XXXVIII.—PROHIBITIONS OF SKITTLE-PLAY.
In modern times, the penal laws have been multiplied, and much invigorated, in order to restrain the spirit of gambling; and in some measure they have had a salutary effect; but the evil is so fascinating and so general, that in all probability it will never be totally eradicated from the minds of the people. The frequent repetition and enforcement of the statutes in former times, proves that they were then, as they are now, inadequate to the suppression of gaming for a long continuance; and, when one pastime was prohibited, another was presently invented to supply its place. I remember, about twenty years back, [107] the magistrates caused all the skittle-frames in or about the city of London to be taken up, and prohibited the playing at dutch-pins, nine-pins, or in long bowling allies, when in many places the game of nine-holes was revived as a substitute, with the new name of Bubble the Justice, because the populace had taken it into their heads to imagine, that the power of the magistrates extended only to the prevention of such pastimes as were specified by name in the public acts, and not to any new species of diversion.