Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/77

Rh months. Finally, the Vagrant Act, 1873 (36 and 37 Vict. c. 38), contains the following clause: "Every person playing or betting by way of wagering or gaming on any street, road, highway, or other open and public place, or in any open place to which the public have, or are permitted to have, access, at or with any table or instrument of gaming, or any coin, card, token, or other article used as an instrument or means of gaming, at any game or pretended game of chance, shall be deemed a rogue and vagabond." The original Act of 1868, of which this is an amendment, was passed to repress the practice of playing pitch and toss in the streets, which, it seems, had grown to the dimensions of a nuisance in the colliery districts.

The general result of all these enactments may be briefly stated thus. Apart from statute, no games are unlawful in themselves. Games were originally made unlawful in the interest of the more useful military exercises which they threatened to supplant. The prohibition has been retained and extended on account of the vice of gambling, and severe penalties have been enacted against houses at which persons can play unlawful games. Betting-houses in general were brought within the definition of gaming-houses, and finally betting or gaming was prohibited in any public place. It must be admitted that these distinctions are based on a most invidious principle. Practically gambling is forbidden to the poor and connived at in the rich.

It may be asked, What games, as such, are lawful under these various statutes, and what are unlawful? The author of an excellent and amusing little work on Gaming and Gamesters' Law, gives the following as the result of a careful examination of all the Acts. The following are lawful games—backgammon, bagatelle, billiards, boat-races, bowls, chess, cricket, croquet, curling, dominoes, draughts, fives, football, foot-races, golf, knurr and spell, putting the stone, quoits, rackets, rowing, skittles, tennis, whist, wrestling. The following are doubtful—boxing, cudgel-playing, and single-stick. The following are absolutely unlawful—ace of hearts, basset, dice (except backgammon), hazard, lotteries (except art-union lotteries), Pharaoh (or faro), boulet (or rely poly). An Act of Geo. II., which prohibited horse-racing for prizes under £50 value, has since been repealed.

To turn now to the civil aspects of the case. Gambling apart from gaming, i.e., simple wagering or betting, was not at common law illegal, and the Act of Anne did not affect wagers other than gaming wagers. In fact, the courts were constantly being called upon to enforce contracts by way of wagers, and were as constantly exercising their ingenuity to discover excuses for refusing. A writer on the law of contracts discovers here the origin of that principle of "public policy" which plays so important a part in English law. Wagering contracts were rejected because the contingencies on which they depended tended to create interests hostile to the common weal. A bet on the life of the emperor Napoleon was declared void because it gave one of the parties an interest in keeping the king's enemy alive, and also because it gave the other an interest in compassing his death by unlawful means. A bet as to the amount of the hop-duty was against public policy, because it tended to expose the condition of the king's revenue to all the world. A bet between two hackney coachmen, as to which of them should be selected by a gentleman for a particular journey, was void, because it tended to expose the customer to their importunities. When no such subtlety could be invented, the law, however reluctantly, was compelled to enforce the fulfilment of a wager. Now, however, by the Act 8 and 9 Vict. c. 109, cited supra, all agreements by way of wager are void, and money lost on them cannot be recovered by action at law. There still remains, as hinted above, a distinction between gaming and other wagers. The 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 41 treats securities (e.g., promissory notes) given for money lost at gaming as being given for an illegal consideration; under the 8 and 9 Vict. c. 109, securities given for betting are held to be given for a void, or for no consideration. Thus a third person, coming into possession of a note given for a bet, would have to prove that he gave value for it if the bet was a gaming bet under the statute of Anne; if it was not a gaming bet, he would be presumed to have given consideration for it until it was actually proved that he had not.

The 8 and 9 Vict. c. 109 exempts all subscriptions, or contributions, or agreements to subscribe or contribute towards any plate, prize, or sum of money to be awarded to the winner of any lawful game.  GANDERSHEIM (in Eberhard's Chronicle, Ganderseni), a town of Germany at the head of a circle in the duchy of Brunswick, situated on the Gande, a sub-tributary of the Weser, about 48 miles S.W. of Brunswick. It is a small place numbering, according to the census of 1875, only 2454 inhabitants; but it carries on the manufacture of linen, cigars, beet-root sugar, and beer, and possesses not only an old palace built by the dukes of Brunswick in the 16th century, but an abbey which ranks among the most famous in Germany.

 GANDIA, an ancient wall-encircled city of Spain, in the province and archbishopric of Valencia, is beautifully situated in the fertile huerta or garden of Gandia, about 3 miles from the mouth of the river Alcoy. Its most prominent buildings are a large collegiate church, a college of the Escuelas Pias, and a palace of the dukes of Gandia. There is some trade in the produce of the district, especially in fruit; and linen and silk are manufactured to a limited extent. St Francis de Borgia or Borja, third general of the Jesuit order, was duke of Gandia, and spent some years of his life there. Population about 7000.  GANDO, a kingdom of north-western Africa in the Sudan, comprising that part of the territory watered by the Quorra or Niger which extends from the Birni and Say in the N.