CARDS, CHESS, AND BILLIARDS.
"_Abstain from all appearance of evil._" 1 Thess. v, 22.
Cards are an old game--so old that it is impossible, not only to tell
to whose ingenuity we may ascribe the useless invention, but even to
name the land or the age in which they originated. They may be traced,
however, to Asiatic sources. For many centuries the Chinese and the
Hindoos have known the game, and from them it has spread over the world.
It was cultivated by the Moors in Spain, and through their agency made
its way into Italy, Germany, and the other nations of the West. In some
European countries the pastime was prohibited by law. This prohibition
probably grew out of the superstitions of the times, it being an article
of popular faith that games of chance were under the control of the
devil, who gave success to those who sold themselves to his service. But
cards gradually came into favor among the idle and the frivolous; and at
last even royalty--as royalty was in those days--did not disdain to
indulge in them. Samuel Pepys, in his amusing and instructive diary,
records that on a certain Sunday evening in February, 1667, he found
Catherine and the Queen of Charles II playing cards with the Duchess of
York, and one or two more, the rooms being "full of ladies and great
men." Addison, who wrote a little later, continually alludes to the game
as the favorite diversion of the fashionables of his times; and such it
seems to have continued among the gay and the thoughtless of English
circles, till about the beginning of the present century. The love of
it, however, was never universal. Horne Tooke, who assailed the
corruptions and tyranny of the English Government during the reign of
George III, and was fined and imprisoned sundry times for his hardihood,
was once introduced to the sovereign, who entered into a careless
conversation with him, and, among other things, asked him if he played
cards. "May it please your Majesty," was the witty reply, "I do not know
a king from a knave."
It is said that cards are stealthily creeping up into circles from
which they have hitherto been religiously excluded. And here the writer
is constrained to confess his lack of personal knowledge of the subject
under discussion. He is, indeed, aware that individual cards have their
names, and are called kings and queens, knaves and spades; that they are
"shuffled" and "cut," and that a certain something is called a
"trick"--doubtless very appropriately--but having no ambition to stand
in the presence of kings of this particular dynasty, no desire to
cultivate the acquaintance of knaves of any sort, no love of tricks of
any kind, he remains in willing ignorance even unto this day. Two or
three times in the course of his life, he has seen people playing cards.
First, one would lay down a piece of paper with spots on it, then
another player would lay down another spotted paper, and so it went on
so long as he beheld the performance; but the process did not seem to
him to be attended by any particular result, nor did he learn, possibly
because he did not wait and watch long enough, whether the victory
depended most on chance, sagacity, or mathematical calculation.
But there are facts which every body knows. Cards are the gambler's
tools. They are a favorite diversion of the aimless and the idle; they
have a bad name among honest people. If, as some say, they were
introduced into Europe by a physician, who adopted them as a means of
diverting a royal patient whose intellect was shattered, we naturally
infer that no great amount of intelligence, or strength of intellect, is
needed to qualify the player. And to this inference it is not difficult
to hang another--that the game is the fitting refuge of men and women
who are conscious that their talents enable them to shine better in
silence than in conversation. Whether, according to the rules of the
play, a king is any better than a knave, or a diamond than a club, I do
not claim to know, but I imagine that in playing, wit and intelligence
find little more enjoyment than do the dullest and most stupid of the
party.
One thing is certain, there is no true utility in the game. It
invigorates neither body nor mind; it adds nothing to the store of
mental wealth; and those ignorant of it lose nothing by their lack of
knowledge. Again, it is certain that to some minds the game is
dangerous. They are fascinated by it, led into doubtful associations and
evil habits, and to ruin itself. It seems that the diversion is so
barren of ideas, in itself deficient in interest, that it becomes
necessary to stake small sums of money "just to give it a little life."
Thus the first step is taken in the road that leads to the gambler's
hell, to the great joy of the demons who there watch for victims. Like
other beasts of prey, professional gamblers can not live by devouring
each other. Idleness must feed upon the earnings of industry or starve.
Vice must burrow into the granary which belongs to virtue. The cool and
calculating gambler will be delighted to see card-playing become
fashionable among all classes of society. He knows that of those who
begin with playing for mere pastime, a certain proportion will be bitten
by the mania for playing for money, and thus be brought within reach of
his sharp, remorseless claws.
One needs but little information in regard to card-playing to entitle
him to the privilege of heartily despising it. Introduced, as it would
seem, for the express purpose of reducing mental vivacity and culture to
the same dead level with ignorance, it bears the semblance of an insult
to any company in which it is proposed, wasting precious hours in a way
which neither invigorates the body, nor supplies the mind with a single
valuable idea. I do not see how any conscientious, intelligent person
can deem it innocent. Fastening with a strange power upon characters of
a peculiar make, and turning them into grist for the gambler's mill, no
prudent person will deem it safe. Indeed, the history of every gambling
den in the great cities of our own country, as well as in other lands,
shows that the passion for cards, and the hope of winning money by them,
often becomes an utter overmastering infatuation, almost worthy the name
of insanity, which renders the victim reckless of the claims of honor,
religion, and the tenderest affections of our nature, and drags him down
relentlessly to his doom. Wholly barren of good results, prodigal of the
precious time which God allots for nobler purposes, void of every
element of rational recreation, to right minds unsatisfactory and to
some minds unsafe, we need not wonder that the degree in which
card-playing has prevailed at any given period of history, is a fair
index of the corruption of the age. Let no professed follower of Christ
defile his or her hands with so suspicious a thing.
CHESS claims to be a more intellectual, and even more ancient, game
than cards. Its history and its principles have been set forth in goodly
volumes. Poetry has sung its charms. The lives of its famous players
have been written and their methods described, and a whole library of
its peculiar literature has grown up around it. Its admirers trace its
history for five thousand years, and inform us that it originated among
the acute, dreaming inhabitants of India. The chess-player plumes
himself on the aristocratic character of his favorite amusement, as if
it placed him above the level of common mortals.
In some points chess is less objectionable than cards. It does not
depend on chance, and there is little opportunity to cheat. Moreover,
where the players are skillful, it requires a long while to complete a
game. For these reasons, as I suppose, chess has never been adopted, so
far as I can learn, by the professional gambler; and, therefore, its
historic name and present social standing are better. Mind challenges
mind, and skill alone wins the victory in the duel of intellect. Chess
is not likely to become epidemic. It is so deep a game; it demands so
much of time and silence for the contest; it employs so small a number
at once, that the gay and the thoughtless, who are in most danger from
irrational amusements, will care little for it. Still, if the reader
needs a hint, and is glancing along these pages in search of it, he may
weigh the suggestions which follow.
Nobody who assumes to play chess at all is willing to be known as a poor
player. To play well, or even respectably, involves a great deal of
study and practice, and the spending of much time and mental energy;
enough, in fact, to learn one of the dead languages. The game so taxes
the intellect that it can not be resorted to as a relaxation from mental
toil. There is no physical exercise in it, no courting of the sunlight
and the breeze; therefore, it can not be made a good recreation for the
sedentary. It conveys no new ideas, makes no additions to our
accumulations of mental treasure; and, therefore, it is a poor business
for those who need their leisure hours for mental improvement.
Chess is not popularly a recreation, but a _pastime_; that is, a way
of passing the time; and the time thus passed is wasted. Many a man,
bewitched with chess, which has left his mind unfurnished and his heart
untouched, has spent over it precious days and years, which, if rightly
improved, would have made him intelligent, wise, and greatly useful in
his generation. They who fear God ought not thus to waste the golden
moments. If the regular duties of the day leave certain hours at our
disposal, these hours are too valuable to be dreamed away over a painted
board, and a handful of puppets. The sedentary need air and active
exercise, which will expand the lungs, and clothe the whole frame with
strength. Those whose labor is chiefly that of the hands, need books and
newspapers. The student, the clerk, the apprentice, the daughter at
home, have more important "moves" to make than those of the chessboard,
a wiser way to employ brain power than to spend it on a laborious
nothing, a better warfare to wage than the petty antagonisms of useless
skill, a record to make in the Book of Life worth infinitely more than a
life-long shout of this world's shallow praise of checks and champions.
BILLIARDS are simply big marbles, "only this and nothing more."
Authorities on the subject inform us that the table for playing the game
must be twelve feet long, and six feet wide, the top being of slate,
covered with cloth. Around the raised edges are cushions of India
rubber, and sundry pockets. Instead of employing his thumb and fingers
to shoot his marble, as in the original game, the billiard player uses a
stick. There are two sorts of sticks--a long one called a cue, and a
short one termed a mace. One writer confesses that the cue is the thing,
and the only thing, for the expert to use; but advises ladies to be
content with the mace, "since to execute finely with the cue sometimes
requires the assumption of attitudes which are not becoming female
attire, or to the modesty of the sex." Just so. By all means, let the
ladies, however ambitious, stick to the mace, even if it is "considered
merely as the implement for novices." Perhaps we ought to condole with
the ladies on the distressing dilemma in which this places them. The
mace confesses awkwardness; the cue is forbidden. They are doomed to
remain forever novices in the higher art, or sacrifice delicacy to
ambition.
But what is the game? The expert player places his hand on the table a
few inches from the ball, and resting his cue upon it and bending over
to look along the stick, studies the situation with the motionless
attitude and fixed gaze of a hungry toad taking aim at a fly. Then with
the end of his stick he strikes the ball, which, if his calculations are
correct, goes in a certain direction, hits another ball, and then goes
somewhere else. And this is all. It is true, to be able to make the ball
go exactly in the right direction, and stop at the right point,
requires, as our author declares, "immense practice;" yet the higher
achievement attainable is to cause one marble to hit another, and drop
into a pocket.
This statement of the true character of the game is about all that
needs to be set forth to condemn it among intelligent, thoughtful
people. It has nothing in it to inform, refine, or in any way improve
the mind. The only mental faculties cultivated are those which judge of
distances, angles, and muscular forces. To aim at skill is to sacrifice
months and years of valuable time to a very mean ambition. It is the
favorite device of the saloon and the grog-shop, the bait to entice men
from their homes in the evening, and keep them till midnight, drinking,
smoking, and telling indecent stories. There is method and design in the
pother which the newspapers make over matches and champions, as if the
honor of nations were involved in the success of those who volunteer to
represent them in petty contest. It is expected that the idler and the
spendthrift will be attracted to the place; and in the crowd the seller
of alcohol will find customers, and the swindler victims. Billiards
figure very low in the scale of amusements. Associated as it generally
is with late hours, confined air, smoking and drinking, the game is
detrimental to health, to morals, and to mind. Kept clear of evil
associations, there is nothing in it to attract the intelligent and the
thoughtful. And seeing that the righteous are generally called home when
their work is done, the professor of religion, who can find nothing
better to do than play billiards, need not expect to live long.
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