the most disreputable characters;
gentlemen of the latest pattern and the oldest school, the worst
of men and the best, sporting politicians and political sportsmen,
place-hunters, Ministers, ex-Ministers, scions of old families and
ancient pedigrees, as well as men of new families and no pedigrees,
who purchased, as we do now, a coat of arms at the Heralds' tailoring
shop, and selected their ancestors in Wardour Street.

Only the wealthy could be members of this club, for only the wealthy
could lose money and pay it. Landscape painters might be guests, but
it was only the man who belonged to the landscape who could belong to
the body that gambled for it. Young barristers might visit the place,
possibly with an eye to business, but only members of large practice
or Judges could be members of this society.

Lord Palmerston defended it manfully before the committee appointed
really for its destruction. He said it did a great deal of good--much
more good than all the gambling hells of London did harm. Whether his
lordship contended that there was no betting carried on at Crockford's
I am not prepared to say, but when evidence is given before
Parliamentary Committees it is sometimes difficult to understand its
exact meaning. Palmerston, however, positively said, without any doubt
as to his meaning, that candidates were not elected in order that they
might be plucked of every feather they possessed, and that any one who
maintained the contrary was slandering one of the most respectable
clubs in London. Some men would rather have pulled down St. Paul's
than Crockford's.

It was the very perfection of a club, said the statesman, and its
principal game was chicken hazard. What could be stronger evidence
than that of its usefulness and respectability? At this game they
usually lost all they had, of little consequence to those who could
not do better with their property, and perhaps the best thing for the
country, because when it got into better hands it stood some chance of
being applied to more legitimate purposes.

After a while Crockford quarrelled with his partner, and they
separated.

Whatever men may say in these days against an institution which
flourished in those, ex-Prime Ministers, Dukes, Earls, and ex-Lord
Chancellors, as well as future Ministers of State and future Judges,
belonged to it, or sought eagerly for admission to its membership. To
be under the shadow of the fishmonger was greatness itself.

At the