On Thomas Hughes and Skittles

Factual Questions
1

I’ve run across an odd quote and I’m looking for some information to verify that it’s authentic. Attributed to English lawyer and author Thomas Hughes (1823?-1896), it goes a little something like this:

(cite)
Is that for real? A nineteenth century English lawyer, talking about Skittlebrau? Seems a bit unlikely. What’s the straight dope?

2

http://www.answers.com/skittles&r=67

skit·tle (skĭt’l) pronunciation
n.

  1. skittles (used with a sing. verb) A British form of ninepins, in which a wooden disk or ball is thrown to knock down the pins.
  2. One of the pins used in skittles.
3

Well, skittles is a form of bowling so maybe Hughes was saying something to the effect of life isn’t all drinking and leisure.

4

Gotta admire the efficiency! **Revtim **and Amp, thanks for the help, though I have to admit I’m a bit disappointed.

5

Skittles. The game that’s kinda like either ten-pin or nine-pin bowling. Not the candy.

6

At least he wasn’t talking about Rasberry, orange, tropical wheat beer that the waitresses are alway pushing on me.

7

Just a quick trivia note on the author Thomas Hughes. The town that he founded for second sons of the British aristocracy still exists. Rugby, Tennessee is very small and Victorian. I was told that the earliest settlers built a tennis court before they built houses.

8

That’s still a common phrase, I’ve heard it many many times.

9

The earliest cite for “skittles” in the OED is from 1634.

10

Didn’t comic books in the 1970’s advertise Skittle ball games for sale? I want to say that Roger Staubach was the pitchman.