“SILENCE"

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19953, 10 November 1934, Page 11

“SILENCE"

WOMENS BRIDGE RULE Never in the history of games has any pastime so captured the imagination—and the interest—of women as that absorbing manipulation of cards known as bridge. It has become the great feminine passion of the day and of the moment. Few of the sex, whatever their posi-

tion or predilections, but have succumbed to the lure of the game, and in almost every home the bridge table with its accessories has come to be as important a part of furnishing accessories as the dining table itselff. Time was when a friendly rubber occupied an occasional evening, either at home or as a subsidiary feature to a dance. Then the afternoons were given over to friendly contests. And later the mornings as well. But in this year of grace 1933 it is not unusual for the whole day to be spent shuffling and dealing and “calling,” and the midnight oil or its equivalent is often burnt throughout the night. There are cases of bridge-ridden women who finish up an evening at one house and, having collected their stakes or disbursed their losses, fly off to another circle and keep the cards rustling for days on end.

It was a man who said that in no conceivable circumstance could a room full of women be induced to “hold their tongues” for more than two minutes at a time—that given two or three women there would be no cessation of chatter till the party disbanded. That man must long since have been gathered to his fathers, and has missed the opportunity of revising his opinion.

He had never seen the ominous "Silence” attached to the wall of a bridge room or witnessed a throng of women grouped about tables so deeply immersed in their problems that they might be assisting at a “seance” or invoking some magical spell which the faintest whisper would break. The “bridge face” unrelaxed, is intent, serious, as though the fate of empires hung on a "hand.” or as if a false move meant nothing less terrific than annihilation. And an additional inducement to silence is the fear of being cast into “outer darkness.”

So earnestly is bridge regarded by all and sundry that it is frequently a painful experience to sit in a room ■when husband and wife play at the same table. Bridge quarrels have wrecked homes, broken engagements, severed life-long friendships, and play wholesale havoc with happy associations.

It is a cause for wonderment sometimes whether the amount of the stakes might be held responsible for the heated arguments which arise. But investigation shows that the mere monetary interest is a bagatelle. It is the game that counts—and the game alone. The individual devoid of a “card sense” is an unwelcome intruder where players forgather, and is generally regarded as a blot on the landscape.

All over Australia, and especially in Sydney, bridge clubs and bridge schools have sprung up like mushrooms. Some of these clubs conduct social activities as well, with “cards” as a side issue, though a very important one. And while the bridge fever is at its highest far-sighted women whose commercial instinct is developed are making the most of the opportunity and catering for the popular pastime. In city and suburban districts many people who have felt the stress of the times have relieved the situation by taking pupils and gradually extending their exertions till small clubs have evolved, where parties meet in the right atmosphere to wrestle with their problems in silent agony. The introduction of contract has, of course, added enormously to the interest in the game, and has been an impetus to players. It is now the accepted form, and Sydney owns several clubs where only contract is permitted. In one well-known block of flats alone, not far from the heart of the city, there are no fewer than six flourishing clubs, ~nd in its immediate neighbourhood, are several clubs, each of which has its regular circle <jf patrons, and each of which is making a very fair income at the business. One authority attributes the amazing growth of bridge clubs and schools and the general prevalence of the game to the years of depression, when people could not afford to entertain, and found the bridge party a simple and economical method of giving pleasure to their friends. The club fills a need and solves entertaining difficulties. There is no prospect of a decline in the popularity of bridge as a universal pastime; but there is every indication that it will continue on the upward grade until an international chain is forged, binding the whole world in one absorbing interest.—An Australian paper.