OF THE MODERN SCIENTIFIC GAME OF WHIST. BY WILLIAM POLE, F.R.S. = MUS. DOC. OXON. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE LAWS OF WHIST, AS REVISED BY THE PORTLAND AND ARLINGTON CLUBS. NEW YORK: JOHN WURTELE LOVELL, No. 24 BOND STREET. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. THE INCREASING DEMAND for this little work warrants the belief that the attempt made therein to elevate the character of Whist, and to facilitate its practice in the best form, has not been without success. It is matter of notoriety that a sound knowledge of the principles of the modern scientifie game is much more frequently met with, both among club players and in private society, than it was ten or twelve years ago. This result is undoubtedly owingto the rise of a new class of Whist literature, explaining the game in a more logical and systematic way; and the recent extended discussion of the subject in some of our best critical periodicals * is sufficient to show that it has acquired an interest, in a literary and philosophical point of view, which it never had before. It is sometimes said that the systematic study of the game, so strongly insisted on in this work, *See Fraser's Magazine for April 1869, and the Quarterly Review for January 1871. |