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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II

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Chevaliers D'industrie, Or Polite Sharpers

'It was the only case in my experience of the work going on
smoothly after such a break. I never could account for it, nor
could Mr Chase. Great was the latter's disgust, on setting the
police to work, to find that the French nobleman, his servant,
and the quiet stranger, were all dwellers within half a mile or
so of his own house, and slightly known to him--men who had
trusted, and very successfully, to great audacity and well-
arranged disguise.'

A vast deal of gambling still goes on with skittles all over the
country. At a place not ten miles from London, I am told that as
much as two thousand pounds has been seen upon the table in a
single 'alley,' or place of play. The bets were, accordingly,
very high. The instances revealed by exposure at the police-
courts give but a faint idea of the extent of skittle sharping.

Amidst such abuses of the game, it can scarcely surprise us that
the police have been recently directed to prohibit all playing at
skittles and bowls. However much we may regret the interference
with popular pastimes, in themselves unobjectionable, it is
evident that their flagrant abuse warrants the most stringent
measures in order to prevent their constantly repeated and dismal
consequences. Even where money was not played for, pots of beer
were the wager--leading, in many instances, to intoxication, or
promoting this habit, which is the cause of so much misery among
the lower orders.

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