Ago] 
lings ;—destroying their health ;— 
wasting their time, and rearing up 
their children to be prostitutes and 
thieves before they know that it is 
a crime. 
Soearly as the reign of QueenAnne, 
this abandoned and mischievous race 
of menscem to have attra¢ted the no- 
tice of the legislature in a very par- 
ticular degree, for the aé of* the 
gth of her majesty reciting ‘ that 
divers lewd and dissolute persons - 
live at great expences, having no 
visible estate, profession, or calling, 
to maintain themselves; but s sup- 
port these expences by garaing 
only ; and ena¢ts that any two jus. 
.tices may cause to be brought before 
them, all persons within their li- 
mits, whom they shall have just 
cause to suspect to have no visible 
estate, profession, or calling, to 
maintain themselves by, but who 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 behaviour for 
a twelve month, and in default of 
- Sufficient security, to be committed 
to prison, until they can find 
the same, and if security shall be 
given, it will be forfeited.on their 
playing or betting at any one time 
for more than the value of twenty 
shillings,’ 
If in conformity to the spirit of 
this wise statute, sharpers of every 
denomination who support them- 
selves by a variety of cheating and 
swindling practices, without hav- 
ing any visible means of support, 
were in like manner to be called 
upon to find security for good he. 
haviour in all cases where they 
cannot shew they have the means 
ef subsisting themselves honestly, 
the number of these pests of society, 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1706. 
under an active and zealous magi~ 
stracy, would soon be diminished, 
if not totally annihilated. 
By the 12th of George theiSecond, 
“6 the games of Faro, Hazard, &c. 
are declared to be lctteries, ere 
jeCting the persons who keep them 
toa penalty af two hundred pounds, 
and those play, to fifty 
pounds,’’—One witness is only ne- 
cessary to prove the offence before 
apy justice of the peace, who for. 
feits ten pounds if he negle@s to 
do his duty. :—and by the 8th of 
George the First, ** the keeper of 
a Faro table may be prosecuted for 
a lottery, where the penalty is five 
hundred pounds.’* 
Such has been the anxiety of the 
legislature to suppress Faro tables 
and other games of chance, that 
the severest penalties have been 
infitted, founded on the fullest 
impression of the pernicious conse~ 
quences of such practices, and yet 
to the disgrace of the police of the 
metropolis, houses are opencd un- 
der the sanétion of high sounding 
names, where an indiscriminate 
mixture of all ranks are to be faund, 
from the finished sharper to the raw 
inexperienced youth, and where 
all those evils exist in full fosce 
which it was the object of the le- 
gislature to remove, 
When a species of gambling, 
ruinous to the merals and to the 
fortunes of the younger parts of 
the community who move in the 
middle and higher ranks of life, is 
suffered to be carried on in direét 
Opposition to a positive statute, 
surely blame must attach some. 
where! 
The idle vanity of being intro- 
duced into what is supposed to be 
genteel ‘society, where a fashion- 
able name announces an intentior: 
> of 
who 
: 
