A and B play against X and Z. A leads. The card with the double rim wins, and the card below the rimmed

HAND 167.

NOTES.-Trick 1. A properly leads from his trump suit of five. Trick 4. The 10 is led to keep X informed that Z has still the best of the suit. Trick 5. The 7 is the orthodox lead, but the player obtains an advantage in this instance by his irregularity.. Trick 7. The trump lead should be abandoned here. None of the trumps in between the 3 and the 10 can be in X's hand -see Trick 4. The leader is therefore drawing two trumps for one, with no suit established. This is playing by impulse instead of by reason. This is how games are lost and won. With five trumps and two by honours, five cards are lost, and the players (and there are many of them) who thus lose always appear to think that it is their bad luck that causes their losses. It is inattention that loses the game, and not the cards.

HAND 168.

NOTES.-Trick 8. As X discards Spades, we cannot say that Z was wrong in trying to get his partner in for Clubs. Trick 10. It is clear that Z has only Spades, and B cannot continue with either Heart or Club, as the winning card of each suit is with X. Z ought not to have headed the Spade, otherwise he must have saved the game. A took the only chance of winning it. If he had headed, Z saves the game.

HAND 169.

NOTES. -Trick 1. Z takes his partner's trick to lead trumps. Apparently X must have two honours to save the game, and Z being numerically strong, but having no honour, it is better for him to lead the trump than for X to do so. Trick 3. With weakness in trumps, we should return our partner's lead. Trick 9. This is the way to win the game. If Z is forced to lead the trump, B saves the game. Young players may study this, and make a note of it in their minds. It is a position that often occurs, and is seldom taken advantage of. All these hands are suggestive, and learners will do well to examine them attentively.

HOLDING THIRTEEN TRUMPS AT WHIST.

To the Editor of the WESTMINSTER PAPERS.

DEAR SIR,-One of the most extraordinary incidents in connection with Whist I dare say you ever heard of occurred here this week. Four gentlemen of the highest respectability, with whom I am well acquainted, were playing at Whist last Wednesday evening; they had been playing about a couple of hours, when one of them, after having dealt, found his hand to consist of the whole thirteen trumps.

Two packs of cards were used alternately all the time, and this occurred with one of them after being shuffled and cut in the usual manner.

Can you, or any of your correspondents, give another instance of this ever having taken place?
I am, sincerely yours,
CHARLES R. BAXTER.

MAGDALEN PLACE, DUNDEE, 31st October 1873.

An apparently well-authenticated case of the dealer holding thirteen trumps, supplemented by three other hands as extraordinary, was published some ten years ago in Bell's Life. As it may be new to many, and is certain to interest all card players, we reproduce it here :

:

"We have received the following, dated Jubbulpore, February 1863.

"There sat down to Whist the undermentioned officers of the 91st Regiment. The cards, which had been played with before, were shuffled and dealt as usual, and the hands were as follows:* Capt. II. Wood (dealer), 13 Spades; Ace turned up. *Ensign W. C. Hinton, 11 Clubs, 1 Heart, 1 Diamond. Ensign H. R. Rolfe, 12 Hearts, 1 Club. Lieut-Col. W. T. L. Patterson, 12 Diamonds, 1 Club.

* Partners..

"Witnesses to this having happened without any packing of cards, or any other way of accounting for the occurrence. (Signed) W. T. L. Patterson, Lieut.-Col. 91st Regiment.

H. Wood, Captain 91st Regiment.

“Extra witness, A. C. Bruce,

H. R. Rolfe, Ensign 91st Regiment.
W. C. Hinton, Ensign 91st Regiment.
Captain 91st Regiment.'

"Our correspondents inquire whether any of our readers can instance any equally remarkable circumstance, and also ask what are the odds against its happening again. This is a job for Mr Babbage, or any other man."-Ed. Bell's Life.

The

[The mind is incapable of grasping the enormous number of possible ways in which fifty-two cards can be dealt equally between four players. It has been calculated that if the entire population of the earth, taken at one thousand millions of persons, were to deal the cards incessantly day and night for one hundred millions of years, at the rate of a deal by each person a minute, they would not have exhausted the one hundred thousandth part of the number of essentially different ways in which the cards can be so distributed. Indian case is one of these possible ways, and it has all the others ranged against it. The odds against the dealer holding thirteen trumps may be taken in round figures at one hundred and fifty-nine thousand millions to one, yet, Messieurs the mathematicians, see how a plain tale doth set you down! Here are two undoubted cases occurring within eleven years.-EDITOR.]

NEW PLAYING CARDS,

We have received specimen packs of Messrs. Hunt's playing cards, which are, as usual, of excellent quality.

EXTRACTS FROM "NURSERY RHYMIA."
BY ALFRED PAXTON.

"KARDSHARPUS THE GREAT, indeed! I'm only the Knave of
Hearts, that stole the tarts, and I very nearly got that jolly beef-
steak pie to-day too. I do wish I had. I was turned out of
the court of the King of Hearts for stealing. This is how it
was, only don't tell any one. You see, the Queen of Hearts, she
made the tarts, so that she might deal out charities to the poor,
but I knew a trick worth two of that, so I followed the baker's
lead, and as soon as he had put them in the oven, and turned
his back, I had a game of Cribbage all to myself. But whilst I
was enjoying the tarts, I suddenly turned up, and saw the hand
of my friend the baker raised to snap me. I felt Rouge-et-Noir,
and as if I should besique. I shouted out Whist, but, beggar-
my-neighbour, if he didn't go and split, and I was taken up and

marched through the streets with a whole pack of cards at my back. I tried hard to shuffle and cut, and make myself a loose card. I went all-fours, but it was no use, and I saw that I must give up all hope for I had lost my last trick. I was taken before the King, and was within an Ace of my life, and I was ordered vingt-et-un lashes with variations; but just for a game of speculation, I tried a speech to the people—it had a grand effect. I remember the beginning so well. I turned to the King and Queen, that is the pair royal, and said, "You are two by honours, I am one by cards." This turned out trumps, and I made so many points that my punishment was revoked; but I was ordered to leave the country, and cut my connections, so here I am just about to contract two royal marriages."

BILLIARDS.

(Continued from our November Number.)

SECTION 34.-BREAKS.

THE power of making individual strokes with precision, though a primary necessity to the player, will not of itself enable him to score rapidly. He must, in addition, be able to leave the balls after his stroke so as again to have the power, not only of scoring, but of leaving them favourably. Thus, to leave a succession of easy strokes, he must attend carefully to the strength, and when he is playing from balk he must select such a position for white, within the semicircle, as will enable him to leave red, if possible, within the space bounded by the curves A, B, C and D in plate 2, p 81. Should this be beyond his power he may succeed in leaving red between K and N. This is not so favourable a position as the other, for although the losing hazard is not much more difficult, it is not possible to secure so good a place for red afterwards. In one or other of these two areas, it should not be difficult to leave the red, for in length they extend for three quarters of the distance from balk to the upper cushion, and in breadth nearly half the distance on each side of the centre line to the side cushion. The player's aim should therefore be so to regulate the strength as to bring the red about nine inches below the centre spot, or, failing this, about one foot above it. In either case he may miscalculate the strength so far as to leave the red from eighteen inches to two feet from the place he intended without a fatal effect on his break.

It is evident, from a look at the diagram, that the nearer the course of red to the centre line of the table, the greater the variation which is possible in the strength. For this reason, where it is possible, the red should

seek its position from the end cushion rather than the side ones. In the last section we have given such instructions as we are able to do in print, to help the learner to regulate the strength, and the first three articles should enable him to calculate the direction which will be taken by red in all cases. But, that he may do so with greater ease, we have prepared the annexed plates, 3 and 4, to show the law that governs the direction of red in the principal losing hazards from balk. It is so simple that, from a careful study of the examples we have given, there should be no difficulty in applying it to the case of any losing hazard at any part of the

table.

SECTION 35.-DIRECTION OF RED AFTER LOSING HAZARD IN MIDDLE POCKET.

In plate 3 the curve C is the same as that shown in plate 2, as marking the limit of a dead stroke from the left hand corner of the balk semicircle into the right hand middle pocket P. But in this plate we have continued it to E, so as to include the complete semicircle. We know, from Section 16, that if red occupy any position, R in the curve, and white be played from A a dead stroke, it will, after striking red, move along the Scale2 inch to I fool

D

R

Plate III.

line WP to the pocket P. We also know that in these strokes the course of red includes an angle of 86 deg. with that of white. It is the property of a semicircle that any two straight lines, drawn from its extremities and meeting at any point in the curve, are at right angles to one another. So that if a straight line be drawn from the centre of R to P, the angle E R P will be a right angle, and consequently the angle S R P will be also a right angle. The angle actually made by the ball is the angle S W P, and this is less than S R P by from four to two degrees, according to the distance of R from P within practical limits. The width of the ball is therefore enough to make the necessary allowance for imperfect elasticity in the ball, and the direction of R will therefore be always in the line drawn from E through the centre of the ball, in whatever part of the curve C the red may lie, when it is struck with a dead stroke, at the angle necessary to make the losing hazard

a

In the diagram we have shown red in a second position, R1, where the direction taken is R1 S1, continuation of E R1, and the path of red can easily be predicted, if we keep in mind the position of the point E. The curve D, which we have also transferred from plate 2, shews the limits of a very gentle follow from B the right hand corner of balk, when white is played upon red half ball. This curve is also continued, but only so far as to include the third part of the complete circle, between P B and F. The angle continued by two chords from the extremities of the arc meeting at any point in the circumference is 120 deg., and therefore if the ball be at R the angle S2 R2 P is equal to 60 deg. This is the angle, see Section 17, which the paths of red and white make with each other in the very gentle following half ball strokes. It is therefore from F that, in this case, the lines must be drawn which indicate the direction of red when white moves towards the pocket. In this plate also we give two examples when red is at R2 and R3, so that the reader may familiarize himself with the use of the point F, which may be considered as a focus of the direction of red. In this case, as in that preceding, the diameter of the ball makes the necessary allowance for imperfect elasticity.