DRAUGHTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1106, 12 May 1893, Page 15

DRAUGHTS.

EDITED BY «CHECKER.' The Editor of the Draughts Column will be glad to receive particulars of games played in the various clubs, and will publish selections from the same. Correspondence on the game is cordially faulted, and will be carefully attended to. All communications must reach the Mail Office on or before Monday night. Address all communications for this column : The Editor, Draughts Column, New Zealand Mail, Wellington.

ANSWERS TO PROBLEMS.

The following are the answers to the first three problems:— Problem No 1.—22—17; 32—23; 31—20; 23—30; 17—21. White wins. Problem No. 2.—10—15; 31—22; 29—25; 22—29 ; 15—22. White wins. Problem No. 3.—27—31; 10—7; 18—23. Drawn. REFERENCE BOARD SHOWING THE NUMBERS OF THE SQUARES.

At the commencement of a game the Black men occupy the squares numbered 1 to 12 ; the White Men those numbered 21 to 32. Black always moves first. BLACK.

WHITE.

ONE OF THE 'OLD SCHOOL.' Old Robert Keillor was a noted draughts player in Dundee several years ago, and on his death players felt that one of the few remaining ties between the old and the new school of draughts players had been severed. Rob was a well-known character at the Dundee Draughts Club, not only as a keen, skilful, enthusiastic player, but as one who could recite the many' bloodless wars' that had been fought over the draughts board in local circles for the past half century. It was a real treat to hear him speak of the tussles he had had with such old time players as John Bertie, Francie Dick, ' The Pilot,' John Baxter, and others hardly less notable. When we first made his acquaintance his declining years had handicapped him greatly in the pursuit of his favourite pastime, still his enthusiasm was as great as a youth's. Rob never was out of sorts, and one can look back and think with pleasure of his witty sayings and unvarying geniality. His' fancy' game (or ' foodie' game as he termed it) was the Laird and Lady, which he never missed the opportunity to form if he got the chance. We remember dropping into the Dundee Draughts Club one Christmas Eve a few years ago, and finding Bob setting the men preparatory to beginning play with another devotee of the ' silent game,' who owned a dog that usually accompanied him on his visits to the club-room. The player (whom we shall call Mr X) having seated himself opposite Rob, Bob took the Blacks, and the game commenced 11 15, 23 19, 8 11, 22 17, 9 13, and Rob's ' foodie ' game was on, the cut 17 14, 10 17, 2114 was rapidly got over, followed by 15 18, 26 23, 13 17, 31 26, 17 21. Mr X. studied here for a considerable time, which called forth the remark from Rob, 1 That if he lost it wasna wi' playing quick ony wye,' then played 19 15. Rob went 1116, 24 19, 6 9,15 10. We give a diagram of the position here;—•

WHITE. <_

BLACK, Both players now scanned the board earnestly, never a word being said. The only noise heard in the room was a ' wurr' from Mr X's dog occasionally. At last he ventured to say, ' That's a good position, Robert.' ' Ay, a guid position, but I cud work it oot better if that dog wasna here." ' That dog ? Surely the dog can't hinder you from playing the position out; he won't harm you.' ' Maybe no; but herm me or no herm me, you'll see for yoursel' he's worrying a man e noo.' We looked : Rob was right. The dog had one of the draughts men that had fallen from the table accidentally, and it was busily engaged amusing itself by ' worrying ' it. The dog being quietened, ' Take that,' said Rob; 'there's a Christmas dumpl'n' to ye,' and played 13 22. ' I must take it this way,' said Mr X, 26 17. 'An' that' again,' said Rob, 9 18, 23 14, < an' that,' 16 23, 27 18. 'Noo comes the "meally" business,' and Rob spoke with" emphasis. ' Tak' that,' 59, 14 5, 7 23. Mr X's reply was 25 2. Then 12 16; 22 18, 16 19, 29 25, 4 8, 25 22,8 11, 17 13, 11 16, 18 15, 26, 25 22. A slip, but the game was gone anyhow. Rob jumped at 23 27, 32 23, 19 21, 30 23, 6 9, and ultimately won, remarking that ' some fouk are juist like the cairters nooadays ; they ken a thing, but they canna' win the Laird and Lady frae me yet.' Always willing and ready to play with club members or strangers, he got to be a regular favourite. His humour was inexhaustible. Every night, as long aa he was able, Rob was to be found at the clubroom. But ' time tries a'.' Old age began to tell heavily upon him. Towards the end of 1890 his visits grew less frequent, and one January night in 1891 Rob ' passed in his checks.' He made his last 'move' and ' crossed' over to the majority. Let us hope that he will sit a ' crowned man' on the ' king line' with a won game that can never be lost. —Editor Dundee People's Journal.

The Hauteur of English Servants.

I get on charmingly with the English nobility and sufficiently well with the gentry, hut the upper servants strike terror to my soul. There is something awe inspiring to me about an English butler, particularly one in imposing livery. When I call upon Lady de "Wolfe, I say to myself impressively as I go up the steps: "You are as good as a butler, as well born and well bred as a butler, even more intelligent than a butler. Now, simply because he has an unapproachable hautiness of demeanor, which you can respectfully admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath the polar light of his eye; assert yourself; be a woman; be an American citizen 1" AH in vain.

The moment the door opens I ask for Lady de Wolfe in so timid a tone that I inow Parker thinks me the parlor maid's Bister, who has rung the visitors' bell by mistake. If my lady is within, I follow Parker to the drawing room, my knees under me at the prospect of committing some solecism in his sight. Lady de Wolfe's husband has been noble only four months, and Parker of course knows it and perhaps affects even greater hauteur to divert the attention of the vulgar commoner from the newness of the title.—Kate D. Wiggin in Atlantic Monthly. 1 -. The Arrangement of Leaves. " The general arrangement of the leaves on limbs and stalks of trees and plants secures between each sufficient space to prevent one leaf from interfering with another. And not only are leaves so arranged as to exist independently of each other, but in a general way they have taken upon themselves the forms best adapted to secure the maximum of sunlight as it is showered upon them in different latitudes. At the equator, where the sun's rays are vertical, we find large flat leaves, like those of the banana, plantain and the various species of the cactus. Farther north, where sunlight strikes at an angle, small leaves and pine "needles" are found, Then, again, note the peculiarity of the Australian gum tree—instead of exposing their broad faces to the sun the edges only are so turned. Were it otherwise the sun would rob them of all their moisture, it being a well known fact that the gum tree grows in the driest region on earth. —St. Louis Republic. Nature Against Him. "You have been walking about this great city for six weeks and haven't found work?" said the kind woman feelingly. "Yes'm," replied the seedy man in the kitchen, his mouth closing over a wedge of pie. "That's right." "You are willing to work, I dare say?' "Willin, mum? I'd work my laigs off of I could git a chance. Jest a leetle more cream in the cawfy. Thanky." "And you would do any kind of honorable work, I presume?" "Yes'm, anything that's in my line. I b'lieve in every man stickin to his profession." "May I ask what your profession is?" "I'm a inventor, mum." "An investor?" "Yes'm," said the seedy man, reaching for a of a new process for curin sunstrokes."—Chicago Tribune. • No More Cobblers. Thete is no sense jn calling a shoemaker of modern times a cobbler. The nearest thing to a cobbler today is the custoastaade man who confines his attention exclusively to that one branch. Machinery for making shoes in great quanJSties and in sections is of comparat&sß?*ecent date, and prior to its adoption the shoemaker, or cobbler, did the eslbe business, from taking the measure to collecting the money. In small towns and villages he literally performed the entire process himself, having insufficient trade to justify the employment of an assistant, and in larger cities he superintended the work from beginning to end himself. The labor saving wonders of the times have practically swept this man out of the field, and there are very few members of the trade who are really cobblers.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

"From a New Point of View. "For years," said a steady churchgoer, "I had been sitting in the same pew and in the same seat —the end seat by the aisle. Usually the other places are occupied by members of my family, for we all attend church pretty regularly, but one Sunday recently, when for one reason and another they had all stayed at home, I sat in my pew alone. Seeing plenty of room there, the usher brought to sit with me a stranger. I was of course glad to welcome him. I did not get up and step out into the aisle so that he might pass in by me, but I moved along to the other end of the pew and let him sit in my place. When I had seen him comfortably seated and handed him a hymnbook and had turned toward the pulpit again I was surprised to find that everything in the church seemed new and strange to me. For a long time I had been accustomed to seeing the backs of the heads of my friends and neighbors who sit in front of me and the sides of their faces from a certain point of view. "I saw them now from another point of view, and they all seemed to look very differently. I saw children who appeared from their demeanor to be regular attendants at church, but whom I had never noticed there before. They had been there of course, but my view of them had been cut off by the heads and shoulders of other persons. The preacher appeared to me in another light, and it seemed as though his sermon, coming as it did along a new angle, came with new power. Indeed it was almost like visiting a new church. The fact is that we are all such creatures of habit that we are apt to be Surprised if we depart even a little way from jheroad we are accustomed to travel."' ~"~~ Uses for Dudes. The plain, everyday young man, with a superfluity of cheek and deficiency*of chin, who seems to have been born with a tooth for buckhorn, was born for some good purpose, no doubt, though it is hard to tell just what it is. A western gentleman who runs a country newspaper at home has been in New York recently and thinks he has made a valuable discovery. He saw one of these young men in a doorway of Delmonico's, standing there sucking his cane gloomily and looking almost human. "We can't get any servant girls in my town," said the westerner. "Our best people have to do all their own work, though they are willing and able to pay for having it done. All the new generation of girls out our way have been sent to high school, normal school and college, and are educated way out of sight of the kitchen and would faint at a washtub. Now that young man over there looks as if he might be taught housework. He could at least mind the baby while the old woman worked. I understand you have lots of those fellows here. You call them 'chippies' or 'chappies.' There doesn't seem to be much prospect of making men out of them. Why not turn in and make women out of them? If that fellow would only go out west with me I'd give him a good place where he could cook, wash dishes, tend baby and make himself a useful and happy citizen and get good wages too,"— gome Historic Places. The walls of Kilcolman castle, built by Ealeigh for Spenser, are still standing. The state drawing room in which the poet is said to have written the "Faery Queen" is used as a stable, and a cow touches the opposite walls with her horns and tail. The castle of Chillon, commanding an important mountain pass, was for age 3 a favorite fortress of the dukes of Savoy. The stranger passes through the dungeons below the lake where Bonnivard was chained and where other prisoners starved to death up to the unaired, damp little rooms above, and is tempted to think that the royal dukes were not much more comfortably housed than their enemies. "But," argues the triumphant foreigner, "if your houses are large and luxurious, with modern appliances, think of the immortal deeds which ennobled these cramped closets and narrow closes!" Not -all the courage of men is spent; not all the laurel crowns have been won! Smith, of NeW#ork, or Jones, of Tacoma, in his comfortable, commonplace home, is quite as likely to justify his right to live by lofty aims and noble acts as was any Sidney or Bourbon.—-Youth's

Art in Children's Toys. The tendency to do everything better than formerly is again-shown in the wonderful toy animals offered at fairs and exchanges. In the infancy of this art rabbits and elephants of white and gray canton flannel, with shoe buttons for eyes and abnormally developed legs which yet often failed to support the stuffed "bodies dependent upon them, were the highest, specimens seen. Now, however, realistio animals, carefully fashioned from drawings from life, animals of natural symmetry and proportions, that Btand properly and are made of colors admirably imitating the skin or fur with.which'the living model is provided —these are the present results. The nicety of thowojrk in detail* secures a

How to Treat an Abrasion of the Skin.

Lay on it lint or linen wet with cold water and cover with oil silk, or cover the bruise with goldbeaters' skin. If an extensive wound, apply on lint or linen a mixture composed of one part carbolic acid to twenty-eight parts best olive oil. Still another way is to apply dry lint, letting the blood soak in it. It will form a scab and gradually come off. How to Preserve Gilt Frames from Flies. Boil three or four onions in a pint of water and brush the frames over with the liquid. How to Make a Pretty ILaiiip Shade. Over a wire frame put three layers of crape tissue paper, each a shade, darker than the other, the darkest on top. Draw : the paper in around the neck and fasten with a wire concealed by a ribbon tied in a bow at one side. Smooth out the lower edges of the paper to give the appearance of frills. ' How to Clean Swansdown. Wash it in soap and water, shake out, and when the down is somewhat raised shake it before the fire to dry. '