WHIST.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9811, 21 August 1897, Page 3

WHIST.

"Weekly Press and Referee."

THE EPOCHS OF WHIST.

It would be somewhat enterprising to compare whist with the leading games of other peoples in order to ascertain whether national character is not partly mirrored in national indoor sport. I think they would be found quite analogous. As the German soldier of the Middle Ages gambled away the booty of a whole onmpaign in the rough and boisterous but simple game of chance called landsknaeht (F. lansquenet) so did the polished courtiers of the French court cultivate games which aavoured of diplomacy and cunning, games of rapidly ohanging situations and which needed or permitted delicate accessories. We find each city of the Italian peninsula under a different government and each playing a different game of cards. The ignorant peasantry of Southern Europe loved the symbolism of the tarots and these developed, in their application, into that class _of allegorical games of which the Spanish I'Hombre is the type. From the date of the Introduction of playing cards to the present time, men have Bought to make their card games more entertaining; they have lumbered them up with fantastio details; made them so complicated as to bewilder the novice; amended here and created there; and yet they havo failed to disoover any fundamental card principle whioh was not known and practised four hundred years ago. The nearest approach to a new principle is found, perhaps in the German Skat, whioh, after all, is but a laboured combination of the best features of older games. The game of Skat is appropriate to the Teutonic intellect as that of Chess is to tho Indian; but with the AngloSaxon and its derivative races whist has gained a firm asoendenoy over all other games. In the latest and most popular form it approaches the primitive card game more than any other. There is good reason to believe that the primitive card game was a development of dice, and consisted of a series of distinct suits or colours composed of a varying number of numeral cards. It was probably played as whist is now played, for tricks, the higher card winning the lower. Each suit was composed of not more than ten cards, and all were of equal value. The trump idea was almost the first addition. Whist now is practically the same as the old Italian game of " trivafl," or «' trumps," the game in which one series of numerals wins or *' triumphs " over the others. Our court cards have oeased to have any significance, and might just as well be changed to the 11,12 and 13, and the ace reduced to its original order at the foot of a sequence. The game would be exactly the same. This brief sketch of the genesis of the card game is pertinent to the subject, because it shows that whist is the simplest and, therefore, the best embodiment of the fundamental card principle; and goes far to explain its unusual progress and its adaptability to all circles. It certainly owes its widespread popularity to some inherent strength rather than to the accident of having England for its cradle. Whist has been firmly planted all over the civilised world, in places where the preßtige of England alone would not have given it a foothold. Its growth is pictured in its literature. Its written history is nearly as extensive as that of all other games of cards combined, although books were freely written about card games more than a century before the earliest known printed reference to whist. No other card game can in any wise compare with it in volume of literature.

(To le continued.)