HISTORY OF CHESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14141, 11 June 1920, Page 6

HISTORY OF CHESS.

* (To the Editor.) Si,-_Jt is not mv intention', Mr Editor, to enter into a long allegedly authentic history of the origin and antiquity of chess, because there are as many accounts as there are chroniclers, dead, living and unborn, with vivid imaginations. On these two points, your guess and mine are as good as anyone else’s, because, at best, any such account is either a legend or a fairy tale. The first actual mention of chess in any literalure (Sanskrit) is just . about thirteen hundred vears old, and it quite far enough back for the purpose m view. L’hotos of chessmen found m the pyramids, or chips from chessboards picked up in the Ark needn t bother! us at present. A swilt glance at the last thirteen centuries reveals ilic literalures of both civilised and semi-civilised countries saturated u ith allusions direct or rhetorical to the game, and these allusions go far to indicate that men’s minds have been work in it chess-wise through that peiiod of time. The game seems to have fashioned the mental processes ot the' peoples whose lands'it lias inhabited, generals, diplomats, captains of indusirv, leaders in all kind sot movements, employers and employed, ha\e, metaphorically speaking, been playing chess with each other. So it is to-day. The game of life seems inseparably antitvped by the game of chess —the battle is .a battle of wits against material — some win, some draw, some lose. Chess lias been a barometer of the activity of the human mind throughout its history, although it has recorded this activity some time after any great awakening has been at its highest pitch. J listens soon as a great epoch arises, or just after, we find a corresponding outburst of chess, clearly indicating its safety valve propensities for ' oping with the surplus energy of. the human kind. So it is with the birth and the growth of the Mohammedan religion, which solidified the scattered tribes of the near east into a mighty Empire, and which altered for over a thousand years to the tune of a brisk obligato of incessant warfare, that kept the mind of the Mohammedan chronically active and alert, and “a cliessing ’ so with the Crusades, which swung the game into ETirope: so with the Renaissance which created the modern game. So, too, with the revolutionary period of America, which reveals the first growth of chess in that country. In the years following the Civil War, chess flourished as never before or since. Here we are today, just at the close of a mighty tunda mental disturbance, and, when chess history is written, chess and the great, world war will be found to have linked hands —in the factory, on the field, in the hospital, in a- closer, friendlier touch than any other form of sport, or mental recreation. T am afraid, Mr Editor, I have just about exhausted your patience for to-day. so will ask leave to' be allowed concluding remarks to-morrow. —T am, etc., A. CLEM AS. Masterton, June lltli.