“In 1541, (33 H. 8, c. 25) the manufacturers and dealers in archery petitioned Parliament to prohibit all games and enforce the practice of archery. Accordingly, in 1542, a most stringent act was passed, obliging all able-bodied men, between the ages of 17 and 60 years, except ministers and judges, to own bows and arrows, and to practice with the same. Masters were required to see that their servants were provided with bows and arrows and instructed in their use; if not provided, the master must furnish the same, and was empowered to deduct the price from the servant’s wages. This act repeals all other laws concerning gaming, and then prohibits the keeping of any ‘common house, or place of bowling, coytinge, cloyshe, cayles, half-bowle, tannys, dysing table, or cardianage, or any other unlawful new game hereafter to be invented,’ under a penalty[penalty] of 40s. for each offense. Magistrates, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and head officers of cities, boroughs and towns, were required and authorized to enter all such places, at any time, and arrest offenders; they must also search at least once a month to discover such places, and suppress the same under a monthly penalty of 40s. for every default.”[default.”]
Section 16, of this act then provided that “No manner of artificer, craftsman, husbandman, apprentice, laborer, servant at husbandry, journeyman, or servant of artificer, mariner, fisherman, waterman, or servingman shall play at the tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowles, clash, coyting, logating, or any other unlawful game, out of Christmas, under pain of 20s. for each offense.” At Christmas, this class could play only in their master’s house or presence. This act made no game in itself unlawful. It only became unlawful by being used by certain persons at certain times, or certain places. The keeping of a common gambling house for any unlawful game, for lucre or gain was prohibited, but no game was made unlawful unless played in such common house. Faro and rouge et noir were not then considered unlawful games.
In 1745, faro, bassett, ace of hearts, hazard, passage, roly-poly, roulette, and all games of dice, except backgammon, were prohibited under a penalty to the “setter-up,” of £200, and £50 fine for players. A subsequent act repealed so much of the act of 1542 as prohibited bowling, tennis and other games of mere skill.
Justices of the Peace, at their annual licensing meetings, were empowered to grant license to persons to keep a room for billiards, bagatelle-boards, and the like, but these were prohibited between the hours of 1 and 8 A. M., and on Sundays, Christmas, Good Friday, or any public feast, or Thanksgiving day. Gambling was not then indictable at common law. In England, at common law, it was held, “a common gambling house kept for lucre or gain, was per se a common nuisance, as it tends to draw together idle and evil-disposed persons, to corrupt their morals and ruin their fortunes, being the same reasons given in the case of houses of common prostitution.” (King vs. Rogers and Humphrey.)
The following curious piece of evidence is probably an extract from the Journal of the House of Lords, although there is no reference to the subject in the published debates.
“DIE LUNÆ, 29 DEGREES, APRILIS, 1745—GAMING.”
“A bill for preventing the excessive and deceitful use of it having been brought from the Commons and proceeded on, so far as to be agreed to in the committee of the whole house with amendments, information was given to the house that Mr. Burdus, Chairman of the Quarter Session for the sitting and liberty of Westminster; Sir Thomas Deveil, and Mr. Lane, Chairman of the Quarter Session for the County of Middlesex, were at the door. They were called in and at the bar severally gave an account that claims of the privilege of peerage were made and insisted on by Ladies Mordington and Cassilis, in order to intimidate the peace officers from doing their duty in suppressing the public gaming houses kept by said ladies. And the said Burdus thereupon delivered the instrument in the written hand of said Lady Mordington, containing the claim she made of privilege for her officers and servants employed by her in her said gambling house; and then they were directed to withdraw, and the said instrument was read as follows: ‘I, Dame Mary, Baroness of Mordington, do hold a house in the great plaza Covent Garden for, and as an assembly, where all persons of credit are at liberty to frequent and play at such diversions as are used at other assemblies, and I have hired Joseph Dewbery, William Horsely, Ham Croper, and George Sanders as my servants or managers under me. I have given them orders to direct the management of other inferior servants, namely, John Bright, Richard Davids, John Hill, John Vandevoren as book-keepers, Gilbert Richardson as house-keeper; John Chaplin, William Stanley, and Henry Huggins, servants that wait on the company of the said assembly, and all the above named persons I claim as my domestic servants, and demand all those privileges that belong to me as a peeress of Great Britain pertaining to my said assembly. M. Mordington. Dated, 8th of January, 1744.’ Resolved and declared that no person is entitled to the privilege of peeress against any prosecution or proceeding for keeping any public gaming house, or any house, room, or place, for play at any game or games prohibited by any law now in force.”
In the time of Queen Anne gambling ran riot to such an extent that it commanded the attention of Parliament, and resulted in the following act: “Whereas, divers low and dissolute persons live at great expense, having no visible establishment, profession, or calling to maintain themselves, but support these expenses by gaming only, it is hereby enacted that any two justices may cause to be brought before them all persons within their limits whom they shall have just cause to suspect of having no visible establishment, profession, or calling, to maintain themselves by, but do, for the most part, support themselves by gaming; and if such persons shall not make the contrary appear to such justices, they are to be bound to their good behavior for a twelve-months, and in default of sufficient security, to be committed to prison until they can find the same, and if security be given it will be forfeited on their betting or playing for—at any one time—more than the value of twenty shillings.”
This act was further enforced and its deficiencies supplied during the reign of George I and George II, and the forfeiture under that act could be recovered in a court of equity; and, moreover, if any man were convicted, upon information or indictment, of winning or losing, at any one sitting, ten pounds, or twenty pounds, within twenty-four hours he forfeited five times that sum. Another statute also inflicted pecuniary penalties as well upon the master of any public house wherein servants were permitted to gamble, as upon the servants who were found in the act of gaming. Nor were the statutes against their masters less severe. During these reigns the games of faro and hazard were by law declared to be lotteries, subjecting those persons in whose houses they were played to the penalty of £200, and all who played at them to that of £50.
The records of Marlborough street police-court show that in 1797 information was laid against Lady Elizabeth Lutterell and others, for having, on the night of the 30th of January last, played at faro at Lady Buckingham’s house in St. James square, and a Mr. Martindale, then living in Broad street, was charged with being the proprietor. The defendants appeared by their counsel. Witnesses were called to support this information, whose evidence went to prove that the defendants charged had a game at their houses by rotation; that is, that they played at faro, rouge et noir, etc., meeting at different houses upon certain days of the week; that Mr. Martindale acted as master of the tables, generally, and that they began to play about eleven or twelve o’clock at night and continued to play until three or four o’clock in the morning. Martindale’s penalty was £200 fine, as proprietor of a faro table, and the Countess of Buckingham, Lady Lutterell and Mrs. Sturt were fined £50 each for playing. A Mr. Mathias O’Brien was subsequently brought in. He was also fined for participating in these same games.