MENTAL CAPACITY

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 5

MENTAL CAPACITY

00 GAMES IMPROVE IT ? Do games, especially sedentary games, improve the mind, as has long been claimed, or keep it alert after a certain age? Innocent games or the household, such as draughts and chess, have so long been recommended because of the mental processes'employed in playing them, that, like old remedies or homilies, they have become venerated, and their virtues are taken for granted (writes W. T. Glenn in the Melbourne ‘ Argus ’). For many generations mothers have suggested to little Jackie or Herbert on rainy afternoons that in place of marbles or other such pastimes draughts would be more interesting and useful to the brain. Despite mother’s and dad’s recommendation, however, good draughts players, chess players, or those skilled in similar games have rarely amounted to anything in the world. This is true of the present as of the past. Charles Darwin occasionally played some simple home games, but he refused to employ his intellectual equipment in the more difficult games. King Edward VII. did not like difficult games. Roulette and baccarat were his two favourites, and both depend on the croupier and fate. Although Britain has many clubmen, business men of ordinary ability, army officers, Civil servants, and clerks who play sedentary games with remarkable skill, British men of genius have almost all been poor players. Newton, great mathematician, played indifferent chess. He did not go to the trouble to learn the game thoroughly. Lorentz, the greatest of modern mathematicians, claimed that studious indoor games destroyed the moods of the mind by cultivating the use of it within too narrow limits. It has been said by Pascal that such games act on the mind like a drug, inciting repetition to the point of fatigue, whereas games of chance not requiring much attention bring the imagination into play, and, if not overdone, are more favourable to the human organism. 8 GAMBLING. An infatuation for roulette is not, on the whole, half as bad as an infatuation for bridge. It has been very rarely indeed that a great bridge, chess, oi draughts player, or an expert at any difficult indoor game, amounted to anything in any other activity, or proved himself a brilliant player on the field of life. Colonel Thomas Pantqn, professional gambler of the time of Charles 11., who with his winnings from games created Panton street, London, is one notable British exception of a highly skilled card player who turned his hand brilliantly to other occupations. He was a master of all the card games and other games of his day, and he played chess with equal ability". He was a "sleight-of-hand artist, and it was difficult to catch him cheating. Yet. according to his chroniclers, he cheated wholesale. He won £l.lOO from Moll Davis, former milkmaid and actress, after seating her to play so that she had a mirror behind her. A fortune which he won in one night was sufficient. to buy an estate returning an

income .of £1,500, and to build the street named after him. He died rich, and a son established the family name by serving brilliantly under Marlborough. Card games were imported into Britain from France, and many of them played in early times are , forgotten now. They included basset, piquet, I’ombre, brag beast or le bet, English ruff and honours. Dice games were also very popular, including backgammon. It seems that aristocrats of those days were not only careless when they entertained, but they lost their money with little perspicacity. Charles Charteris, of good family, but one of the worst villains and cheats of his time, won £3,000 one day from the Duchess of Queensberry in the ducal castle—the lady sitting conveniently with her back to a mirror. All that the furious Duke could do was to introduce a law in Parliament prohibiting gambling for more than a certain amount. FAMOUS MEN’S GAMES. President Roosevelt cannot play chess, and he is a very poor draughts player. Thomas A. Edison disliked indoor games of all kinds, but he condescended for the ’ sake of Mrs Edison to play a game of whist occasionally. The late President Wilson abjured games of all kinds, having little personal interest oven in outdoor sports. Even Mrs Wilson could scarcely entice him into games indoors. He liked music if it were neither classical nor popular. Old American songs and the better-class ballads had most appeal for him. President Coolidge was a fairly good draughts player, but not, nearly as good as President Harding, who died trying to administer an office much too big for him. It is said of the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr Bennett) that while he has been known to play with considerable success a dice game known in North America, he evades cards much as he does invitations to speak before intensely religious bodies. Olemenceau liked children’s games—anything from building houses with blocks to cutting out animals. The old “ Tiger ” was very gentle in his smoother moods. On the other hand. Marshal Joffre played difficult card games well. But he, according to Lloyd George, fancied cavalry as a means of penetrating the German war zone of high explosives. It was not " Papa ” Joffre, dear as he was, who saved Paris from German encroachment, but the genius of Foch who, as an nnder-general at that time, came to his assistance. He was one of the poorest card players extant, but was the greatest general of modern times.