The treatment is systematic and uniform. The description of each game begins with the apparatus and the players, and then follows the natural course of play, step by step, until the end. Each part of the game is described in a separate paragraph, and every paragraph is preceded by catch-words in heavy-faced type, so that the entire work is in the nature of a dictionary, in which any part of any game can be found immediately. All technical terms are accompanied by a full definition of their meaning, and are printed in full-face type. All disputed points have been settled in an entirely original manner. Instead of taking any one person as an authority, the history of each game has been traced from its source to its present condition, and its rules have been carefully compared with those of other members of the same family. The times and the reasons for the various changes have been ascertained, and the rules given are not only in strict accord with the true spirit of the game, but are based upon common sense and equity. When official laws for any game exist they are given in full. The list of technical terms is the most complete ever published. CONTENTS.
W. Pole. * Practical Guide to Whist, by Fisher Ames. x Short-Suit Whist, by Val. W. Starnes. * Short Whist, by James Clay. * Theory of Whist, by Dr. W. Pole.
F. Foster. x Foster’s Duplicate Whist, by R.F. Foster. Foster’s American Leads, by R.F. Foster. * Foster’s Whist at a Glance, by R.F.
London Bridge is broken down, Broken down, broken down, London Bridge is broken down, My fair lady. [Then verses follow, sung in the same way and with the same refrain, beginning with--] Mend it up with penny loaves. Penny loaves will wash away. Mend it up with pins and needles. Pins and needles they will break. Mend it up with bricks and mortar, Bricks and mortar, that will do. [After these verses have been sung--] What has this great prisoner done, Prisoner done, prisoner done, What has this great prisoner done? My fair lady. Stole a watch and lost the key, Lost the key, lost the key, Stole a watch and lost the key, My fair lady. Off to prison you must go, You must go, you must go, Off to prison you must go, My fair lady. --Hurstmonceux, Sussex (Miss Chase).
=_ It requires more than ordinary skill to judge when a false card will do less harm to the partner than to the adversaries. There are some occasions for false-card play about which there is little question. Having a sequence in the adverse suit, the Second or Fourth Hand may win with the highest card, especially if the intention is to lead trumps. Holding K Q only, Second Hand may play the King, especially in trumps. Holding A K x, the Fourth Hand should play Ace on a Queen led by an American leader. With such a suit as K J 10 x, after trumps have been exhausted, the Ten is not a safe lead; Jack or fourth-best is better. Holding up the small cards of adverse suits is a common stratagem; and it is legitimate to use any system of false-carding in trumps if it will prevent the adversaries who have led them from counting them accurately. _=Playing to the Score.=_ The play must often be varied on account of the state of the score, either to save or win the game in the hand. If the adversaries appear to be very strong, and likely to go out on the deal, all conventionalities should be disregarded until the game is saved; finesses should be refused, and winning cards played Second Hand on the first round.
According to the descriptions in some of the older Hoyles, the honours and Tens of the plain suits did not count towards game; but this is evidently an error, for we find in the same editions the advice to trump or win the adversary’s best cards in plain suits. This would obviously be a mere waste of trumps if these plain-suit cards did not count for anything. All Fours seems to have been popular with all classes of society at one time or another. Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” gives it among the principal games in his day, 1674. Daines Barrington, writing a hundred years later, speaks of All Fours in connection with Whist. “Whist,” he says, “seems never to have been played on principles until about fifty years ago; before that time [1735] it was confined chiefly to the servants’ hall, with All Fours and Put.” Another writer tells us that Ombre was the favourite game of the ladies, and Piquet of the gentlemen _par excellence_; clergymen and country squires preferring Whist, “while the lower orders shuffled away at All Fours, Put, Cribbage, and Lanterloo.” In 1754 a pamphlet was published containing: “Serious Reflections on the dangerous tendency of the common practice of Card-playing; especially the game of All Four.” For many years All Fours was looked upon as the American gambler’s game _par excellence_, and it is still the great standby of our coloured brother; who would sooner swallow a Jack than have it caught. ALL FOURS, SEVEN-UP, OR OLD SLEDGE.
The one in the middle then rises to her feet. The boy (or girl) named advances and kisses her, they change places, and the game begins again.--Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 56-57). Here stands a Young Man I. Here stands a young man who wants a sweetheart, With all his merry maids round him; He may choose from east, he may choose from west, He may choose the prettiest girl that he loves best. Now this young couple is married together, We propose they kiss each other. --Glapthorn (_Northants Notes and Queries_, i. 214, A. Palmer).
So Rogers, in the _Pleasures of Memory_, l. 77:-- Soar d in the swing, half pleas d and half afraid, Through sister elms that wav d their summer shade. Speght, in his _Glossary_, says, Meritot, a sport used by children by swinging themselves in bell-ropes, or such like, till they are giddy. In _Mercurialis de Arte Gymnastica_, p. 216, there is an engraving of this exercise. Halliwell quotes from a MS. _Yorkshire Glossary_, as follows:-- Merrytrotter, a rope fastened at each end to a beam or branch of a tree, making a curve at the bottom near the floor or ground in which a child can sit, and holding fast by each side of the rope, is swung backwards and forwards. Baker (_Northamptonshire Glossary_) calls Merrytotter the game of See-saw, and notes that the antiquity of the game is shown by its insertion in Pynson, Myry totir, child s game, oscillum. Chaucer probably alludes to it in the following lines of the _Miller s Tale_-- What eileth you? some gay girle (God it wote) Hath brought you thus on the merry tote. Merry-ma-tansa [Music] --Biggar (Wm.
| | 18 4 | | 27 24 | | 9-14 | 1- 5 | | |W wins.| | 1- 6 | | 18 9 | 18 11 | | | | | 32 27 | | 11-25 | 7-23 | | | | | 6-10 | | 28 24 | 27 18 | | | | | 27 23 | | 5-14 | 9-14 | | | | | 8-12 | | 24 19 | 18 9| | | | | 25 21 | | 6-10 | 5-14 | | | | | 2- 6 | |B wins.|B wins.| | | | | 31 27 | | | | | | | | 3- 8 | | | | | | | | 30 25 | | | | | | | |W wins.| +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ _=LOSING GAME.=_ In this variety of Draughts, the object is to give away all your men before your adversary can give away his, or to block yourself so that you cannot move. The secret of success in Losing Game is to get your men on such squares that they cannot be made to jump to the king row. These squares will be the row next you on your own side of the board, and every second row from that, horizontally. Get your men on those squares as soon as possible, and do not be in too great a hurry to capture your adversary’s men. _=POLISH DRAUGHTS.
If the player neither turns over nor takes into his hand either of the skat cards, he may play any of the suit Solos, Grand Solo, Grand Ouvert, Nullo, or Null Ouvert. He may announce schneider or schwarz in any Solo. Any player looking at the skat cards before the beginning of the play is debarred from bidding that deal, and is penalised ten points in the score. In addition to this penalty, either of the other players may demand a fresh deal. If a player looks at the skat cards during the play of a hand the play is immediately stopped, and if he is the single player he can count only the points taken in up to that time, exclusive of the skat. These points are deducted from 120, and his adversaries claim the difference. The game is then settled, according to this count, exactly as if the hand had been played out. If an adversary of the single player looks at either of the skat cards during the play of a hand, the single player may at once stop the game, and his adversaries can count only the points they have taken in in tricks up to that time. If they have no tricks they are schwartz; if they have not 30 points they are schneider. When four or more play, any person holding no cards may be penalised ten points for looking at the skat cards.
--Biggar (Wm. Ballantyne). (_b_) In Biggar, all the players were seated round the hearthstone, lads on one side, lassies the other; one lad rising up said the first verse, then one acting as maister said the next verse. The young man then said the next two lines, to which the other replied in the two following, and naming at the close any girl he thought would be acceptable. If the lad was pleased he sang the next verse. If he was not pleased with the girl offered him he replied in either of the three following verses. The first of the three was generally said if the girl was thought to be too old; if bad-tempered, the second. If the lad found no fault, but wished to politely refuse, he sang the last verse. The girl then was asked in her turn, and the same formula gone through, she saying either of the three last verses given. Forfeits were demanded for every refusal, and were cried at the end of the game.
Where will the pigs lie, daughter, daughter? Lie in the washing-tub, mother, mother. Where will we wash our clothes, daughter, daughter? Wash them at the sea-side, mother, mother. Suppose the clothes should float away, daughter, daughter? Take a boat and bring them in, mother, mother. Suppose the boat would go too slow, daughter, daughter? Take a steamboat and bring them in, mother, mother. Suppose the steamboat would go too fast, daughter, daughter? Then take a rope and hang yourself, mother, mother. --South Shields (Miss Blair, aged 9). (_b_) One child stands apart and personates the Mother. The other children form a line, holding hands and facing the Mother. They advance and retire singing the first, third, and alternate verses, while the Mother, in response, sings the second and alternate verses. While the last verse is being sung the children all run off; the Mother runs after them, catches them, and beats them.
_ In the first example, A and Y pass, and B calls Solo. A follows the modern practice of leading the top of his long weak suit, as a card of warning and support for his partners. Z knows Y must have 9 or Ace of diamonds, or no more, and he avoids the error of opening another suit, especially a weak one. B continues with the trump Queen, hoping to drop King and Jack together. At trick 5, Z cannot give up the command of trumps, and as A’s lead and discard indicate that he wants spades led up to him, Z’s best chance is that Y has some clubs. Y leads to A. At trick 9, Z knows B cannot have 10 and 9 of trumps, or he would have led one of them to prevent the J and 8 both making, so Y must have one of those trumps. At trick 11, if B leads the club, he loses his call. He must again take the chance of bringing the trumps down together. In the second example A proposes, or calls Solo, and Y over-calls him with Misère.
Before a card was drawn, the probability of getting two aces in succession was the product of these fractions; 1/13 × 1/17 = 1/221. On the same principle the odds against two players cutting cards that are a tie, such as two Fours, are not 220 to 1, unless it is specified that the first card shall be a Four. The first player having cut, the odds against the second cutting a card of equal value are only 16 to 1. _=Dice.=_ In calculating the probabilities of throws with two or more dice, we must multiply together the total number of throws possible with each die separately, and then find the number of throws that will give the result required. Suppose two dice are used. Six different throws may be made with each, therefore 6 × 6 = 36 different throws are possible with the two dice together. What are the odds against one of these dice being an ace? A person unfamiliar with the science of probabilities would say that as two numbers must come up, and there are only six numbers altogether, the probability is 2/6, or exactly 2 to 1 against an ace being thrown. But this is not correct, as will be immediately apparent if we write out all the 36 possible throws with two dice; for we shall find that only 11 of the 36 contain an ace, and 25 do not. The proper way to calculate this is to take the chances against the ace on each die separately, and then to multiply them together.
gutenberg.org. Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.
] Rules as to Cavalry Charging: No body of less than eight cavalry may charge, and they must charge in proper formation. If cavalry charges infantry in extended order-- If the charge starts at a distance of more than two feet, the cavalry loses one man for every five infantry-men charged, and the infantry loses one man for each sabre charging. At less than two feet and more than one foot, the cavalry loses one man for every ten charged, and the infantry two men for each sabre charging. At less than one foot, the cavalry loses one man for every fifteen charged, and the infantry three men for each sabre charging. If cavalry charges infantry in close order, the result is reversed. Thus at more than two feet one infantry-man kills three cavalry-men, and fifteen cavalry-men one infantry-man. At more than one foot one infantry-man kills two cavalry, and ten cavalry one infantry. At less than one foot one infantry-man kills one cavalry, and five cavalry one infantry. However, infantry that have been charged in close order are immobile for the subsequent move. Infantry charged in extended order must on the next move retire one foot; they can be charged again.
In Nairn, Scotland, the game is called Post and Rider. One boy, the Post, takes his stand beside a wall. Another boy stoops down with his head touching the Post s breast. Several other boys stoop down in the same way behind the first boy, all in line. The Rider then leaps on the back of the boy at the end of the row of stooping boys, and from his back to that of the one in front, and so on from back to back till he reaches the boy next the Post. He then holds up so many fingers, and says-- Buck, buck, how many fingers do I hold up? The boy makes a guess. If the number guessed is wrong, the Rider gives the number guessed as well as the correct number, and again holds up so many, saying-- [Four] you say, but [two] it is; Buck, buck, how many fingers do I hold up? This goes on till the correct number is guessed, when the guesser becomes the Rider. The game was called Buck, Buck at Keith. Three players only took part in the game--the Post, the Buck, and the Rider. The words used by the Rider were-- Buck, buck, how many horns do I hold up? If the guess was wrong, the Rider gave the Buck as many blows or kicks with the heel as the difference between the correct number and the number guessed.
Mort is not liable to penalty under any circumstances. If any other player revokes, his opponents may take three points from the score of his side; or add three points to their score; or take three of his tricks. The penalty cannot be divided; but if two or more revokes are made by the same side, the penalty for each may be enforced in a different manner. For instance: If the score is 3 to 2 in favor of the adversaries, Vivant may take three points from their score for one revoke, and add three to his own score for the other. It is not permissible to reduce the revoking player’s _=tricks=_ to nothing. At least one must be left in order to prevent slams being made through revoke penalties. _=Cards Played in Error.=_ Vivant is not liable to any penalty for dropping his cards face up on the table; but if he or Mort plays two cards at once to a trick, the adversaries may select which they will allow to be played. The adversaries are subject to the same penalties as in whist for all cards played in error. _=Leading Out of Turn.