December 1, 1»»7.J 



KNOWLEDGE 



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over the scientific principles of whist, I need only say that 

 Mr. Ram must be quit* unacquainted with the literature of 

 the game. There are not two opinions on any one of the 

 leading principles of whist play. The questions which Mr. 

 Ram has seen discussed have had about as much to do with 

 whist science as a discussion about the best pattern for the 

 backs of cards would have had. All the discoveries which 

 various writere on whist have claimed to make have related 

 to methods of indicating the nature of the players' hands 

 without actually showing the cards. The science of whist 

 indicates the best way of playing such and such canls under 

 such and such conditions. Experience and practice enable 

 good players to infer where the cards lie, and so to ascertain 

 under what condition they are pursuing their strategy. 

 "Methods have been devised (more or less recently) for 

 showing certain details of a player's hand independently of 

 inferences based on his strategy. The differences of opinion 

 which have arisen i-especting these methods relate to no 

 principles of whist science, but to the questions : First, 

 whether the game is improved or impaired by devices which 

 tend to assimOate it to doable dummy ; secondly, whether 

 the gieater advantages which skilful (as compared with 

 unskilful) players may gain from such devices are fair 

 advantages ; and thirdly, whether, with players of average 

 skill more is gained by informing partner about details of 

 one's hand, than is lost by giving the opponents that infor- 

 mation. 



The fact that I am bringing out in these columns the 

 whist science of old Mathews as well worth studying by 

 modern players, shows how little the principles of scientific 

 whist have changed since Mathews' day. But I am no 

 more at issue with any of the leading whist-playei-s of to-day 

 about whist principles than I am with ^Mathews or his pre- 

 decessor Iloyle. ( Here and there views have changed about 

 some detail or so, depending on nicely balanced chances — 

 as in the ca.se of the old lead of Queen from Queen, Knave, 

 nine, now only adopted on special occasions, and in regard 

 to covering an honour with an honour second hand ; but I 

 have been speaking of leading principles.) With regard, 

 however, to the signalling methods now in vogue, and little 

 likely to be given up, I certainly hold strongly now by the 

 opinion that, though they have introduced no new scientific 

 principles (nor have been advanced, I suppose, with any idea 

 of changing the principles established of old), they have 

 greatly injured whist as a recreation. Weak players have 

 become i-elatively weaker since they consented to let these 

 signals be introduced — precisely as they would become 

 relatively weaker still if they allowed kicking under the 

 table, significant coughing, sneezing, drumming, and the 

 like, to be adopted as systems of legitimate signalling. 

 They would become weakest of all if a kind of whist were 

 introduced which would be the most diflicult and the most 

 scientific game of all — whist in which all four hands were 

 displayed as they practic;\lly are in double dummy, but four 

 plaj'ers were engaged as in coijimon whist. This, by the 

 way, would be a magnificent game so far as its dependence 

 on skill was concerned ; but as a recreation it would be 

 altogether inferior to whist as ordinarily played. 



Lastl)-, I may remark on the idea underlying Mr. Ram's 

 letter, that where there is chance there can be no science, 

 bec;uise there Gin be no exactitude. Science seldom secures 

 exactitude, though it strives after it. But if there is a 

 subject about which science is exact, it Ls in the existence 

 of law in chance results. A game depending on the throw- 

 ing of dice may be a pure chance game in one sense ; but 

 the player would come out badly in such a game who 

 should fail to recognise the exact scientific value of the 

 chances involved. 



WATCHED BY THE DEAD. 



OW in " Edwin Drood," the first part of the 

 stoi7, that Ls the part which ends with the 

 disappearance of Edwin and the close of the 

 sequent inquiries (constituting the first six- 

 teen chapters), forms but one-third of the 

 book as left by Dickens. Had no more been 

 written more might still have been guessed 

 as to the interpretation of the mystery than could have been 

 readily guessed about the " Moonstone " mystery if only the 

 first part of Mr. CoUins's story had been completed. Apart 

 from the feeling, not to be explained or communicated, which 

 assures those who undei stand Dickens's manner and know 

 the meaning of his tones, that Drood is not dead though 

 changed, there is clear evidence not only that Drood is alive, 

 but that Grewgious knows Drood is alive. 



We will note first what every reader ought to note, though 

 somehow it has been overlooked by many ; we shall then 

 touch on a circumstance which might naturally enough 

 escape notice, though when once noticed it is decisive. 



Grewgious is not a suspicious man, though keen and 

 observant, with a very strong sense of what is just and 

 right. He had had no suspicions of Jasper. The interview 

 between him and Ja-sper in Chapter IX. — the last before 

 the disiippearance of Drood — is perfectly friendly. Xay, 

 Grewgious. a man who could not pay compliments, says in 

 that interview, " Come, Mr. Jasper ; / know //our affection 

 for your nephew, and that you are quick to feel on his 

 behalf" When Jasper accepts the compliment " with a 

 friendly pressure of the arm," Mr. Grewgious "nods his 

 head contentedly." He shakes hands in the most friendly 

 way with Jasper at paiting, though rather quickly correcting 

 Jasper's " God save them both " into " God bless them both." 

 Contrast this with Mr. Grewgious's behaviour when next 

 they meet, and we feel at once that Grewgious has learned, 

 somehow, that Ja.sper is the wretch we know him to be — or, 

 as he puts it later, that Jasper is a wild beast and a brigand. 

 A verv short time has passed since their friendly interview ; 

 nothing has ostensibly happened to shake Grewgious's 

 confidence that Jasper loves Edwin Drood ; and Grewgious 

 Ls understood to have every reason to regard Jasper with 

 special sympathy. For Jasper's well-loved nephew is sup- 

 posed to have been murdered ; and for many hours Jasper 

 has been " working and toiling " to find traces of his nephew 

 — "now in barge and boat, now ashore among the o.siers, or 

 tramping amidst mud and stakes and jagged stones in low- 

 lying places, where solifciry watermarks and signals of 

 strange shapes showed like spectres." He has just returned 

 home exhausted — "unkempt and disordered, bedaubed with 

 mud that had dried upon him, and with much of his clothing 

 toi-n to rags." Surely a man to be very much pitied by 

 Grewgious, who " knows his affection " for the missing man. 

 Nothing but absolute certainty that Jasper is a murderous 

 villain could now prevent Grewgious from showing him such 

 sympathy as even Crisparkle, angry though he is at the 

 suspicions cast on Neville Liindless, does not refuse. (It is 

 important to notice that Mr. Grewgious knows little or 

 nothing about Neville.) 



So far, however, from showing any sympathy with this 

 unkempt, exhausted, and miserable man, Grewgious is curtly 

 abrupt at the very beginning of the interview, and shows a 

 hardness and cruelty to Jasper as it proceeds such as nothing 

 but the absolute certainty that he sees Drood's would-be 

 murderer before him could justify. Grewgious, who knows 

 scarcely anything about Neville, has no special reason to be 

 angry at suspicions cast upon that young man. Yet every 

 word" of Jasper's implying suspicion of Neville, however 

 indirectly, is sharply corrected. " Have you seen his sister ? " 



