BRIDGE MANNERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17151, 3 May 1919, Page 4 (Supplement)

BRIDGE MANNERS.

One of the most remarkable things about bridge is its continued popularity, says a writer in an exchange. We are told that cards are the devil's, playthings, and there is certainly something very baffling even mysterious about them, while, so potent is their influence on the human mind that there was a time when the working classes were forbidden to play cards on working days. They demaand our whole attention, and, no doubt for that reason, hard workers daring the war found a game of bridge one of the greatest of relaxations.

Not that bridge is ill beer Mid skittles; one of the most unpleasant evenings I ever spent was at that so-cdled pastime. I tad j a woman well known in "society" as my ' partner. 1 believe she is popular, too, but, like many other people, she evidently J had one personality for the card-table and ' another for the world at large. When she ! was dummy she looked over her opponents' I hands, and then pushed forward (he card she wished mo to play. Finding I objected, she beoame rude, remarking acidly : I "Of course, if you play like that, we a'ro I bound to lose." Not so bad as that, but trying all the same, is the player who becomes lachrymose when losing, like a recent partner of mine— was old enough to know belterwho was heard to say, like a spoilt child "I shan't play any more," when she had to pay up a few paltry 'shillings. And the carping partner, with cart?" and "Wy didn't you play a heart'?' and "Why didn't you trump higher?" And the careless one who waves her cards about for everyone to see and I never notices calls for trumps or any of tho finesse of the game. And yet ano'ther I most irritating type, the lukewarm, half, and half player, who does not care whether flho wins or loses. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. In fact, the card-table is a great revealer of character. People who seem quite pleasant in ordinary, everyday life develop the most horrid traits under the great test; they become mean, selfish, playing for their own hand and disregarding their partner, querulous and inconsiderate. It really should be made compulsory for intending brides and bridegrooms to go through a course of card playing before the fatal knot is tied. It has been found to afford ex-

cellent material for the formation of rooted friendships and steady enmities. Who knows? Some imprudent lover might rise from the game cured of a fatal infatuation. There's no doubt of it, the devil's in the cards."