Edward “Golden Ball” Hughes (1798-1863)

• Posted by mgr on March 25th, 2008 filed in Zeitdokumente
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Very rarely did any of the ruined gamesters ever get on their legs again. The Golden Ball, however, was an exception. Ball Hughes fell from the very top of the gay pagoda into the mud, but even there, as life was nothing to him without the old excitement, he played pitch and toss for halfpence, and he won and lost small ventures at battledore and shuttlecock, which innocent exercise be turned into a gambling epeculation.

After he withdrew, in very reduced circumstances, to France, his once mad purchase of Oatlands suddenly assumed a profitable aspect. The estate was touched by a railway and admired by building speculators, and between the two the Ball, in its last days, had a very cheerfulvand glittering aspect indeed.

From: John Timbs: Club Life of London. Vol. 1. London: Bentley (1866)

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