The example set by the club at White's appears to have been much more influential in promoting gaming than the denunciation of an Act of Parliament to have been effective in repressing it: the letter of the act was, indeed, killing, but the spirit of the legislators, as displayed at White's, kept the game alive. New clubs of the same kind,--on the principle of mutual insurance against informers,--were established in the metropolis; and even in the provinces, country gentlemen and tradesmen, becoming aware of the advantages of the social compact, formed themselves into little clubs for the purpose of indulging in a quiet game at cards or dice. Card-playing about the same time, or a little later, was greatly promoted by the establishment of assembly-rooms in country towns, where cock-fighting squires, after attending the pit in the morning, might enjoy in the evening the more refined amusements of dancing and cards.[215] The example set by the higher classes was followed by the lower; and at a "merry night" in a Cumberland village, some fifty years since, cards were as indispensable as at an assize ball in the county town: with the exception of the dress of the company and the arrangement of the rooms, the one assembly, at the commencement at least, seems to have displayed all the essentials of the other. "Ay, lad, see a murry-neet we've had at Bleckell! The sound o' the fiddle yet rings i' my ear; Aw reet clipt and heeled were the lads and the lasses, And monnie a clever lish hussey was there: The bettermer sort sat snug i' the parlour; I' th' pantry the sweethearters cuttered sae soft; The dancers they kicked up a stour i' the kitchen; At lanter the caird-lakers sat i' the loft."[216]