The Royal Cock Pit Laws

The central main figure is the blind aristocrat Lord Albemarle Bertie (brother of the Duke of Ancaster) who was known for gambling large amounts of money and is shown being robbed by the man to his left. Hogarth’s original engraving had a warning for all in the form of a shadow cast across the pit of a man who could not pay his debts being hoisted aloft in a basket. This handkerchief does not show this detail. Hogarth’s satirical engraving was based on the famous cockpit on Bird Cage Walk, London and was presented with the mock title ‘Pit Ticket’ as a possible intended pun on the name of the government minister, William Pitt.