This is mentioned as a boyish game, played at the commencement of the seventeenth century. I have not met with any description of this pastime; but I apprehend it resembled a modern one frequently practised at the outskirts of the metropolis; and said to have been instituted, or more probably revived, about 1780, as a succedaneum for skittles, when the magistrates caused the skittle grounds in and near London to be levelled, and the frames removed. Hence some say the game of nine-holes was called "Bubble the Justice," on the supposition that it could not be set aside by the justices, because no such pastime was named in the prohibitory statutes; others give this denomination to a different game: the name by which it is now most generally known is "Bumble-puppy;" and the vulgarity of the term is well adapted to the company by whom it is usually practised. The game is simply this: nine holes are made in a square board, and disposed in three rows, three holes in each row, all of them at equal distances, about twelve or fourteen inches apart; to every hole is affixed a numeral, from one to nine, so placed as to form fifteen in every row. The board, thus prepared, is fixed horizontally upon the ground, and surrounded on three sides with a gentle acclivity. Every one of the players being furnished with a certain number of small metal balls, stands in his turn, by a mark made upon the ground, about five or six feet from the board; at which he bowls the balls; and according to the value of the figures belonging to the holes into which they roll, his game is reckoned; and he who obtains the highest number is the winner. Doctor Johnson confounds this pastime with that of kayles, and says, "it is a kind of play still retained in Scotland, in which nine holes, ranged in threes, are made in the ground, and an iron bullet rolled in among them." [837]
I have formerly seen a pastime practised by school-boys, called nine-holes: it was played with marbles, which they bowled at a board, set upright, resembling a bridge, with nine small arches, all of them numbered; if the marble struck against the sides of the arches, it became the property of the boy to whom the board belonged; but, if it went through any one of them, the bowler claimed a number of marbles equal to the number upon the arch it passed through.
XIV.—JOHN BULL.
This is the name of a modern pastime, which may be played in the open air, or in a room. A square flat stone, being laid level on the surface of the ground, or let into the floor, is subdivided into sixteen small squares; in every one of these compartments a number is affixed, beginning from one; the next in value being five, the next ten; thence passing on by tens to an hundred, and thence again, by hundreds, to five hundred. These numbers are not placed regularly, but contrasted, so that those of the smallest value are nearest to those of the highest; and in some instances, as I am informed, the squares for the greater numbers are made much smaller than those for the small ones. On reaching five hundred a mark is made, at an optional distance from the stone, for the players to stand; who, in succession, throw up one halfpenny or more, and make their score according to the number assigned lo the compartment in which the halfpenny rests, which must be within the square; for, if it lies upon one of the lines that divide it from the others, the cast is forfeited, and nothing scored. Two thousand is usually the game; but this number is extended or diminished at the pleasure of the gamesters.
XV.—PITCH AND HUSTLE.
This is a game commonly played in the fields by the lowest classes of the people. It requires two or more antagonists, who pitch or cast an equal number of halfpence at a mark set up at a short distance; and the owner of the nearest halfpenny claims the privilege to hustle first; the next nearest halfpenny entitles the owner to a second claim; and so on to as many as play. When they hustle, all the halfpence pitched at the mark are thrown into a hat held by the player who claims the first chance; after shaking them together, he turns the hat down upon the ground; and as many of them as lie with the impression of the head upwards belong to him; the remainder are then put into the hat a second time, and the second claimant performs the same kind of operation; and so it passes in succession to all the players, or until all the halfpence appear with the heads upwards. Sometimes they are put into the hands of the player, instead of a hat, who shakes them, and casts them up into the air; but in both instances the heads become his property: but if it should so happen, that, after all of them have hustled, there remain some of the halfpence that have not come with the heads uppermost, the first player then hustles again, and the others in succession, until they do come so.
XVI.—BULL-BAITING IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
I have already informed my readers, that bull-baiting, or worrying of bulls with dogs, was one of the spectacles exhibited by the jugglers and their successors. [838] It is also necessary to observe, that this cruel pastime was not confined to the boundaries of the bear-gardens; but was universally practised on various occasions, in almost every town or village throughout the kingdom, and especially in market towns, where we find it was sanctioned by the law; [839] and in some of them, I believe, the bull-rings, to which the unfortunate animals were fastened, are remaining to the present hour. It may seem strange, that the legislature should have permitted the exercise of such a barbarous diversion, which was frequently productive of much mischief by drawing together a large concourse of idle and dissipated persons, and affording them an opportunity of committing many gross disorders with impunity. Indeed a public bull-baiting rarely ended without some riot and confusion. A circumstance of this sort is recorded in the annals of the city of Chester. The author [840] tells us, that "a bull was baited at the high-cross, on the second of October, (1619,) according to the ancient custome for the mayor's farewell out of his office; it chaunced a contention fell out betwixt the butchers and the bakers of the cittye aboute their dogges then fyghtynge; they fell to blowes; and in the tumult of manye people woulde not be pacifyed; so that the mayor, seeing there was greate abuse, being citezens, could not forbeare, but he in person hymself went out amongst them, to have the peace kept; but they in their rage, lyke rude and unbroken fellowes, did lytill regarde hym. In the ende, they were parted; and the begynners of the sayde brawle, being found out and examined, were commytted to the northgate. The mayor smotte freely among them and broke his white staffe; and the cryer Thomas Knowstley brake his mase; and the brawle ended."
XVII.—BULL-RUNNING AT STAMFORD, &c.
This is another barbarous diversion somewhat different from bull-baiting, and much less known: I do not recollect that it was regularly practised in any part of the kingdom, excepting at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, and at Tutbury, in Staffordshire. The traditionary origin of the bull-running at Stamford, and the manner in which it was performed in the seventeenth century, are given by Butcher, in his Survey of that town; [841] and this account I shall lay before my readers, in the author's own words. "The bull-running is a sport of no pleasure, except to such as take a pleasure in beastliness and mischief: it is performed just the day six weeks before Christmas. The butchers of the town, at their own charge, against the time provide the wildest bull they can get. This bull over night is had into some stable or barn belonging to the alderman. The next morning, proclamation is made by the common bellman of the town, round about the same, that each one shut up their shop-doors and gates, and that none, upon pain of imprisonment, offer to do any violence to strangers; for the preventing whereof, the town being a great thoroughfare, and then being term-time, a guard is appointed for the passing of travellers through the same, without hurt; that none have any iron upon their bull-clubs, or other staff, which they pursue the bull with. Which proclamation made, and the gates all shut up, the bull is turned out of the alderman's house; and then hivie-skivy, tag and rag, men, women, and children, of all sorts and sizes, with all the dogs in the town, promiscuously running after him with their bull-clubs, spattering dirt in each other's faces, that one would think them to be so many furies started out of hell for the punishment of Cerberus, &c. And, which is the greater shame, I have seen persons of rank and family, of both sexes, [842] following this bulling-business. I can say no more of it, but only to set forth the antiquity thereof as tradition goes. William earl of Warren, the first lord of this town in the time of king John, standing upon his castle walls in Stamford, saw two bulls fighting for a cow in a meadow under the same. A butcher of the town, owner of one of the bulls, set a great mastiff-dog upon his own bull, who forced him up into the town; when all the butchers' dogs, great and small, followed in pursuit of the bull, which, by this time made stark mad with the noise of the people and the fierceness of the dogs, ran over man, woman, and child, that stood in his way. This caused all the butchers and others in the town to rise up, as it were, in a kind of tumult." The sport so highly diverted the earl, who, it seems, was a spectator, that "he gave all those meadows in which the two bulls had been fighting, perpetually as a common to the butchers of the town, after the first grass is eaten, to keep their cattle in till the time of slaughter, upon the condition that, on the anniversary of that day, they should yearly find, at their own expense, a mad bull for the continuance of the sport."