We have already seen that the Chess Masters whom the
Fortnightly Review have in a sense made immortal are
Lowenthal, Rosenthal, Horwitz, Zukertort, Winawer and Hoffer, the
writers seem to have forgotten his Lordship and Purssell's great
philosopher who have furnished more fun than all the above put
together, and where is the typical "P.F.G." (pale faced German),
"California" and the "fidgetty W." and Hoffer's "Estimate of
the value of English Players" (1887). Surely half the wit of
these Fortnightly Review contributors could have made an article
of these alone without the addition of more serious persons such
as Steinitz, Blackburne and Bird.
"A foreign estimate of the value of English Chess Players from
Covent Garden" was the title of a little skit which caused some
amusement five or six years ago. It commenced with Blackburne
5 pounds for a blindfold performance, Gunsberg 2
pounds: 2 : 0 : 0 for a simultaneous performance, and ranges
downwards till it comes to two pence for the price of Pollock's
proverbial pint of porter. Bird could always be bought for a
glass of whiskey hot and a pleasing nod, and Mason could be got
rid of on an emergency for half-a-crown. Even poor Zukertort at
the B. C. towards the last stood very low. One evening, after
the ordinary dinner at this famous chess club, the whole of the
Amateur Company, with no exception, adjourned to cards and
billiards, Zukertort, Blackburne, Gunsberg and Bird remained alone
in the chess room, the last named proposed a match between
themselves, the others less enthusiastic did not fall in and
after a desultory conversation of half-an-hour or so the little
band dispersed.
The article about "Fleas and Nits" which well nigh led to the
extinction of the Chess Monthly emanated from Covent Garden
and was aimed at Mr. Steinitz.
Steinitz has perhaps been the subject of more jokes than any
other chess player. From the day when he first assumed the
responsibilities of chess editorship, and as some are wont to say
"kept watch over The Field Office lest it should disappear before
the morning," to the time when he unfortunately left us for
America he was nearly always a fertile theme of amusement with
the joke-loving members of the chess fraternity. We fancy we
see him now with pen behind the ear pacing up and down the
Divan rooms with horried start and whisper dread, saying, "O
have you seen my article! How many K's in occur? and is there
more than one H in editor?" He has improved since then and is
a match for Hoffer. The clocks (implements of torture I call
them) used for regulating the time consumed in chess matches
have led to several facetious stories at Steinitz's expense, some,
however, not too good natured. Still it was curious to see his
gymnastics, mental and physical, between observance of the chess
board and the time pieces on occasions when time run short and
indeed sometimes when it did not.
A game between Steinitz and Rosenthal in the London Criterion
Tournament of 1883 furnished an example which will doubtless
be familiarly remembered by those present. With eight moves to
make in about as many minutes in his excitement he had apparently
unwillingly climbed the back of a chair and not till he had
completed the requisite number within the hour and began to breathe
freely did he seem conscious of where he was. Though anxious
for a moment or so he succeeded in getting down very cleverly
without mishap, not however escaping some signs of trepidation.
A St. Louis writer in 1886, after one of his games with Zukertort,
described in true American fashion Steinitz's tall chair and short
legs and his frantic efforts to regain terra firma, as the writer
described it, to reach the American hemisphere. Steinitz's high
appreciation of proficiency in the game and what is due to one
who attains it was once illustrated before a great man at Vienna,
who rebuked him for humming whilst playing at chess, saying,
"Don't you know that I am the great Banker?" The reply was
characteristic of Steinitz. "And don't you know that I am the
Rothschild of chess?"
A beautiful chess position with Steinitz beats any work of art
as Al Solis chess, in the opinion of the Caliph, one thousand years
ago far excelled the flowers in his most beautiful garden and
everything that was in it. More than this, Prime Ministers and
Lord Chancellors, Liberal and Conservative, come and go but
there is but one first Lord in chess, says Steinitz.
Steinitz was so much gratified with the reminder of mine at
Simpson's, that three of the greatest minds ever known have had
the same initials that he will pardon the little addition joke from
Paternoster Row. The three mighty W.S.'s are Wilhelm Steinitz,
William Shakespeare and Walter Scott. He was not so well
pleased with the addition of the unnecessary missing words
William Sykes.
Steinitz was introduced at a club once as the Champion. "Of
what?" was the reply.
Steinitz has been known to grieve much when he has lost
at chess; at Dundee, for example, in 1866 after his defeat by
De Vere his friends became alarmed at his woe and disappearance.
Again, after his fall to Rosenthal in a game he should have won
at the Criterion in 1883, news were brought that he was on a seat
in St. James' Park quite uncontrollable.
Steinitz is liberally disposed to others in mind and purse. The
following brevities on chess are known to have been much admired
by him, I therefore append them for his artistic eye.
So old and enthusiastic a chess player as Bird, and one who
has travelled about so much professionally, and on chess, has
naturally been the object of many pleasantries, and bon mots,
although he escaped the Fortnightly Review writers, being
regarded, at least by one of them as a very serious person,
L'Anglais comme il faut of the Vienna Neue Frie Presse. The
despised Britisher of custom house officers (who always chalk
him away, hardly deigning to examine his luggage even). He
has figured as the sea captain of the New York Sun, the farmer
of the Rochester Press, the ladies chess professor of the Albany
Argus, and the veteran of the Montreal Press, his vicissitudes
have led him into strange places, among others to a wigwam of the
Indians at Sarnia in 1860, and a representation of one in the
Vienna Exhibition of 1873, when much to the amusement of
Professor Anderssen and Baron Kolisch he received such a cordial
reception from a lady who recognized him as an old friend and
customer at Niagara falls, the lady in question being commonly
termed a squaw (not a disrespectful word for a lady it is hoped).
Bird has been in the Nest at Amsterdam, in the Bowery at New
York, and in the accident ward at Vienna, and has witnessed
many strange things and distressing circumstances, and has
endured interviewers and Irish Home Rulers in America without
a shudder, and has perhaps been asked more questions about
chess than any man living, because he good naturedly always
answers them, and has furnished matter enough in ten minutes
for a two-column article. He has been accused of a partiality for
whisky hot, especially when served by female hands, of ordering
soles by special train at Nuremberg, though he only disposed or
them at breakfast not knowing their price or from whence they
came. Blackburne and Hoffer are responsible for the statement
that he sat up through the night at Vienna preparing statistics,
with nothing but his hat on. The allegation in the Field and
elsewhere that he instructed the French President to fetch a cab
for him on a busy fete day at the Champs de Elysees, in 1878, is
not just, that genial and courteous gentleman having volunteered
to do so under exceptional circumstances, and as all act of
sympathy, and perhaps on account of Bird's play, who though
suffering acutely from gout on that particular day won one of his
two best games of Anderssen. If Bird had a carriage and pair to
the barbers to get a shave (quite recently asserted) it was because
he could not find a conveyance with one horse in time to reach
his destination. When he made a late dinner solely off Pate
de Foie Grass at the Marquis d'Andigny's banquet at St. Germains,
Paris, in 1878, when there were any number of courses, he did so
because be liked the flavour (certainly did not find it savourless)
not comprehending the waiter's surprise or aware of its bilious
tendency till afterwards. Even a king once dined off goose livers
or something of the sort, and we have heard somewhere of a
"feast of snails."
Even assuming glasses of Lager, 20 Schnaps, and 30 plates
of bread and cheese were consumed at the village with the
unpronounceable name 70 miles this side of Nuremberg, one intensely
hot afternoon in July, 1883, on the eve of the International
Tournament in that city when the train unpolitely went on, leaving
him behind, Bird was not the only consumer nor responsible for
the food famine, which the Field and the Illustrated Sporting
and Dramatic say prevailed afterwards for the whole of the
inhabitants of the place (fifty souls) including the old lady ill in
bed, and her attendant who deserted her for the afternoon partook
thereof.
Neither Steinitz nor Bird are funny men; the latter most
reserved among his superiors, yet looks good humored. At the
Anglo-American Hotel, Hamilton, in 1860, he was honored by a
recognition each morning for a week from the Prince of Wales.
At the second Universities chess match, Perrott's, Milk Street,
1874, a young gentleman introduced himself to Bird, and a
pleasant chat was commenced, interrupted only by unreasonable
intrusion. This gentleman to Bird's surprise who thus honoured
him by interest in chess was H.R.H. Prince Leopold.
Professor Ruskin, Lord Randolph Churchill and many eminent
men have supported Bird's chess efforts with much approval; in
the far past J. P. Benjamin Esq., Q.C., and Sir Charles Russell
enjoyed an occasional game. Chief Justice Cockburn, and Sir
George Jessel seem to have liked chess. The list of highly
distinguished men reported to admire the game is varied and
significant.
Many working men have sought wrinkles from Bird; the late
Mr. Bradlaugh at intervals extending over thirty years has
ardently played occasionally chess or draught skirmishes with
much zest. He was singularly agreeable and good tempered and
a moderate player at both. Bird knew much of Ireland and the
people twenty to thirty years ago. Isaac Butt was fond of chess
but played it but indifferently. Chief Baron Pigott who also
knew it presided in the long trial Bartlett v. Lewis, Overend,
Gurney, etc., and seemed much surprised at a chess allusion. Said
Butt to me, "Come, you are not playing chess with me."
Whiteside and Sullivan two of the six Counsel on the other side,
almost simultaneously replied, "A good thing for you brother Butt, for
you would surely soon be checkmated."
The master hand who sketched Mason for the Fortnightly
Review scarcely did full justice to his vocal ability, dancing
proclivities and Christian friends, and Blackburne's marvellous
oracles and dictums pass unnoticed. Tinsley Lee, Van Vliet,
Muller and Jasnagrodzky all have their peculiarities which shall
remain untouched, for they are young and sensitive, whilst the
most amusing since the loss of Purssell's Lordship (next to the
Philosopher who happily very much survives) is the extremely
popular Monsieur.
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