♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



'ar more in vogue 

 33 at cards which 

 intelligence of a 

 ;hat much better 



(Bnr OTftist Column. 



-By "Five of CLUna."* 



HOME WHIST. 



THERE is no reason why Whist should not be far 

 as a home game than those mere chant 

 seem regarded as the only games suited t 

 family party. My own experience has shov 



Whist can be played in the home circle than an average club table 

 will supply; while Home Whist is free from the annoyances and 

 rudenesses too often observable in Club Whist. Unfortunately, 

 Whist played at home is usually, for want of a little instruction in 

 Whist principles, so very bad, that few care to sit down to it. My 

 chief object in this little treatise is to show how Home Whist may 

 be made at once interesting and profitable : intei-esting because of 

 tlie wonderful variety and beauty of the game itself ; profitable 

 because, while it is an amusing recreation, it is one which has the 

 great advantage of taxing skill and exciting pleasant and wholesome 

 emulation. 



At the outset, I must make a few remarks on the laws of the 

 game, on the best plan for obtaining that due observance of 

 the laws without which Whist loses half its interest, and on the 

 method of playing which is best suited for home play. 



Club players, who are usually most unequal in skill as well as in 

 that care which should almost wholly obviate occasion for referring 

 to the code, are very strict in exacting penalties for mistakes, 

 whether of omission or of commission. The long list of laws 

 which they require to know {nhiety-mie !) would be quite out of 

 place in Home Whist, as also would be the squabbles which these 

 multitudinous laws appear to engender. (My own belief is that 

 the stakes played for in clubs, whether guinea points or only 

 shilling or sixpenny points are in question, are the real cause of 

 most of the disputes and of much of the bad temper too often 

 shown in club play.) 



Yet there can be no doubt that, to be really enjoyable. Whist 

 should be played strictly. Home players should try to show, by 

 strict attention to the rules, that money stakes are not essential, as 

 most Whist players contend, to the enjoyment of sound Wliist. 



Therefore, without adopting the complicated, ill-worded, and in 

 some respects imperfect code used in clubs,f let us consider a few 

 rules, in accordance with the accepted code, but suited for home 

 play. 



In family play, it is best to arrange the players accoi-ding to some 

 system agreed on beforehand, instead of cutting for partners. Thus, 

 either a systematic rotation of arrangements may be adopted, each 

 player having each of the rest for partner in succession, or else, 

 where there are always the same four, the same pair may for a long 

 spell of time be matched against the other two. 



In cutting for deal the lowest card wins the deal; a.\\A for this 

 purpose the cards range in value thus : Ace, lowest ; then two, three, 

 ice, to Knave, Queen, and King, highest. 



It is best to use two packs. Dealer's partner makes and .shuffles 

 the cards, and places them on his (own) right, ready for the next 

 dealer. The dealer may shuffle the cards afresh if he likes, before 

 placing the pack beside the player on his right to be cut. 



Any mistake in dealing which cannot be corrected without count- 



my partner takes a trick with the Ace and I hold the King of the 

 suit, I may show him by leading that King, when it is not my turn, 

 the way to a great game : in this case it is not sufficient to call on 

 my partner to lead instead ; it is only right and proper to call 

 upon him to lead some other suit, if the adversaries wish. So in 

 all such cases the rigour of the law may be properly applied ; for 

 nothing tends more to impair the harmony of Home Whist than 

 the loss of tricks, be they few or many, through an inadvertence of 

 one of the adversaries. Instead of "saying in such a case after- 

 wards : " It was not right to show that card, for it put your partner 

 the way to make a trick or tricks which otherivise we should 



' ■ ■ home play, is to say at once, but 



■ partner too much " (showing how 

 l;.it your mistake may not cause 

 II nt the risk that we may gain a 



ed," the proper thin 

 pleasantly : " That canl tells 



trick orso throu-li , : n 



If a player tliruw !,i i; : In- table supposing the game won 



or lost, those caul-, ; I il i.^, ' > i liil) Whist, may be called; and I 



have seen cases whore a surr. game li;is been lost through this bad 

 habit, and others where a game not really lost has been made a 

 lost game by the enemy calling the cards in destructive order. 

 In Home Whist, or wherever tlie play is not for money, all 

 that should be required, where a player throws down his cards 

 claiming a won game, is that he should show how the game 

 may be surely won against any phiy, even though it could 

 not be won if the enemy named in particular order the cards 

 he was to lead. And in like manner if a player throws down 

 his cards under the impression that the game is lost, his partner, 

 if he sees a way by which the game might have been saved, should 

 be entitled, in Home Whist, to save the game if he can against the 

 best play by the enemy,— only this must be done independently of 

 knowledge gained by the exposure of the cards. Of course, this is 

 heresy to many club players, who regard the saving or winning o£ 

 a game by calling the cards in such cases as among the choicest 

 treats Whist affords. But Home Whist should be a more generous 

 game. It is a good rule, though, never to expose the cards, except 

 in absolutely certain cases. 



(To he continued.) 



Stoopid. — (Since you 7vish to be so called.) Can you give any 

 •eason for playing Heart Ace (in second line of play), when Heart 

 Six will take the trick ? I cannot. 



ing tl 



It i 



r alto 



ng the 



n of r 



e thai 



)rd ii 



An Eclipse op tice Sun. — To convey anything like an adequate 

 idea of the effect of an eclipse on different minds, the writer can 

 hardlv do better than describe the eclipse he witnessed in Egypt in 

 1881'." On the banks of the Nile, about one mile north of the to«Ti 

 of Sohag, a large concourse of spectators was assembled to wit- 

 ness the forthcoming spectacle. A small party of these spectators 

 were gathered around a number of instruments, doubly protected 

 from the injurious sand-winds by stockades of rushes and by tents. 

 A space extending about 300 yards, and enclosed on each side by 

 the Nile and the outskirts of a -rove of acacia tre^s, scarcely 200 

 yards away, was guarded I>\ a l.il\ -f Fj\i:' ; '"! I'l '.o- 



tion was only wanted from ii. i ' :'.>• 



been less inform. J ■ , ; i' : u 



soldiei 



little 1 



