CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



895 



stones of fniit were employed, just as chips or counters arc used in modern gambling 

 games, and a regular bank was practically instituted. Each player took a certain 

 number of these counters as the equivalent of the value of the merchandise which he 

 proposed to hazard on the game, whether it was a gun, a Idanket, or some other 

 article. Here We have all the machinery of a regular gambling game at cards, but 

 the resemblance does not stop 

 here. The players put up 

 their bets precisely as they 

 now do in a game of faro, se- 

 lecting their favorite number 

 and fixing the amount, meas- 

 ured in the standard of the 

 game, which they wish to haz- 

 ard. "By the side of the 

 straws, which are on the 

 ground, are found the {grains) 

 counters," says Perrot, 

 "which the players have bet 

 on the game.'' In another 

 place the method of indicat- 

 ing the bets is stated as fol- 

 lows: "'He (meaning the one 

 who has bet) is also obliged to 

 make two other heaps. In 

 one he will place five, in the 

 other seven straws, with as 

 many {grains) counters as he 

 pleases. * * * Compli- 

 cated rules determined when 

 the players won or lost, when 

 the bets were to be doubled, 

 and when they were to abide 

 the chance of another count. 

 The loser at the game, even 



after all he had with him was gone, was sometimes permitted to continue the game 

 on his promise to pay. If ill luck still pursued him the winner could refuse him 

 credit and decline to play for stakes that he could not see. The game often lasted 

 several days, one after another relieving his comrades at the play until one of the 



...«'* 



Fig. 207. 



JAPANESE FORTUNE-TELLER WITH ZEICHAKU. 



After native drawing in Our Neighborhood, by T. A. Purcell, rejiroduced 

 Gaines. 



into the air, and catch them on the palm. If the player succeeds in grasping them 

 all he lays one splint aside and tries again. 



The antiquity of the game of jackstraws in India appears to be illustrated by a 

 passage in the Tevigga Sutta (The Magghima Silam, i ; The Sacred Books of the East, 

 XI, Oxford, 1881, p. 193) in a list of games detrimental to the progress of virtue. 

 "That is to say, with a board of sixty-four squares, or one hundred squares ; tossing 

 up; removing substances from a heap without shaking the remainder." 



In Canton, China, children use splints from burnt punk sticks {heung Ic'eiiJc, litei'- 

 aily, "incense feet"), one hundred being held in a bunch and allowed to fall, the 

 players endeavoring to remove them one at a time from the pile without disturbing 

 the others, using another stick bent over at the end for the purpose. They call the 

 game fid heuiifi k'ettk. The Chinese at Canton make carved jackstraws, but I am 

 informed by Chinese merchants that they are sold only for export. A set in the 

 University Museum (Cat. No. 16221) (Plates 38, 39) consists of forty-two pieces, 

 twenty small pointed sticks, twenty miniature weapons and implements, and two 

 hooks for removing the splints. They are made of sandal wood, 4i inches in length, 

 and their name is given by the venders as heung Vo pat ph. 



