e few friends of Lord de Ros who tried to bear him up
against the resulting obloquy were obliged to go with the stream. When
Lord Alvanley was asked whether he meant to leave his card, he replied,
"No, he will stick it in his chimney-piece and count it among his
honours.'"

Having read through the long case as reported in the Times, I must
declare that I do not find that the evidence against Lord de Ros was,
after all, so 'overwhelming' as the reviewer declares; indeed, the
'leader' in the Times on the trial emphatically raises a doubt on the
subject. Among other passages in it there is the following:--

'In the process of the trial it appeared that the most material part of
the evidence against Lord de Ros, that called sauter la coupe,--which,
for the sake of our English readers we shall translate into CHANGING THE
TURN-UP CARD,--the times and places at which it was said to have been
done could not be specified. Some of the witnesses had seen the trick
done 50 or 100 times by Lord de Ros, but could neither say on what day,
in what week, month, or even year, they had so seen it done. People
were excessively struck at this deviation from the extreme punctuality
required in criminal cases by the British courts of law.'

'The disclosures,' says Mr Grant,(27) 'which took place in the Court of
Queen's Bench, on the occasion of the trial of Lord de Ros, for cheating
at cards, furnished the strongest demonstration that he was not the only
person who was in the habit of cheating in certain clubs; while there
were others who, if they could not be charged with direct cheating,
or cheating in their own persons, did cheat indirectly, and by proxy,
inasmuch as they, by their own admission, were, on frequent occasions,
partners with Lord de Ros, long after they knew that he habitually or
systematically cheated. The noble lord, by the confession of the titled
parties to whom I allude, thus cheated for himself and them at the same
time.'

(37) Sketches in London.

Lord de Ros was at the head of the barons of England. He was the son of
Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and Lady de Ros, who inherited in her own right
that ancient title, which dates from the reign of Henry III. He had
studied at Eton and Oxford, and afterwards on the Continent, and
there was not a more accomplished man in Europe. He possessed an ample
fortune, was a member of several of the clubs--White's, Boodle's,
Brookes', and Graham's, and one of the best Whist players in