at twelve yards rise.

On one occasion, Jonas, who had allowed a comparative stranger to leave the table without settling, was met by the indignant creditor a few days later and reminded of his obligation; but Jonas, in no way disconcerted, let the amazed punter understand that such a demand was highly ungentlemanly and insulting, offering as an alternative to retire with him forthwith and fight it out with either pistols or fists.

In the duel between Dillon, a gentleman rider, and the Duc de Grammont-Caderousse, which created such an unjust scandal in the sixties, Jonas, as might have been expected, was the former’s second.  Neither man had ever had a rapier in his hand before, and when on the following morning both began slashing and thrusting, and Dillon was run through the heart, a clamour arose as to the butchery of an Englishman by an expert swordsman; all which was bosh.  Had de Grammont been anything but the veriest tyro, the regrettable incident could not have occurred.

It was subsequent to the various thrilling incidents we have narrated that Jonas selected Brighton as his headquarters.

Jinks’ Club was not located in a palatial mansion, nor did it even present the modest exterior of the local Union Club; as a fact, it was limited in its dimensions, and consisted of two rooms in an unpretentious house in Ship Street.

In the front room was a long table and some two dozen chairs, an iron safe, and a side table, convenient for the support of such light refreshments as sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, and beverages of a popular kind.

Membership of the club was within the reach of all, and a “quorum” of Jinks and Jonas could on emergency elect a member without general meeting or ballot; but those specially introduced by Jonas were received with marked favour.  Nor were there apparently any fixed rules as to meetings, which were left to circumstances, and an urgent three-lined whip on emergency.

The procedure in the latter case may briefly be described as follows:—

If Jonas met a “likely” man—from town—he would tell him that his appearance was the luckiest thing in the world, as that very night a rare round game was “coming off,” that baccarat would begin at nine, and that the rendezvous was Jinks’ Club.  This point being settled, an urgent whip was sent round by the indefatigable Jonas, and by 8.45 a representative company awaited the desirable plunger from town.

Prior to the commencement of the game, Jonas, it must be conceded, was a mass of energy.  Attired in evening clothes he would first unlock the mysterious safe, and after the local members had come one by one, presumably to deposit money, and returned with counters conspicuously displayed, he would turn with his most winning smile to the visitor with: “Now, old man, how much do you want to buy; it saves a lot of bother by having counters?  You’ve only to plank your counters after it’s over, and get their value; good rule, don’t you think?  It’s what they do at ‘le Cercle’ at Nice; saves a lot of bother.”

“By Jove! it’s later than I thought,” was often a familiar exclamation as daylight appeared over the pier.  “How many counters have you got, Jack?  Count them, old man, or keep them till morning.  You and I are old pals; you know where to come in the morning.  Name your own hour; good-night.”  And the genius was round the corner like a hurricane.

An amusing incident once occurred where Jonas was a big winner, and his debtor Master Fred Granville; Jonas on this occasion was immeasurably chaffed.  “You’ll never get a bob,” he was told right and left.

“Oh, yes I will, he’s all right,” was the half-hearted reply.

“But he’s going away in the morning,” added another; “you must look sharp, Jonas.”  And Jonas intimated he had been promised that a cheque should be sent him in the morning.

Next morning a cab drove rapidly to the Norfolk, and Jonas, jumping out excitedly, said: “Look here, you chaps,” and he waved a cheque excitedly.

“Let’s have a look at it,” asked Ernest Neville.  “Why, man, it isn’t signed.”  And Jonas’s face lengthened inordinately as he realised the terrible omission.

Shouting for a cab after a hurried glance at a railway guide, he in due time reached the station, and had the satisfaction of seeing the last carriage slowly receding from view.

It was the winter that Garcia—a Spanish miscreant—who had won colossal sums at every hell in Europe, had just been detected in a trick that had long baffled the ingenuity of the world.

Shiploads of his ware thus found their way into every quarter, and wherever he played he was confronted by his own cards.  Knowing their backs as well as their faces, the result was obvious, and it was only after innumerable golden harvests that a clumsy accident brought the fraud to light in a salon in the Champs-Elysées.

The scare thus created had not been lost upon the Riviera, and every precaution that ingenuity could devise was taken to make foul play impossible.

It was during this winter, too, that the culprit, detected cheating at the Raleigh, put an end to his career.

Le Cercle de la Méditerranée is one of those majestic buildings that meets the enormous revenue required for its support by making the pastime of cards an absolute luxury.  On the first floor is a spacious saloon, with no better light than that afforded by plate-glass panels communicating with the card room and other chambers; liberally provided with lounges, weary punters resorted to it for repose, and waiters, when not otherwise occupied, hovered near it as within easy call of everywhere.  In the adjoining room cards were usually set for possible whist and ecarté, or until every available spot was required for the more exciting claims of chemin de fer.

Biscoe had on more than one occasion rambled through the empty room, and oblivious of the proximity of the servants, had been seen pocketing a pack of cards.  This having been duly reported, he was made an especial object of interest to the committee; though, until he essayed to play, it was looked upon as the act of a kleptomaniac.

It was now his deal, the “chemin de fer” was with him.  “Come, gentlemen, let us plunge,” he jokingly remarked, as, producing a pocket-book, he placed it upon the pack.  “I call twenty-five thousand francs.”  (£1,000).

A keen observer might have detected certain ominous glances that passed between the polite Count and the bland Professor, but nothing was said, and amid the silence of the Catacombs, the game proceeded.

Five minutes later Biscoe was raking in £1,000 (in counters).

“Again, gentlemen!” he shouted, as flushed and excited, he had not observed that two or three players had risen, and the remainder, bewildered at so unusual a proceeding, stared at one another in blank astonishment.

“What’s up?” inquired Biscoe.

“D—d if I know,” was the laconic reply, as an Englishman left the table.

“The Committee, sir,” replied the Count, “have decided to count the cards, and on their authority I take possession of those before you.”

Meanwhile groups discussed the position and ominous expressions, such as “Il nous faut un agent de police,” and “C’est clair que nous avons été volés” were bandied about.  A procès verbal also took place, presided over by the Duc de Richelieu, and within an hour it was known to every gamin in Nice that an English “milor” had descended to the level of a thimble-rigger, that his spurs had been hacked off by the fiat of public opinion, and that henceforth his place would know him no more.

Next morning, as the gardeners were sweeping the grounds, a dead body with a gun-shot wound in the head was found in a shrubbery.

Within a few yards lay the tideless Mediterranean, calm and sparkling as the morning sun played upon its waters; whilst here lay an upturned face, cold and rigid and ghastly white save for a clotted disfigurement on the brow, and the same sun, in all the irony of its grandeur, was lighting up all that was left of blighted hopes, fallen greatness, and a tragedy never to be forgotten.  Later on, the mangled remains were buried at the expense of the Municipality.

A week or two later a paragraph appeared in a Dublin paper, and there the matter ended.

This is the usual procedure in these fashionable resorts.  If you’ve lost your last penny you are provided with railway fare and seen off the premises; if you blow out your brains, you’re buried out of sight.  Decency must be maintained!  Faites vos jeux, messieurs!

A convenient custom obtained at Le Cercle de la Méditerranée whereby a player temporarily cleaned out was permitted to deposit a pencil on the table to represent a stake, it being understood that he immediately proceeded to the bureau to purchase counters to redeem his symbolical investment.  This was known as “au crayon.”

It was on one occasion that Bob Villiers, who was usually limited as regards capital, was seen to place his pencil on the table and address the courteous dealer with, “Cent louis au crayon.”

“By Gad,” whispered George Payne, who stood near me, “Bob Villiers has put up a hundred louis ‘au crayon,’” and it was in breathless anxiety, and with an eventual sigh of relief, that we saw him rake up his winnings.

Many will recall the weird rumours that floated around the Clinton case; how the culprit had died and been duly buried; how weeks later an old gun-room companion had recognised his former ship-mate in a railway compartment, and how subsequent inquiry revealed the fact of a coffin filled with lumber.

And in the H— affair the surroundings were, if possible, more dramatic; how a youngster of the 7th, at Nice at the time, at once wrote the story to a brother officer in order that “the first intimation to ‘the Regiment’ might not come from the papers;” how the recipient intercepted the commanding officer (Colonel Hale) in the barrack square, and handed him the letter with: “This, sir, I have just received, and I feel it’s my duty to show it to you”; how within a week the pen was ruthlessly run through the culprit’s name, and the nine days’ wonder was forgotten.

That the publicity had been far-reaching, the following from the Paris Figaro will show:—

“It was last Monday that an amiable personage—whose assumed manners suggested imbecility—carried on a system with cards which has no connection with honesty.

“Ever since yesterday Major H— has been the object of a stringent surveillance, called into existence by the extraordinary fortune of having ‘passed’ only seventeen times on Sunday last during a game of chemin de fer.

“Suspicion was all the stronger from the cards when counted being found to exceed the proper number by twenty-seven.

“It was under these circumstances that the Major bought the bank at auction last Monday, and lost the first two coups.

“It was evidently sowing to reap, for after the second coup, not having sufficient on the table to pay the winners, and while still holding the cards in his left hand, he drew with his right hand a note case from his pocket under which were a certain number of packed cards.

“He then placed the case and the packed cards on the pack he had already in his left hand, and putting the entire packet before him, deliberately opened his note case, whence protruded several notes that had evidently been exposed with intention.

“At this moment a member who had not lost a single detail of this scene of ‘prestidigitation,’ stood up and said: ‘Gentlemen, I play no longer, and if you take my advice you will do the same!’

“The warning was not in vain.

“It was accepted by all but one player, who placed on the table about sixty Louis.

“There was no further room for doubt, and all the players left their seats.

“The game was suspended, the cards were counted; there were twenty-seven too many; and contained five nines of diamonds instead of four.

“Immediately the committee was called together, and the expulsion of Major H— was unanimously decided upon.  It was also decided that the Major should be turned out of the room he had occupied in the club for two days.”  I approve entirely the decision of the committee, but regret that these Major H—s get off with expulsion, when the proper place would be the correctionnelle.

No more liberal player ever existed than George Hay.

On one occasion at a humdrum station in India, where he had started an unpretentious club, a sporting tailor who had lost considerably begged him to continue.  “Give me my revenge,” he implored, and for three days and three nights, with periodical adjournments for a tub, this amiable punter continued giving the revenge.  But Fate, alas! was against the little Snipper, and on the third day the score showed a colossal sum against him.

“This can’t go on,” pleaded George.  “Why, man, I shall be placed under arrest for absence without leave; besides which, I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Only one more chance,” whined the tailor.

“Very well,” replied George, “you owe me” (and he named a considerable sum).  “I’ll play you one game double or quits.”

The tailor pondered for some moments, and then replied:

“Look here, Captain Hay, I have a wife and four children, and I can’t afford to go ‘sudden death,’ but I’ll play you the best out of three, double or quits.”

“Now,” said this noble punter, “I’ve complied with all your requests.  Nature won’t permit me to continue, but I’ll tell you what I will do,” and ringing the bell, he ordered the waiter to bring in the list of members.

Scanning the names and counting the number, he again addressed the tailor:

“Look here.  We have, I see, fifty-four members; but old Crutchley and the Chaplain needn’t count.  You shall make every member of the club a black velvet knickerbocker suit with scarlet hose, and a cap, and henceforth we are quits.”

Prudes and strict sticklers for propriety may argue that the man was a gambler, and consequently heartless and good for nothing; but after events proved that although dire calamity overtook him, he was of a noble, generous nature.

Despite the above incident, the Pindee Club played a very strict game, and every member before sitting down carefully adjusted a pair of green spectacles.

The importance of the following subject—as many a fool has found to his cost—entitles it to a chapter to itself.  It’s short, but instructive.

Card-sharping—pure and simple—is such a low and contemptible subject that we would not presume to present it to our readers were it not occasionally reduced to a “fine art,” and, as such, worthy of notice, like the infallible formula that was in vogue in Europe some years ago, and, for aught we know, may still be practised by the “past-masters” of the fraternity.

One may dismiss with contempt such fumblers as the scion of a ducal house who staked and lost his social position some years ago in a high-class Pall Mall club by what has been described as one of the two unpardonable offences against society; and were it not for the unique way his clumsy attempt was accidentally discovered the story would not bear repetition.

There had been a Court function, and Lord Sydney, the Lord Chamberlain, innocently watching a rubber, was considerably surprised by a card cannoning against his silk stockings and striking him on the calf.  Whether the fumbler had selected this course of throwing away a card because he had a bad hand, and so claiming a mis-deal, or was supplied with a relay like an amateur conjurer, suffice that he was detected and henceforth disappeared below the horizon.

Nor will we discuss the questionable taste—considering the company—that permitted publicity to the silly tactics of an impecunious Baronet who, by moving a bone counter, endeavoured to realise a few ill-gotten sovereigns.

But what we propose to do is to place before our readers a formula so capable of expansion, so incapable of detection, that one is staggered at the misplaced ingenuity that discovered the combination.

Nor do we here refer to the public casinos of France and Monte Carlo, where at worst one is playing against about 2½ per cent. above the odds at roulette, and about 1¾ per cent. at trente et quarante, but to those accursed private parties in Paris, and possibly nearer home, where the following was in full blast many years ago.

Assuming, then, that we have not all experienced a plucking, the procedure at (say) baccarat may be given.

Conceive a long oblong table; in the centre sits the banker, whilst before him are two or three packs of new cards from which he tears the wrappers, shuffles them, and, placing them on the table, invites a player to cut.  What fairer than this?  What possibility of sharp practice when every eye is riveted on him, who, dealing one card to the right and one to the left, finally deals to himself?

7 0 5 9 0 2 6 0 4 1 3 6 0

8 0 1 2 6 9 0 8 7 0 9 7 0

4 9 0 2 5 0 4 8 0 3 2 0 8

1 1 3 5 5 3 4 0 0 0 6 0 7

(0 represents tens and court cards.)

Cut the cards as often as you please, and the sequence and consequence remain unimpaired; before testing this, however, it must be understood that we refer to experienced players who know when to draw and when to stand, and it will be found that the dealer never loses, but for decency occasionally ties.

“Lightning shuffling,” whereby the artiste (!) appears to dislocate every card whilst really disturbing none is added to complete the illusion.

Here, then, is a problem worthy of such Solons and “system-mongers” as Messrs. Wells, Rosslyn, and others, who, having found disciples, are invariably in pawn within a week.

There is, however, one system one should invariably follow: avoid play, as a private enterprise, however alluring the surroundings, unless you are perfectly confident—and how can one be?—that the gentleman who takes the bank and his familiars have not been educated up to the “Coup de Jarnac.”

In the sixties “hangings” were done in public, and anything of an unusual kind attracted large parties from the West End; this was as recognised a custom as the more modern fashion of making up a party to go to the Boat Race or to share a coupé on a long railway journey.

And so it came about that the phenomenal sight of the execution of the seven Flowery Land pirates in ’64 created, in morbid circles, a stir rarely equalled before or since.  Members of the Raleigh, as may be supposed, mustered in considerable numbers, and days before the fatal morning trusty agents had visited the houses that face Newgate Gaol and secured every window that gave an unobstructed view of the ghastly ceremony.

The prices paid were enormous, varying from twenty to fifty guineas a window, in accordance with the superiority of the perspective from “find to finish.”

The rendezvous was fixed for 10 p.m. on Sunday at the Raleigh, but as it was raining in torrents it was a question with many whether to face the elements, or content themselves with a graphic description in the next day’s papers.  But the sight of three or four cabs, a couple of servants, and a plentiful supply of provender decided the question, and the procession started on its dismal journey.

A cab-load of young Guardsmen, however, preferring to wait till the storm abated, never got beyond Newgate Lane—where they were politely invited to descend, and, after being stripped to their shirts, were asked where the cabman should drive them to.

The scene on the night preceding a public execution afforded a study of the dark side of nature not to be obtained under any other circumstances.

Here was to be seen the lowest scum of London densely packed together as far as the eye could reach, and estimated by The Times at not less than 200,000.  Across the entire front of Newgate heavy barricades of stout timber traversed the streets in every direction, erected as a precaution against the pressure of the crowd, but which answered a purpose not wholly anticipated by the authorities.

As the crowd increased, so wholesale highway robberies were of more frequent occurrence; and victims in the hands of some two or three desperate ruffians were as far from help as though divided by a continent from the battalions of police surrounding the scaffold.

The scene that met one’s view on pulling up the windows and looking out on the black night and its still blacker accompaniments baffles description.  A surging mass, with here and there a flickering torch, rolled and roared before one; above this weird scene arose the voices of men and women shouting, singing, blaspheming, and, as the night advanced and the liquid gained firmer mastery, it seemed as if hell had delivered up its victims.  To approach the window was a matter of danger; volleys of mud immediately saluted one, accompanied by more blaspheming and shouts of defiance.  It was difficult to believe one was in the centre of a civilised capital that vaunted its religion, and yet meted out justice in such a form.

Meanwhile, a little unpretending door was gently opened; this was the “debtors’ door,” and led direct through the kitchen on to the scaffold.  The kitchen on these occasions was turned into a temporary mausoleum and draped with tawdry black hangings, which concealed the pots and pans, and produced an effect supposed to be more in keeping with the solemn occasion.  From the window opposite everything was visible inside the kitchen and on the scaffold, but to the surging mass in the streets below this bird’s-eye view was denied.

Presently an old and decrepit man made his appearance, and cautiously “tested” the drop; but a foolish impulse of curiosity leading him to peep over the drapery, a yell of execration saluted him.  This was Calcraft, the hangman, hoary-headed, tottering, and utterly past his usefulness for the work.

The reprieve was, however, momentary, and, placed on a chair, the inanimate mass of humanity awaited the supreme moment in merciful ignorance.  The silence was now awful.  One felt one’s heart literally in one’s mouth, and found oneself involuntarily saying, “They could be saved yet—yet—yet,” and then a thud that vibrated through the street announced that the pirates were launched into eternity.  One’s eyes were glued to the spot, and, fascinated by the awful sight, not a detail escaped one.  Calcraft, meanwhile, apparently not satisfied with his handiwork, seized hold of one poor wretch’s feet, and pressing on them for some seconds with all his weight, passed from one to another with hideous composure.  Meanwhile, the white caps were getting tighter and tighter, until they looked ready to burst, and a faint blue speck that had almost immediately appeared on the carotid artery gradually became more livid, till it assumed the appearance of a huge black bruise.  Death, I should say, must have been instantaneous, for hardly a vibration occurred, and the only movement that was visible was that from the gradually-stretching ropes as the bodies kept slowly swinging round and round.  The hanging of the body for an hour constituted part of the sentence, an interval that was not lost upon the multitude below.  The drunken again took up their ribald songs, conspicuous amongst which was one that had done duty pretty well through the night, and ended with

“Calcraft, Calcraft, he’s the man,”

Whilst these incidents were going on 9 o’clock was gradually approaching, the hour when the bodies were to be cut down.  As the dismal clock of St. Sepulchre’s chimed out the hour Calcraft, rubbing his lips, again appeared, and, producing a clasp knife, proceeded to hug the various bodies in rotation with one arm whilst with the other he severed the several ropes.  It required two slashes of the feeble old arm to complete this final ceremony, and then the heads fell with a flop on the old man’s breast, who staggering under the weight, proceeded to jam them into shells.

And then the “debtors’ door” closed till again required for a similar tragedy, the crowd dispersed, and the sightseers sought their beds to dream of the horrors of the past twelve hours.

An unrehearsed incident, when the head rolled off at a private execution, thus got into the papers, and it became apparent that a combination of expertness and reticence was the desideratum to be sought and found.

It was thus that the hero we are discussing came upon the scene some few years later.

Marwood allowed nothing to interfere with business, and he would as soon have hanged his grandmother—if duly instructed—as the most brutal ruffian that ever passed through his hands.  To arrive over-night with a modest carpet-bag and be up betimes the following morning were to him matters of routine; to truss his subject with a kicking strap 6 in. wide and then drop into the procession with a face like a chief mourner’s were to him sheer formalities; to give evidence later in the day before an enlightened but inquisitive coroner’s jury was to him a matter of courteous obligation; and to step into the street half an hour afterwards with the same bag—but with evidently less hemp in it—all came to him as part of a routine to be henceforth cast from memory till the service of his country again demanded his undivided and best attention.

Marwood’s invariable resort was the Green Dragon in Fleet Street, and so certain as a malefactor met his doom at eight so certain was the hangman to be found at twelve in the “select” section of the pub.  This peculiarity, of course, by degrees got to be known, and so it came to pass that young bloods with a thirst for knowledge resorted thither, and “hanging days” raised the “takings” of the fortunate house in Fleet Street.

Incredible as it may appear, this morbid craving is by no means confined to a few, and large sums used to be paid by reckless young scamps thirty years ago to assist at these ghastly functions.  It is an undeniable fact, moreover, that a baronet still alive posed as the hangman’s assistant at numerous executions.

But with the reaction that came as regards public hangings, the stringency connected with the private performances made these hobbies impossible, and the present era may take credit for having advanced considerably in this respect on the usages of the long-ago sixties.

Before quitting this dislocating subject, it may interest the student of ancient days to know that where now stands an imposing public-house, next St. Giles’s Church, Bloomsbury, was once the Beer House where every cart freighted with living victims from Newgate to Tyburn pulled up for their “last drink.”  After which, wending their way along Oxford Road (Street), they alighted at Tyburn Tree, now the garden of 1, Connaught Place, opposite the Marble Arch.

It was beneath it that De Quincey nightly waited for poor Anne when both were on the verge of starvation; and it was there that he poured out his lamentations of the stony-hearted stepmother—Oxford Street.

The same miseries exist in the present day, and every night bundles of human rags lie huddled together under its inhospitable shelter; whilst within, the old Pantheon—delight of our childhood when it was a huge bazaar—blazes with electric light as the headquarters of a certain whisky which, advertisements tell us, may be procured of 3,000 agents.

The trial and execution of Müller in ’64 for the murder of Mr. Briggs in one of the tunnels on the Brighton Railway, created more universal excitement than anything before or since, except, perhaps, the case of Mrs. Maybrick.  On the night before his execution, the German Ambassador was closeted with the Home Secretary at the urgent request of his Government, and petitions innumerable were presented; but the Home Secretary was a firm man, and the culprit was duly hanged next morning in front of Newgate.  Personally, I was sceptical of his guilt, and so interested was I that I obtained an order to visit Newgate, and by the judicious expenditure of a shilling, peeped through the observation hole of the condemned cell; later on I saw him hanged, and it was only on his confession to the Lutheran minister, just before the bolt was drawn, that I admitted the justice of the sentence.  But the fair-haired Saxon youth of refined and prepossessing appearance had got on my nerves, and when, a week later, his effigy was advertised as having been added to Tussaud’s Wax-works, I determined to again see the youth, whom I had last seen being jerked into eternity.

It was whilst exploring this dismal chamber that an attendant told me that wax figures were the most improvident creatures in the world; that they ran their toes through their stockings with reckless unconcern, and that two or three people were constantly employed darning and mending the belongings of these weird beings.

As I left the building I pondered over what I had seen and heard, and soon discovered I had not heard the last of Müller yet.  This is what I saw, or fancied I saw, in my dreams:

As I entered the Chamber of Horrors a few nights after, Müller—whose pose is of the meekest and most becoming—suddenly shot out his arm, and, pointing at me, exclaimed in a loud and guttural voice: “Seize him, seize him; the man!”  Then Rush and Greenacre and a host of others yelled and execrated me, and Mrs. Manning (whose crime was probably the cruellest on record) shrieked like a curlew: “Seize him, seize him!”  On this I dropped my umbrella—a weakness that I trust will be deemed pardonable—under the circumstances—and immediately followed it with a terrific flop on the floor; so terrific, indeed, was it that it brought me to my senses, and I awoke in a cold perspiration in Jermyn Street.

It was here that poor old Jim Stewart—seldom sober, and long since dead—gave a baccarat party to some twenty plungers, where it was agreed that no deal should commence after 6 a.m., at which hour he was the winner of £1,500, and where, yielding to the earnest request of a heavy loser, he consented to extend the time to 6.30, and rose a loser of £5,000; it was here that the fastest and best men in London lounged in and out of the coffee room from breakfast time till well on in the afternoon, and smoked, drank champagne, talked horsy, and swore loudly.

Not that Long’s was not a highly-respectable hotel; on the contrary, the entire upper part was conducted on strictly correct lines, and patronised by the best county people of the day, and the latitude granted to the ground floor must be set down rather as a desire of the management to please all parties, and bow before the inevitable there was no resisting.

An amusing story may here be introduced of Colonel Oakes, of the 12th Lancers, the most irascible of cavalry officers, with a command of language that few, if any, could excel, and who invariably put up at Long’s.

Stationed at Aldershot, the Colonel about this time got married, and, anxious to avoid publicity, he decided to bring his bride up to London and, to make matters still less noticeable, to bring his soldier-servant with him.

Things went happily till the faithful attendant, who was an Irishman, knowing the Colonel’s impatient nature, and considering the luggage was a long time coming up, put his head over the banisters and shouted: “Will you be plased to bring up the Colonel’s and Miss Black’s boxes?”

Colonel Oakes was admittedly a good soldier, and second only to Valentine Baker as a cavalry leader; popular with both officers and men, he was one of the last of the old swaggering school, a man of likes and dislikes, who, although free and easy and very plain-spoken, was a martinet in other ways.

“R—,” he once said to one of his officers (who certainly was not the accepted ideal of a sabreur), after an inspection, “the General asked me if you had come from the infantry,” and when the remark failed to elicit the reply he desired, he continued: “D— it, sir, you spoil the look of my regiment.  I wish to — you’d exchange!” and when the culprit lost his temper and said he considered he was insulted, and that he was the son of a baronet, the irresponsible Colonel shouted: “D— it, sir, I’m the son of a shoemaker, and I wish to — you’d leave my regiment!”

On another occasion, strolling into the stables, he overheard two recruits discussing him: “I say, Bill,” remarked one of the warriors, “the Colonel’s a d— rum old buffer.”  To which the other acquiescing, the Colonel advanced, and standing before the trembling culprits, began: “Yes, I heard what you said—that I was a d— rum old buffer—and I tell you what it is; if you had drunk as much as I have in the last thirty years you’d be a d— rum old buffer.”

Despite all these circumstances, no smarter regiment existed than the 12th in the long-ago sixties, although it was commanded by a “d— rum old buffer.”

The fashion of dining at restaurants had not taken root in those days, and the feeding resorts were few and good and very far between.

Their numbers, indeed, were to be counted on one’s fingers, and were resorted to either for lunch or supper, and seldom, as now, for the more serious ceremony of dinner.

People dined at their hotels, for the plate-glass abominations that now cumber the ground at every point of vantage had not suggested themselves to undesirable aliens and our own home-grown Israelites.

When the (present) Berkeley Hotel first started the new idea under the auspices of the renowned Soyer, the separate-table system was a nine days’ wonder, and people were impressed when it was currently reported that Lady Blantyre and her most unimaginative of husbands might be seen nightly at the next table to Skittle’s enjoying the creations of that most marvellous of chefs.

It was here that that distinguished siren once rebuked a waiter who had clumsily splashed her with some viand, by: “You infernal lout, if I wasn’t a lady I’d smack your ugly face!” and it was at St. James’s (as it was then called) she was nightly entertained by her numerous worshippers.

A noble marquis—eventually a duke, and lately deceased—was for years supposed to be her lawful husband, but the devotion of a life-time and subsequent events have since given the lie to this evident canard.

It was in the last-named house, even then on the wane, that my solitary (active) interest in the drama afforded me numerous occasions of delight.

Off the entrance hall was an unpretentious room, and here every day for weeks a divine being from the Gaiety partook of a hurried lunch in the company of my enraptured self.

Nothing could have been more decorous than the tone that pervaded our frugal meal; nothing so incapable of giving offence to Exeter Hall opposite; the door of our retreat was intentionally kept ajar, yet despite these precautions I was one day informed that the manager declined to let the room for two, but that three would always be welcome.

“The School Board is on the warpath,” was my inward comment, and I never entered the place again.  The “correct” old hypocrite is long since dead; the scene of these innocent repasts has long since been demolished, and the sweet lady who honoured me with her company has long since had a prefix to her name and become the proud mother of a subaltern in the Guards.

The inauguration of the Civil Service Stores, and the subsequent appearance of the Army and Navy Stores, gave the first fillip to that union between the Army and trade which the abolition of purchase and the changes in public opinion have since developed to such an extent.

Whilst on the subject of hostelries, a reference to Lane’s will not be amiss.  This unique establishment was in St. Alban’s Place, and was affected by the rowdier class of youngsters, with a sprinkling of permanent residents in various stages of delirium tremens.  Dirty and apparently never swept, the rooms might best be described as cosy.  The beds, however, were scrupulously clean, and as the majority of the lodgers spent a considerable portion of their existence between the sheets, apple-pie order reigned in this department, ready for any emergency by night or day.

Even in those long-ago days the brevet rank was frequently assumed by ex-militia ensigns, but not to the same extent nor by such sorry specimens as twirl their moustaches in these more enlightened times and stand on the doorstep of the Criterion.

Whisky at this period was literally an unknown beverage in London—possibly because the supply could never have equalled the demand, or more probably because science had not yet evolved the diabolical concoctions that now do duty for the wine of bonnie Scotland.  And so it came to pass that the staple drink at Lane’s was brandy and soda.  Come in when one chose, there stood battalions of soda with brandy in reserve, and rarely did a wayfarer return at the small hours without calling for a libation from old Peter.  Occasionally, after an unusual run, the supply might become exhausted, but no temptation could induce the old janitor to retail what had been reserved on “special order.”  “What, give you that one?  Why, it’s the Captain’s; every morning at five I takes it to his bedside, and if he’s asleep in the smoking-room I gives him a sniff of it, and he follows me to his room like a dog.”

“Blood,” some genius discovered, “is thicker than water”—and the most unobservant must admit that some of it is very thick indeed.

And apropos of Doctor Johnson, what evidence is there that the great lexicographer’s rhinoceros laugh ever vibrated through the “Cheshire Cheese”?  Boswell makes no reference to it, and surely such an omission would be impossible in the chronicles of that irrepressible toady—but when all’s said and done, what importance attaches to it so long as the fare maintains its pristine excellence and the American bumpings are restrained within reasonable limits?

When Piccadilly did not consist almost entirely of clubs, public billiard-rooms were patronised by many who would not enter a modern one.  Many of these were run on the very best lines, and a regular clientele met every afternoon for sixpenny and half-crown pools.

No goat from an alien flock dared hope to browse on that jealously-guarded pasture, and if, as occasionally, one wandered in, he speedily wandered out under the withering glances of old Phillips and his son.

Almost opposite were Smith’s rooms, where pool of a high class (in execution) was indulged in, and any amateur with a local reputation who took a ball soon disabused his mind of any exalted idea of his play.

Dolby’s, near the Marble Arch, had also its regular patrons, and even in the select region of Portman Square such correct old gentlemen as Sir James Hamilton, Mr. Burgoyne, and other residents in the neighbourhood met daily at an unpretentious tobacconist’s in King Street and played pool in a dingy room behind the shop.

But in the clubs of those long-ago days the most cold-blooded inhospitality obtained.  If you called upon a friend you had to wait on the door-mat, and the offering of a glass of sherry was attended by the risk of expulsion.  Smoking-rooms—if tolerated—were placed in the attics, and a “strangers’ room” was an innovation that only came into existence years after.

For long many clubs held out against the recognition of “strangers,” and only within the last few years have the “Senior” and the more exclusive establishments over-ruled the snarling objections of the few old fossils who use a club from morning to night without adding one cent to its revenue.

The best tobacconists also supplied the need now provided by the ubiquitous club, and Harris’s, Hoare’s, Benson’s, Hudson’s, Carlin’s in Oxford Street and Regent Street, each had their following, where every afternoon such men as Lord William Lennox, Lord Huntingtower, Mr. George Payne, the Marquis of Drogheda, Lord Henry Loftus, and Colonel Fitzgerald might be seen seated on tobacco tubs and cigar chests, smoking big cigars and drinking sherry which flowed from casks around the shop.

This last-named individual was a morose, fire-eating Irishman, whose life had been soured by the seduction of his wife by his own colonel, and later by the ravages of small-pox that had seared his once-handsome face.

The son of a famous duellist of the days of the Regency, it was told how on one occasion on entering the Cocoa Tree a comparative stranger exclaimed: “I smell an Irishman!”  To which “Fighting Fitz” replied: “You shall never smell another!” and sliced off his nose on the spot.