On each side of one sits a pair of adversaries so that the initial arrangement, if pair A had the deal, would be this:-- [Illustration: B C +-----+-----+ | 5 | 6 | | | | A |1 | 4| A | | | | 2 | 3 | +-----+-----+ B C ] Numbers are placed on the tables to indicate the positions to which the players shall move after each deal. The player at 6 goes to 5; 4 to 3; 3 to 2; 2 to 1, and 1 to 6. Each pair of partners, as they fall into the end seats, have the deal. If the dealer at either end will not declare on his own cards, he passes it, and the Dummy hand opposite him must be handed to the dealer that sits at the other end of the long table, who must declare for his partner. The usual four hands are dealt and played at each table, and scored as usual. Three scores must be kept, because there are three separate rubbers going on at once,--that between A and B; between A and C, and between B and C. If one pair wins its rubber against one of the others, three players will be idle at one end of the table for one deal, but then all will come into play again, for the next deal. Some persons think this is better than four playing a rubber while two look on. _=DOUBLE DUMMY BRIDGE.=_ In this form of the game, the dealer always deals for himself.
If you have to decide between two combinations, one of which you must sacrifice, lead that which is of the smallest value, or the least likely to be restored. For instance: If your adversary has shown one or two Kings, but no Ace, and you have three of each, you are more likely to get 100 Aces than 80 Kings. If you hold duplicate cards, especially in trumps, play the one on the table, not the one in your hand. _=Brisques.=_ Beginners often overlook the importance of brisques. Every time you allow your adversary to take in a brisque which you might have won, you make a difference of twenty points in the score. While you are hugging three Aces, waiting for a fourth, your adversary may get home all his Tens, and then turn up with your fourth Ace in his hand. _=Discarding.=_ It is usually best to settle upon one of two suits or combinations, and to discard the others, for you cannot play for everything. Having once settled on what to play for, it is generally bad policy to change unless something better turns up.
There are two ways of settling at the end of the hand, each of which has its good points. _=SWEEPSTAKE HEARTS.=_ After the hand has been played, each player announces the number of hearts he has taken in, and pays into the pool one counter for each. All thirteen hearts having been paid for, any player having taken no hearts wins the entire pool; two having taken none, divide it. If all the players have taken hearts, or if one player has taken all thirteen, the pool remains, and forms a _=Jack=_. This can be won only by a single player in some subsequent deal taking no hearts, all the others having taken at least one. These jack pools are of course increased thirteen counters every deal until some player wins the whole amount. Some clubs make it a Jack after two players have divided a pool, using the odd counter as a starter. It will be found that natural Jacks occur quite frequently enough without resorting to this expedient. _=HOWELL’S SETTLING.
Cots are brass buttons, and Twisses bits of brass--a Twiss of solid brass being worth many Cots. Each player provides himself with a nice flat [key] stone, and from an agreed pitch tosses it at the Hob. If he knocks off any of the Cots and Twisses nearer to the players than the Hob is, he claims them. The other players try to knock the Hob away with their key-stones from any Cots and Twisses that may not have been claimed; and if any key-stone touches Hob after all have thrown, the owner cannot claim any Cots and Twisses.--Earls Heaton (Herbert Hardy). Each player selects a Cast or stone to pitch with; on another stone, called the Hob, the Cots and Twys are placed; at some distance Scops are set in the ground. First the players pitch from the Hob to the Scop, and the one who gets nearest goes first. He then pitches at the Hob, and if he knocks off the stakes he has them, provided his Cast is nearer to them than the Hob is; in failure of this, the other player tries. In pitching up, one Cast may rest on another, and if the boy whose stone is underneath can lift it up to knock the other Cast away, it has to remain at the place to which it has been struck; if he does not succeed in doing this, the second player may lift off his Cast and place it by the first. Whoever knocks off the stakes, they go to the boy whose Cast is nearest to them.
_=2.=_ If a player begins with less than the proper number of men, the error cannot be rectified after the player has made a throw for his move. _=3.=_ The players must each cast a single die for the privilege of first move, the higher winning. Ties throw again. _=4.=_ By mutual consent it may be agreed to let the higher throw play the points on his own and his adversary’s die for the first move; otherwise he must throw again with two dice. _=5.=_ Each player must throw the dice into the table on his right hand, and if either die jumps into the other table, or off the board, both dice must be taken up and thrown again. _=6.
=_ If the balls are disturbed accidentally through the medium of any agency other than the player himself, they must be replaced and the player allowed to proceed. _=6.=_ If in the act of playing the player disturbs any ball other than his own, he cannot make a counting stroke, but he may play for safety. Should he disturb a ball after having played successfully, he loses his count on that shot; his hand is out, and the ball so disturbed is placed back as nearly as possible in the position which it formerly occupied on the table, the other balls remaining where they stop. _=7.=_ Should a player touch his own ball with the cue or otherwise previous to playing, it is foul, the player loses one, and cannot play for safety. It sometimes happens that the player after having touched his ball gives a second stroke, then the balls remain where they stop, or are replaced as nearly as possible in their former position at the option of his opponent. _=8.=_ When the cue-ball is very near another, the player shall not play without warning his adversary that they do not touch, and giving him sufficient time to satisfy himself on that point. _=9.
| | | | | | | +------+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ ] When three play, the cards are dealt in much the same manner; two separate hands of six cards being given to each player. When four, five, six, seven, or eight play, the cards are dealt in rotation from left to right until the pack is exhausted, the last card being turned up for the trump. When five or seven play, either the spade 6 must be thrown out of the pack, or the thirty-sixth card must be shown, after the dealer has turned the thirty-fifth for the trump. When eight play, all four sixes are deleted. The deal passes to the left, each player dealing in turn until the game is finished. The general rules with regard to irregularities in the deal are the same as at Whist. _=STAKES.=_ When stakes are played for, they are for so much a game. Rubbers are not played. It is usual to form a pool, each player depositing the stake agreed upon, and the winner taking all.
In _Chronicles of London Bridge_, pp. 152, 153, the author says he obtained the following note from a Bristol correspondent:-- About forty years ago, one moonlight night in the streets of Bristol, my attention was attracted by a dance and chorus of boys and girls, to which the words of this ballad gave measure. The breaking down of the Bridge was announced as the dancers moved round in a circle hand in hand, and the question, How shall we build it up again? was chanted by the leader while the rest stood still. This correspondent also sent the tune the children sang, which is printed in the _Chronicles of London Bridge_. This was evidently the same game, but it would appear that the verses have also been used as a song, and it would be interesting to find out which is the more ancient of the two--the song or the game; and to do this it is necessary that we should know something of the history of the song. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ (ii. 338) speaks of it as a lullaby song well known in the southern part of Kent and in Lincolnshire. In the _Gentleman s Magazine_ (1823, Part II. p. 232) appeared the following interesting note:-- The projected demolition of London Bridge recalls to my mind the introductory lines of an old ballad which more than seventy years ago I heard plaintively warbled by a lady who was born in the reign of Charles II.
Patterson). XI. Here we come looping, looping [louping?], Looping all the night; I put my right foot in, I put my right foot out, I shake it a little, a little, And I turn myself about. --Hexham (Miss J. Barker). XII. Christian was a soldier, A soldier, a soldier, Christian was a soldier, and a brave one too. Right hand in, right hand out, Shake it in the middle, and turn yourself about. --Sporle, Norfolk (Miss Matthews). XIII.