Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/65

Rh come next under consideration in the order here set down; being a numerous and pernicious annoyance to all persons walking the streets, where they generally pick up your acquaintance, or at the public house, at which you may turn in, to take refreshment.

The propensity to gambling pervades the entire population of the north of England; and most Welchmen settle the commonest disputes that occur by wager, offering to lay more money upon one senseless dispute than perhaps ever belonged to their whole family at any one time. Those are denominated

In the city, where a person meaning to ridicule the practice, or to give an elucidation of it, observed, That laying of wagers were attempts to come at the money of others by undue, but excusable, means. Upon which he entertained the following opinions, in the form of aphorisms: A wager well layed is already half won. Wagers are not layed to be lost; For if lost, they are not to be paid. So, if the decision goes against you, still The money must not be paid, but