"Gaming, that hydra of calamities, has again made its appearance with its black catalogue of horrors. Notwithstanding the late interference of the Police, there are at present, exclusive of subscription tables, no less than 18 public gambling houses, at the West End of the Town. The golden table in Leicester Square takes the lead in guilty pre-eminence. The gaming crimps are already very numerous. They dress well, frequent the most fashionable taverns, and coffee houses, and, having succeeded in insinuating themselves into company, take an opportunity of introducing a card, or bill of fare, of their respective establishments."—(Times, Sept. 13, 1798.)
"Last week 1272 packs of cards, unstamped, pretended to be made for exportation, but really intended for home consumption, were burned in the High Street of Shoreham, by order of the Commissioners."—(Times, Dec. 6, 1798.)
"In every part of the Metropolis, that most destructive game of E. O.[5] is now in high practice, but more particularly so in the neighbourhood of S. James's Street, Pall Mall, and what is called the fashionable end of the town. The Tables, even if they were fairly constructed, must be the ruin of all adventurers; because, in the course of one hour, they play at a game where the Table has clearly one hundred and twenty-four chances to one in its favor within that hour. If this does not rouse the Magistracy, Justice may then be announced to be in a somniferous state—occasioned probably, by a yellow mineral application."—(Times, June 22, 1795.)
"It is impossible that the Magistrates can be ignorant of the number of E. O. Tables, now held at the West end of the town. At one of these, established close to King's Place, a young man lost, on Sunday, £1500."—(Times, June 20, 1795.)
"PRIVATE LOTTERIES.
"Amongst the various species of Gaming that have ever been practised, we think none exceeds the mischiefs, and calamities, that arise from the practice of private Lotteries, which at present are carrying on, in various parts of the town, to very alarming extents, much to the discredit of those whose province it is to suppress such nefarious practices, as they cannot be ignorant of such transactions. 'The little go,' which is the technical term for a private Lottery, is calculated only for the meridian of those understandings, who are unused to calculate, and discriminate, between right, and wrong, and roguery, and fair-dealing; and, in this particular case, it is those who compose the lower order of society, whom it so seriously affects, and on whom it is chiefly designed to operate. No man of common sense can suppose that the Lottery Wheels are fair, and honest, or that the proprietors act upon principles anything like honor, or honesty; for, by the art, and contrivance, of the Wheels, they are so constructed, with secret springs, and the application of gum, glue, &c., in the internal part of them, that they can draw the numbers out, or keep them in, at pleasure, just as it suits their purposes; so that the insurer, robbed, and cajoled, by such unfair means, has not the most distant chance of ever winning: the whole being a gross fraud, and imposition, in the extreme. We understand the most notorious of these standards of imposition are situated in Carnaby Market, Oxford Road, in the Borough, Islington, Clerkenwell, and various other places, most of which are under the very nose of Magistracy, in seeming security, bidding defiance to law, and preying upon the vitals of the poor and ignorant.
"We hope the Magistrates of each jurisdiction, and those who possess the same power, will perform their duty on behalf of the poor, over whom they preside, and put a stop to such a growing, and alarming, evil, of such pernicious, and dangerous tendency: particularly, as the Proprietors are well-known bad characters, consisting of needy beggars, desperate swindlers, gamblers, sharpers, notorious thieves, and common convicted felons, most of whose names stand recorded in the Newgate Calendar for various offences of different descriptions."—(Times, July 22, 1795.)
"The term of little goes for the private lotteries is apt enough, for the poor devils who risk their property there, have but little, and that little goes to nought.
"If the wheels of fortune, and the cash, seized at the private lotteries, become the property of the police runners, the old adage will be strongly verified, 'What is got over the devil's back, will be spent under his belly.'"—(Times, Aug. 13, 1795.)
"On Friday night last, in consequence of searching warrants from the Parochial Magistrates of St. James's, Westminster, upwards of 30 persons were apprehended at the house of one M'Call, No. 2, Francis St., near Golden Square, and in the house of J. Knight, King St., where the most destructive practices to the poor were carrying on, that of Private Lotteries (called Little Goes.) Two wheels, with the tickets, were seized on the premises. Upon examination of those persons, who proved to be the poor deluded objects that had been there plundered, they were reprimanded, and discharged.