At White's, the least difference of opinion invariably ended in a bet, and a book for entering the particulars of all bets was always laid upon the table; one of these, with entries of a date as early as 1744, Mr. Cunningham tells us, had been preserved. A book for entering bets is still laid on the table.
In these betting books are to be found bets on births, deaths, and marriages; the length of a life, or the duration of a ministry; a placeman's prospect of a coronet; on the shock of an earthquake; or the last scandal at Ranelagh, or Madame Cornelys's. A man dropped down at the door of White's; he was carried into the house. Was he dead or not? The odds were immediately given and taken for and against. It was proposed to bleed him. Those who had taken the odds the man was dead, protested that the use of a lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.
Walpole gives some of these narratives as good stories "made on White's." A parson coming into the Club on the morning of the earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing-up of powder-mills, went away in horror, protesting they were such an impious set, that he believed if the last trump were to sound, they would bet "puppet-show against Judgment." Gilly Williams writes to Selwyn, 1764, "Lord Digby is very soon to be married to Miss Fielding." Thousands might have been won in this house (White's), on his Lordship not knowing that such a being existed.
Mr. Cunningham tells us that "the marriage of a young lady of rank would occasion a bet of a hundred guineas, that she would give birth to a live child before the Countess of ----, who had been married three or even more months before her. Heavy bets were pending, that Arthur, who was then a widower, would be married before a member of the Club of about the same age, and also a widower; and that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, would outlive the old Duchess of Cleveland."
"One of the youth at White's," writes Walpole to Mann, July 10, 1744, "has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted £1500 that a man could live twelve hours under water; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives, instead of Mr. Blake, the assassin."