The following particulars relating to the manufacture of cards in the reign of Queen Anne, are derived from a broadside entitled "Considerations in relation to the Imposition on Cards, humbly submitted to the Hon. House of Commons." It is without date, but was certainly printed in the reign of Queen Anne, for the purpose of being circulated among the members of the House of Commons on the occasion of a proposal to lay a tax of sixpence per pack on cards. "Nine parts in ten of the cards now made," it is stated, "are sold from 6_s._ to 24_s._ per gross; and even these at 6_s._ will by this duty be subjected to £3 12_s._ tax. This, with submission, will destroy nine parts in ten of the manufacture; for those cards which are now bought for 3_d._ [per pack] can't then be afforded under 10_d._ or 1_s._ If any of your honours hope by this tax to suppress expensive card-playing, it is answered that the common sort who play for innocent diversion will only be hindered; the sharp gamesters who play for money will not be discouraged; for those who play for many pounds a game will not be hindered by 12_d._ a pack." There were then 40,000 reams of Genoa white paper annually imported, chiefly for the purpose of making cards. The business was in the hands of small masters, mostly poor, of whom there were no less than a hundred, in and about London. Their price to retailers, one sort of cards with another, was three halfpence a pack, and their profit not above a halfpenny. Though cards were at that period much smaller than they are at present, it is difficult to conceive how they could be manufactured at so low a price. As Pope's description of the game of Ombre in the Rape of the Lock has been so frequently referred to by writers of all kinds,--whether treating, like Richard Seymour, Esq., on Court Games, or, like Miss Mitford, on Country Contentments,[200]--the omission of a reference to it here might be considered a gross oversight; but as it is impossible to go a pitch beyond the encomiums which have been bestowed on it, the following remarks by an old author may be introduced as a variation: "Mr. Pope, too, most certainly has his merit; yet the generality of polite men heed him little more than a pack-horse upon the road; they hear the jingle of his bells and pass on, without thinking of the treasure he carries. I have frequently thought it odd, that in all the good company I have kept, I never heard a line quoted from any part of him, unless, now and then, an accidental one, from his beautiful and accurate description of the game of Ombre."[201]