The following is a copy of a curious announcement of a card assembly, in 1775:—

"Liverpool, Sept. 22.

The Card Assembly

will begin on Thursday next, the 28th instant, in the Exchange. To meet at five o'Clock."(1)

The above particulars are valuable, as giving an insight into the habits of Liverpool people of respectability, in the last century.

The old English and manly practice of Archery was a pastime which was held in estimation, in the last quarter of the 18th century, by the higher classes in Liverpool. An archery ground, with shooting butts, was formed, and respectably supported for some time, before the close of the last century, near the west side of Cazneau-street, which was then quite in the country; and the members of the society or club which supported it, were called the "Mersey Bowmen." The principal part of the archery ground is built upon, but the lodge belonging to it still exists, (2) and is now altered, and used as a dwelling-house and workshop, occupied by James Macdonald, a cooper, but it is hid from Cazneau-street by other houses; the west part is, however, visible from Grosvenor-street, and is rather conspicuous from having had projecting wings added to it. A view of its east front may be obtained by going up a narrow court of small mean houses, called Cazneau-place, which communicates indirectly with Grosvenor-street, into which the back door of a small yard belonging to the lodge opens. The east front is of brick; and on a stone over a large window, a bow, arrows, and a hunting-horn are appropriately carved; and on each side of the window is a stone tablet, on which are

(1) Gore's General Advertiser of 22nd September, 1775.
(2) The Author has been unable to learn the date of its erection.

carved two arrows crossed, with the initials, in old English letters M and B for Mersey Bowmen, as in the wood cut at the foot of this page.

In the anonymous work on Liverpool" before noticed, published in 1795, its author, in alluding to the club and to the fine manly practice of archery, calls it "the harmless infantine amusement of the bow and arrow," which, he states, was then still pursued "in conformity to fashion," at Liverpool. There are persons yet living who recollect archery being practised at the archery ground, in 1796 or 1797. The ground, however, had ceased to be so used before April, 1798, and there is reason to believe that the club had then been broken up, because, in one of the title-deeds(2)

(1) History of Liverpool, Anon. of 1795; printed by J. M'Creery, page 279, the authorship of which has been sometimes attributed to a person named Moss.

(2) The deed is in the possession of Mr. John Bibby; and from it we learn that in April, 1798, Joshua Rose sold to William Farrall, a parcel of land, "then lately the Shooting Butts," which he had purchased in February of the same year, from Joseph Brooks and Benjamin Bromfield, the property having been exchanged to them in 1797, by the Right Honourable Edward Smith Stanley, Earl of Derby, and the Rev. Geoffrey Hornby, Rector of Winwick.

B

relating to it, dated in April, in that year, it is described as "lately the Shooting Butts."

Tennis, cricket, skittles, and bowls were favourite games. There was a tennis-court kept up for some years on the east side of Grosvenor-street; the date of its erection is uncertain, but, eventually falling into disuse, it was purchased and converted into a place of worship, in 1798, by the Rev. Robert Banister, who officiated as the minister there, from that time until near the period of his death, in 1829, as will be afterwards noticed."

Another tennis-court was made at a date subsequent to the making of the former, by Mr. Morgan, a pipe-maker, in Gradwell-street, which was in existence for several years; but has long been disused, and the building has been destroyed or applied to other purposes.

There were bowling-greens and skittle-grounds at various taverns, which were a good deal frequented. One of the latter, Neptune's Coffee-house, has been before mentioned as having a skittle-ground; the locality selected for such a place of amusement seems very remarkable, as it was close to the Exchange, and the door of the Coffeehouse opened into a passage leading from the shambles into Water-street.

The use of tobacco and snuff was then very general: both the lower and middle classes, and many in the higher ranks of life, were accustomed to smoke tobacco; but as cigars were then scarcely known, and certainly were not in use in Liverpool in the early part of the period we are engaged upon, they smoked with long earthen pipes. The first cigars introduced into the town are said to have been brought in some French prizes from the Island of St. Domingo, which were taken in the war in which the