Lucrative
Gambling

This Irishman was born in Dublin, and was the son of a respectable tradesman. Falling into dissipated company, he soon left the city to try his fortune in London, where he played very deep and very successfully.

He threw away his gains gambling as fast as he made them, chiefly among
the frail sisterhood, at a notorious house in those days, in the Piazza, Covent Garden. He frequented Carlisle House in Soho Square, and was a proprietor of E O tables kept by a Dr Graham in Pall Mall.

He had a rencontre, in consequence of a dispute at play, and was
wounded. The meeting took place under the Piazza, and his antagonist's sword struck a rib, which counteracted its dangerous effect.

Soon afterwards he won L3000 from a young man just of age, who made over to him a landed estate for the gambling amount, and he was shortly after admitted a member of the Jockey Club.

His fortune now changed, and falling into the hands of Old Pope, the money-lender, he was not long before he had to transfer his estate to him.

After many ups and downs he became an inmate of the spunging-house of the infamous Scoldwell, who was afterwards transported. He actually used his prison as a gambling house, to which his infatuated friends resorted; but his means failed, his friends cooled, and he was removed `over the water,' from which he was only released by the Insolvent Act, with a broken constitution. Arrest soon restored him to his old habitation, a lock-up house, where he died so poor, a victim to grief, misery, and disease, that he did not leave enough to pay for a coffin, which was procured by his quondam friend, Mr Thornton, at whose cost he was buried. Perhaps more than half a million of money had `passed through his hands.'

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