Regency Reader Questions: Lottery Tickets and Family Games

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Thanks for the question, Elizabeth, and for being a Regency Reader!

We have a category called Regency Pastimes which features some family fun games including Hunt the Slipper, Hunt the Fox, Taw, and Skittles. These posts all cite sources, and sometimes link to them, so that is a great place to start looking if you are game to research on your own.  I also have included an excerpt below from a great resource that lists some popular children games, including Lotteries:

HOUSES OF CARDS QUESTIONS AND COMMANDS HANDY DANDY SNAP DRAGON PUSH PIN CRAMBO LOTTERIES Building of houses with cards and such like materals is a very common amusement with children as well as draw ing little waggons carts and coaches and sometimes boys will harness dogs and other animals and put them to their waggons in imitation of horses Something of this kind is alluded to by Horace who writes thus in one of his satires 1 Edificare cassus plostello adjungere mures To build little houses and join mice to the diminutive waggons Questions and Commands a childish pastime which though somewhat different in the modern modification most probably derived its origin from the basilinda Βασιλινδα of the Greeks in which we are told a king elected by lot commanded his comrades what they should perform Handy dandy a play says Johnson in which children change hands and places this seems clear enough according to the following quotation from Shakspeare King Lear act iv sc 6 See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief hark in thine ear change places and handy dandy which is the justice and which is the thief to which is added another from Pope's Scriblerus neither cross and pile nor ducks and drakes are quite so ancient as handy dandy A truer explanation is that it is a childish play still 1902 practised wherein something is placed or shaken in one or other of the hands and a guess is made as to the hand in which it is retained Snap dragon This sport is seldom exhibited but in winter and chiefly at Christmas time it is simply heating of brandy or some other ardent spirit in a dish with raisins when the brandy being set on fire the young folks of both
sexes standing round it pluck out the raisins and eat them as hastily as they can but rarely without burning their hands or scalding their mouths Push pin is a very silly sport being nothing more than simply pushing one pin across another Crambo is a diversion wherein one gives a word to which another finds a rhyme this with other trifling amusements is mentioned in a paper belonging to the Spectator A little superior to these that is to persons engaged in cross purposes questions and commands are those who can play at crambo or cap verses In this we trace some vestige of a more ancient pastime much in vogue in the fourteenth and fifteeth centuries called the ABC of Aristotle which is strongly recommended by the author one Mayster Bennet not only to children but also to persons of man's estate if ignorant of letters The proem to this curious alliterative alphabet is to the following effect Whoever will be wise and command respect let him learn his letters and look upon the ABC of Aristotle against which no argument will hold good It is proper to be known by clerks and knights and may serve to amend a mean man for often the learning of letters may save his life No good man will take offence at the amendment of evil therefore let every one read this arrangement and govern himself thereby Hearkyn and heare every man and child how that I begynne A to amerous to adventurous ne anger the too much B to bold to busy and board thou not too brode C to curtes to cruel and care not too sore D to dull to dreadfull and drynk thou not too oft E to ellynge to excellent ne to ernestfull neyther F to fierce ne to familier but frendely of chere G to glad to gloryous and gealosy thou shalt hate H to hasty to hardy ne too hevy yn thyne herte I to jettyng to jangling and jape not too oft K to keeping to kynd and ware knaves taches among L to lothe to lovyng to lyberall of goods M to medlurs to merry but as manner asketh N to noyous to nyce ne nought to newe fangle O to orpyd to oveyrthwarte and othes do the hate P to preysyng to prevy ne peerless with prynces Q to queynt to querelous but quyene wele thee may R to ryetous to revelyng ne rage not too moche S to strange ne to stervyng nor stare not too brode Tto taylours ne tayle wyse for temperance yt hatyth V to venemous to violent and waste nat too mych W to wyld ne wrathful and ne too wyse deeme thee For fear of a fall A measurable meane way is best for us all Explicit a Lotteries in which toys and other trifling prizes were included to be drawn for by children were in fashion formerly but by degrees and especially since CHILDREN'S GAMES 311
the establishment of the State Lottery they have been magnified into a dangerous species of gambling and are very properly suppressed by the legisla ture They were in imitation of the State Lotteries with prizes of money proportionable to the value of the tickets and drawn in like manner These lotteries are called little goes CREAG QUEKE BOARD AND OTHER MINOR GAMES Creag is a game men tioned in a computus dated the twenty eighth of Edward I AD 1300 and said to have been played by his son Prince Edward It was a form of nine pins Queke Borde with Hand yn and Hand oute are spoken of as new games and forbidden by a statute made in the seventeenth year of Edward IV The former of this was probably a gambling game with a checker or chess board White and Black and also Making and Marrying are prohibited by a public act established in the second and third years of Philip and Mary Figgum is said to be a juggler's game in the comedy of Bartholomew Fayre by Ben Jonson acted in 1614 to which is added the devil is the author of wicked Figgum In the same play mention is made of crambe probably crambo said to be another of the devil's games Mosel the Pegge and playing for the hole about the churchyard are spoken of as boys games in a comedy called The longer thou livest the more Fool thou art written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth This may have been the same as Pegge Morrell described on page 258 Penny Pricke appears to have been a common game in the fifteenth century and is reproved by a religious writer of that period 1 The game consisted in throwing at pence which were placed on pieces of stick called holes with a piece of iron It is thus named in 1616 Their idle hours I meane all houres beside Their hours to eatt to drinke drab sleepe and ride They spend at shove board or at penny pricke 2 Pick point Venter point Blow point and Gregory occur in a description of the children's games in the sixteenth century Blow point was probably blow ing an arrow through a trunk at certain numbers by way of lottery To these may be added another pastime called Drawing Dun out of the Mire Chaucer probably alludes to this pastime in the Manciple's Prologue where the host seeing the cook asleep exclaims Syr what dunne is in the mire Brand quotes the following lines from Humors Ordinaire 1600 At shove groatt Venter point or Bord and Pile At leaping o er a Midsummer Bone fier Or at the drawing Dun out of the myer

It was a mere Christmas gambol with a great log of wood 1 Mottoes Similes and Cross Purposes are placed among the children's games in a paper belonging to the Spectator And the Parson has lost his cloak in another where a supposed correspondent writes thus I desire to know if the merry game of the parson has lost his cloak is not much in vogue amongst the ladies this Christmas because I see they wear hoods of all colours which I suppose is for that purpose Strutt, J., Cox, J. C. (1903). The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period: Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Pageants, Processions and Pompous Spectacles. United Kingdom: Methuen & Company.

Although there is some implication of a slightly less organized version of lottery played by children, there was an official game called Lottery Tickets.  Lottery Tickets was a round game, or a game where four or more players participated without partnering up.  It was played with cards, and the fish were gaming tokens or chips, usually mother-of-pearl in fish designs like this:

Here is a more detailed description of the rules:

THE GAME OF LOTTERY Two packs of cards are necessary in playing this game which admits of a large company one for the prizes the other for the tickets Any two persons of the company may be dealers as their interest is not affected by it Each person deposits a fixed sum either in money or counters to which a value is fixed forming a fund for the lottery The cards being shuffled and cut by the left hand person one dealer gives every person a card face downward for the prize on which is to be placed different value of counters from the pool at the op tion of the person to whom each card has been given The second dealer then delivers to each player from the other pack a card for the ticket Next the cards are turned by order of the manager and whoever happens to have a corresponding card takes the prize upon the card dealt to him and those remaining undrawn are returned to the fund The dealers then collect the cards and proceed as be fore until the pool is exhausted The parties then pool again and any having more counters than are wanted receive the value in money Hoyle, E. (1817). The new Hoyle. United Kingdom: G. Walker.

 

For more info: Room 2: Entertainment | Jane Austen’s House

Thank you for the question and the opportunity to share this insight into a Jane Austen reference.  I think it was a clever use of a game to get at Lydia’s impulsive character, and so a great question to ask in exploration of Pride and Prejudice.

 

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