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Sharper
A sharper is an older term, common since the seventeenth-century, for thieves who use trickery to part an owner with his or her money or other possessions. Sharpers vary from what are now known as con-men by virtue of the simplicity of their cons, which often were impromptu, rather than carefully orchestrated, though those certainly happened as well. The 1737 ''Dictionary of Thieving Slang'' defines a sharper as "A Cheat, One who lives by his wits". In the nineteenth century, and into today, the term is more closely associated with gambling. Sharpers were romantic figures in the eighteenth-century, valued as imaginative figures for their perceived social independence and ability to create new social networks of gangs. The appeal of an independent society, operating outside the law, has been imaginatively evocative for centuries, but in eighteenth-century London philosophical thought, influenced by Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau's new formulations of social contract, the romanticizat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Card Sharp
A card sharp (also cardsharp, card shark or cardshark, sometimes hyphenated) is a person who uses skill and/or deception to win at poker or other card games. "Sharp" and "shark" spellings have varied over time and by region. The label is not always intended as pejorative, and is sometimes used to refer to practitioners of card tricks for entertainment purposes. In general usage, principally in American English and more commonly with the "shark" spelling, the term has also taken on the meaning of an expert card gambler who takes advantage of less-skilled players, also called an "advantage player", without any implication of actual cheating at cards, in much the same way that "" or "pool hustler" can (especially when used by non-players) be intended to refer to a skilled player rather than a cheater or swindler. The synonym to "card sharp", "", when used with reference to card-playing and swindlers, has pejorative connotations. A card sharp or shark (by either of the gamb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Van Oost (I) - Card-Sharpers - WGA16648
Jacob van Oost or Jacob van Oost the Elder (1603–1671) was a Flemish painter of history paintings and portraits. He was the most important painter of Bruges in the 17th century through his portraits of members of the local bourgeois and his many altarpieces made in the spirit of the Counter Reformation. He also created genre paintings of musicians and card players for the open market.Matthias Depoorter, ''Jacob van Oost I'' at Baroque in the Southern Netherlands Life Jacob van Oost was born in as the son of Johannes van Oost en Gheeraerdyne Weyts. His family was well-off. It is not clear who was his master but he w ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confidence Trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ..intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". Terminology Synonyms include con, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, scam, and stratagem. The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or "con trick") is often referred to as a confidence (or "con") man, con-artist, or a "grifter". The shell game dates back at least to Ancient Greece. Samuel Thompson (1821–1856) was the original "confidence man". Thompson was a clumsy swindler who asked his victims to express confidence in him by giving him money or their watch rather than gaining their confidenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season. The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; ''i.e.'', a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board. However, this distinction is not u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gangs
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior. Definition The word "gang" derives from the past participle of Old English ''gan'', meaning "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse ''gangr'', meaning "journey." It typically means a group of people, and may have neutral, positive or negative connotations depending on usage. History In discussing the banditry in American history, Barrington Moore, Jr. suggests that gangsterism as a "form of self-help which victimizes others" may appear in societies which lack strong "forces of law and order"; he characterizes European feudalism as "mainly gangsterism that had become society itself and acquired respectability through the notions of chivalry". The 17th century saw London "terrorized by a se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, theology, and ethics, as well as philosophy in general. Biography Early life Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 (Old Style), in Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England. Having been born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada, Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." Hobbes had a brother, Edmund, about two years older, as well as a sister named Anne. Although Thomas Hobbes's childhood is unknown to a large extent, as is his mother's name, it is known that Hobbes's fat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. His ''Discourse on Inequality'' and ''The Social Contract'' are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. Rousseau's sentimental novel ''Julie, or the New Heloise'' (1761) was important to the development of preromanticism and romanticism in fiction. His '' Emile, or On Education'' (1762) is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society. Rousseau's autobiographical writings—the posthumously published '' Confessions'' (composed in 1769), which initiated the modern autobiography, and the unfinished '' Reveries of the Solitary Walker'' (composed 1776–1778)—exemplified the late 18th-century " Age of Sensibility", and featured a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.. Early life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, last of five children of William Gay (died 1695) and Katherine (died 1694), daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, "the leading Nonconformist divine of the town" as founder of the Independent Dissenting congregation in Barnstaple. The Gay family- "fairly comfortable... though far from rich"- lived in "a large house, called the Red Cross, on the corner of Joy Street". The Gay family was "of respectable antiquity" in North Devon, associated with the manor of Goldsworthy at Parkham and with the parish of Frithelstock (where the senior line remained, resident at the priory Cloister Hall with its lands, until 1823) and became "powerful and numerous" in the town, "established a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lisle's Tennis Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's ''Pomone (opera), Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders of the traditional English novel. He also holds a place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first intermittently funded, full-time police force. Early life Fielding was born 22 April 1707 at Sharpham, Somerset, and educated at Eton College, where he began a lifelong friendship with William Pitt the Elder. His mother died when he was 11. A suit for custody was brought by his grandmother against his charming but irresponsible father, Lt Gen. Edmund Fielding. The settlement placed Henry in his grandmother's care, but he continued to see his father in London. In 1725, Henry tried to abduct his cousin Sarah Andrews (with whom he was infatuated) while she was on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "'' Thief-Taker General''". He simultaneously ran a significant criminal empire, and used his crimefighting role to remove rivals and launder the proceeds of his own crimes. Wild exploited a strong public demand for action during a major 18th-century crime wave in the absence of any effective police force in London. As a powerful gang-leader himself, he became a master manipulator of legal systems, collecting the rewards offered for valuables which he had stolen himself, bribing prison guards to release his colleagues, and blackmailing any who crossed him. Wild was consulted on crime by the government due to his apparently remarkable prowess in locating stolen items and those who had stolen them. Wild was responsible for the arrest and execution of Jack Sheppard, a petty thief and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons, is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prime Minister of Great Britain. Although the exact dates of Walpole's dominance, dubbed the "Robinocracy", are a matter of scholarly debate, the period 1721–1742 is often used. He dominated the Walpole–Townshend ministry, as well as the subsequent Walpole ministry, and holds the record as the longest-serving British prime minister. W. A. Speck wrote that Walpole's uninterrupted run of 20 years as prime minister "is rightly regarded as one of the major feats of British political history. Explanations are usually offered in terms of his expert handling of the political system after 1720, ndhis unique blending of the surviving powers of the crown with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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