WHIST DRIVE PROFITS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14993, 13 June 1914, Page 2

WHIST DRIVE PROFITS.

A PEBSOXAL INVESTIGATION.

(By Charles Vidal DiehMin the London "Daily Mail.'-) I had heard so much of the popularity of the public whist drives which are now a feature of the evening life of London and the large provincial centres, and I had had whispered to mc so many suggestions that from the ' proprietorial point of view they were i not conducted with fairness, that there ■ was only one thing for mc to do—to go and examine for myself. i As a result of that determination I ' have spent three weeks at whist drives in tho north, south, east, and west of London, in the afternoons and more frequently in the evenings, and Sundays included. In all I have been pre- ' sent at just a ficore', and readers of the "Daily Mail," whist drivers or not, shall have my impressions of a "craze" which is yet in the making and which by next autumn will have reached extraordinary proportions. I Card-piaying of any kind is to somo people a vice and to others an entertainment. To not a few it is a business. To the whist drive controller it means a profit, and so far as I can see a well-deserved one. The conduct of a large whist drive requires acumen and honesty for success to be achieved, and certainly in nineteen out of twenty cases in which I have made personal observation both these attributes are . conspicuous. ' j WHAT A WHIST T>Rl\ _ IS. j Not everyone who has read thus far knows what a whist drive is, and to : enlighten the ignorant I will give the ; liriefest possible explanation. People pay a certain sum to sit out the evening and play cards together. The usual . "cost is the slight tlisbursement of Is . -d, less than is charged for a comfortable seat at a theatre or music hall. Thero are no further incidental expenses or risks. For the small outlay there is the two and A half hours of amusement, with the chance—and hero's the rub—of securing prizes of £"-'O, £10, even of ten shillings or half_i n-crown, which, in the eyes of the'fad- | dist, turns the game into a gamble. j Each entrant into tho hall, which is usually a disused skating rink, is given a card for a male or female, which has spaces for the insertion of the resulte of two dozen hands at the good oldfashioned game of whist, which the law courts have very properly decided is a game of skill rather than a game of chanco. These twenty-four games are played by all the entrants with a change of partner and adversary every time, and the maker of the largest number of tricks takes the highest prizes, and so on. » To the uninitiated it would appear that, on a simple arithmetical calculation showing that the possible number of tricks being 312, it would require at least three-quarters of this number to win the first prize of a big bag of sovereigns. Nothing of the kind. In all my twenty drives there has not been a single instance of 200 tricks being made—the highest has been 194. On one occasion 179, or an average of less than seven and "a half, has proved successful. STBICTLY FAIR PLAY. Now this to some extent is prima lacie evidence that these gatherings of two hundred to a thousand card-play-er s -ure given fair play by the promoters. The only suggestion of something not quite legitimate by headquarters was at one drive where a top .prize was certainly taken by a gentleman, playing as a lady, who was put m by tho controllers at the last moment. Wise directors of drives will not allow-their friends' to play, par-ticularly-as ladies., or in partner drives as partners, for the very breath of suspicion should be absent in affairs of this ™ + r he + i 6 the fi , rst I> rizo is not quently the equal .of some months' salary to-many of the players. Taken on the whole, the play at these public whist drives k more ___*_: f ?» by *-» themsehS than at. the average club; and the loss h^t mb - ,y SO smal * that bad Inck or bad play , s accepted in the best pos?f ___S_l*i._2 at S rally ; in Springs herTTw htrad , reds ef people from *? d .«Terywhei. there are nnpleasantly ,rase ble - temperaments, but I have not noticed any amon_ tho it is consc4tS| _J fff (' *? ai ? obs<?r *-er and critic, that re^raST 6 and restraint of manner, and- equable fc of defeat 'shown t__J _^3_V n > J f g6,y ' if «*&**£ aue to the larcre leaven of those of +1,„ Jewish-race, taking part in them *•■

LADY PLATERS..' TVhwt drives have giVon ladies their .clever layers e^a^Te? i^o% d S_2s on the avomrrn of the men s^--_ f _s^_, M s E v?- a^ problem: Bow m,A V so1 ™S the W aboutrhe m gate^-and y f Part ? 6r the, p ,an of «*_?__£ D » ing a considerable additTon _ X come by plavin™ i 1 t°. their m-twentv-fonr hands a Si „* e „ ,n& In of only one trick per ** vera .Se play raises the score hi * y Points. Exactly "'_* r hands _3E a Sore of 156 Points; add .the one trick per hand for _t 6 al B TI^ nty *° f + Pla ' v _. f"K wavll 52 T>oll?ts, - W ' hich . is ne "ly a* ways in the winning prize-list, and sometimes even obtains the fiTst-hon ours A lady I had the pleasure of" complunenting on the cleverness 'o? her play the other evening told mc that she had won no leas than £38 10s in the coarse of seven weeks, and when I came .to work out the chances I was not at all .surprised. HINTS TO ORGANISERS, As I have suggested above, practically tho only nnfairness existent is among a very small section of players themselves, and those who run whist drives should be very careful to put every possible check upon this tendency, which with an increase in the scope of the competitions h_v very well grow to an unpleasant proportion. I particularly commend one feature, which I T? rG 8 £ far onl - v observed at the East —am Town Hall, and thafis that the losing lady should take the pack of cards with her to her next table. 6o that winners of a hand should never have the use of the same pack for their succeeding hand. Another point is that the trump suit should not be named until the deal is in full progress. I confess I entered the lists of the nightly whist drivers with misgivings, but not of my score of ventures, although I have not won a first prize, I have succeeded in making three times and if I had won nothing I should have had more than full return for my outlay in meeting so many nice people that otherwise I might have gonei through life- without a chance of speaking to and jo_ng with. To those who .write to the papers that they are "alone in London," I emphatically recommend the popular "one-and-tup-penny" whist drive. "