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Betting on the game was the ruin of the working-man, who "spendeth that on the Holyday, at Tennis, which hee got the whole weeke, for the keeping of his poore family. A thing more hurtfull then our Ale-houses in England."
Whereupon more and more people came running out of the ale-houses and cottages. Some cried out, "Is that the witch?" Others, again, "Look at the parson's witch! the parson's witch!" and much more, which for very shame I may not write.
In burghers' mansions, peasants' cottages, mechanics' back-parlours, on board herring smacks, canal boats, and East Indiamen; in shops, counting-rooms, farmyards, guard-rooms, ale-houses; on the exchange, in the tennis-court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, christenings, or bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met each other, there was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of Remonstrant and Contra-Remonstrant, the hissing of red-hot theological rhetoric, the pelting of hostile texts.
He has, indeed, at times, seemed inclined to listen to their opinions, but their wholesome advice has been completely defeated by the obstreperous conduct of one of his sons. This is a noisy, rattle-pated fellow, of rather low habits, who neglects his business to frequent ale-houses is the orator of village clubs and a complete oracle among the poorest of his father's tenants.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the ale-houses of those days frequently had a plot of land attached to them, wherein a game of bowls might be enjoyed. But the object-lesson of Vauxhall changed all that. From the date when that resort passed into the energetic management of Jonathan Tyers, smaller pleasure gardens sprang into existence all over London.
Every base groom must have his pipe; it was sold in all inns and ale-houses, and the shops of apothecaries, grocers, and chandlers were almost never, from morning till night, without company still taking of tobacco. There was a saying on the Continent that "England is a paradise for women, a prison for servants, and a hell or purgatory for horses."
I observed that those men who worked by task, and who had the luck to hit upon easy beds of the rock, were not obliged to work more than three or four hours a day: they got high wages with little labour; and they spent their money jollily above-ground in the ale-houses, as I heard. I did not know that these jolly fellows often left their wives and families starving while they were getting drunk.
Not the least sufferer was the rector of Purleigh, for the Puritan Parliament ejected him from his living, on the charge "that he was a common frequenter of ale-houses, not only himself sitting dayly tippling there ... but hath oft been drunk," a charge indignantly denied by the royalists, who asserted that he was a "worthy Pious man, ... always ... a very Modest, Sober Person;" and this latter claim is supported by the fact that though the Puritans sequestered the rich living, they made no objection to his serving as rector at Brixted Parva, where the living was "such a Poor and Miserable one that it was always with difficulty that any one was persuaded to accept of it."
More of your Money and less of your Civility, good Mr. Wasteall. Gay. Dear Landlady Land. Dear me no Dears, Sir, but let me have my Money Eight Weeks Rent last Friday; besides Taverns, Ale-houses, Chandlers, Landresses' Scores, and ready Money out of my Purse; you know it, Sir. Gay. Ay, but your Husband don't; speak softly. Land. My Husband! what, do you think to fright me with my Husband?
I do not wish to bracket Benbow and Tom Cribb; but, depend upon it, they are practically bracketed for admiration in the minds of many frequenters of ale-houses.
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