bridge. The cultivation of right feeling towards our neighbour brought out without books makes the man the gentleman and rubs off the angles and rough edges of the uncultivated. Now, our Whist snob doubtless thinks himself a great man. Many there are that have wealth in their favour, who think that the mere possession of wealth entitles them to command. They get their own way because no one will oppose them until a rebellion takes place which overthrows their power and which causes punishment to be inflicted on the good and bad alike. It is this which prevents many good Jews from entering a good club. It is this which prevents them entering the best circles. However, our Whist snob enters a club by invitation for the first time. Present, the President, a gentleman in every sense of the term. Present also, snob's introducer, a gentleman well grown in years. Present also three other members of the club and myself as looker on. They draw cards, and the custom of the club is that if six cut in, the two highest and two lowest play together, and the middle two sit out. The two highest and two lowest play together. My hero was one of the middle men, and I need scarcely say, after my prelude, "he would not stand that. He knew the laws of Whist, and he was not to be cut out in that way." He thus assumed that a party of gentlemen, met to play Whist, had combined to defraud him of his rights. I know nothing more offensive than that a player, no matter how vaguely, should give vent to an expression that implies that any one else differing from the player should be a rogue, or that all the others voluntarily entered into a conspiracy to defraud him. As a rule if six persons are present and five agree as to what is right, the sixth is wrong. Of course on an abstruse point of law, the sixth may be a better lawyer than the other five put together, but even so, the sixth would generally accept his fate and not make a row about it. I could not imagine that a man on his first appearance in any Club would object to any club law, and if he found a law differing from ordinary laws, I should have thought that he might have inquired how it was that he was out. The President could have explained, his friend could have explained, I, the outsider, could have explained; but the worm turned, he had been trodden upon too often, and he could stand it no longer, and he therefore made an ass of himself. To my mind there is hardly anything more painful to an Englishman than to see one of his countrymen exhibiting his bad manners in the eyes of foreigners. It is bad enough at home, but abroad one is hurt in a more tender part. If my theory is right, if this man had been to a public school, he would have learnt to hold his tongue; learnt to suffer rather than complain; learnt to believe that it was impossible for five or six gentlemen in a Club room to join together to deprive a stranger of his rights; learnt to know that any one of the five would have gladly given up his seat to the stranger if it had been possible to do so according to their law. These things are not learnt in books, nor at the school to which my hero went; or if so, he is of too pachydermatous a nature to have profited by his experience. Unhappily the table was not broken up. Our hero grumbled and sat out, and a point of law having arisen, he volunteered to decide, and commenced talking in a loud tone of voice at the side he thought in fault. He told them they were bound by his decision. An outsider's opinion is always binding amongst gentlemen. A savage expression appeared on the face of one player, but the President intervened. He said "We usually refer our disputes to an outsider if we cannot settle them ourselves, but if we are to appoint you judge you should hardly express your views before we ask you." "Oh, I always say what I think on these matters, and as I am a member of the Club I suspect I know something of the laws of Whist." I was requested to decide the point at issue, but I declined on the ground that I did not venture to differ from such an eminent authority, and the point was decided at the table as it would have been five minutes before, but for this officious interference. The great man sat down. "What do we play?" Being told, "What! no more than that?" "No; but you can bet what you like." "Then I will bet any one £5." Taken. He shuffles the cards. "What poor cards you have here." At last the display begins. Our hero trumped his partner's best card with the 13th trump, and lost three by cards, sat back on his chair, and said, "Ah, well, it was very lucky we did not do worse." The next hand his adversary led a Spade, 2nd player followed suit; 3rd hand, our hero, a Club; and 4th hand wins, and leads Diamond Ace. Our hero, "Excuse me; leave that down. I trumped the Spade." Answer, "Hearts are trumps." “Oh dear no, (looking at his hand), I turned up Club King," and appeals to his partner, who simply said"Hearts are trumps." On which our hero puts his elbows on the table, and his head upon his hands, and stops to reflect. "No; that was last hand." No notice was taken of the information given as to the Club King. I turn to another hand. Hearts led; trumped by our hero; trick gathered by partner. "Stop, partner; I think I'm right. Don't turn over. Yes, quite right." His partner got in, and did not force him. He then drew his card in such a manner as to show distinctly that was not the card he wanted led. The rubber was over, some of the players had retired, and another member or two had entered the room. Our hero immediately asked them if they would cut in ?—a very polite observation. But in his politeness our hero is offensive. What had he to do with the members entering or not? Why should a perfect stranger take upon himself the ordering of the table? Why imply that he alone knew his position as a gentleman, and that the other players of the table were snobs for not asking the fresh members to come in; and why should he ask a member to come in who knew perfectly well that he could come in if he liked? Even in his polite moods he did that which no man who had been to a public school would have dreamed of doing. If there were any forgetfulness on the part of a member of the table, he could have asked the President sotto voce if those gentlemen desired to enter. Soon after at the end of a hand, two trumps in different opponents' hands, my hero led a 13th card. Second hand discarded -last hand trumped. (To his partner)—"That was a capital 13th card I led you-I think it saved the game." He is fond of 13th cards, for the next hand he led another. At the end of the hand, "I wanted your best trump." "But what was the good of that? My best trump must make." "Yes, but my trump was the next best, and we separated them." He appealed to me, and I replied, "If your trump had been the second best, of course you were right, but it was not." On which he contradicted me flatly, and then looked at the cards and said, "Oh, yes, you are right." I cannot recall all the phrases used, but I remember "you ought to have led your King first from Ace King." Reply, "I had not Ace King." "I made the trick entirely by doing that." "Excuse me, it was not the game." You spoilt the game by leading the Knave when you knew I had Ace King." Answer: "But I did not know you had Ace King, and if I had. I do not see the point of not leading the Knave. You had no right to put your cards down." We must stop. Each of these remarks was calculated to produce a row and a wrangle, and it says something for the temper of the players that they did not exhibit any signs of impatience. I had heard more than enough, and I left the room. I noticed that the table was shortly broken up, and I was not surprised. Behaviour such as I have described would be unbearable anywhere; but to see an Englishman abroad say and do such things is sufficient to make one ashamed of one's race. I give you my word that I have not invented a particle of this. I have set down naught in malice. I describe exactly what was said and done. I made notes of the facts at the time, and I determined, if I could not get some one else to do it, to write to you myself, in order that one man may show to the rest of the world nearly every offence that can be committed at the Whist table. That the man is an Englishman I regret. That he is a Jew I regret, for some of my best friends are of the race; but, at the risk of giving offence, I must ask you to insert this, as a check against similar conduct in the future. M. ON WHIST SIGNALS. To the Editor of THE WESTMINSTER PAPERS. SIR, I think some few observations ought to be made on the many inaccuracies and erroneous statements contained in the letter under the above heading signed "E. J.," that appeared in your May Number. The writer seems to me to be in a complete muddle. In the first place, I deny that the term signal is properly applicable to any of the cases mentioned by "E. J.," except the ask for trumps, and leading the lowest but one from a five suit. What "E. J." says would lead any one to suppose that Whist players had determined to lead the Ace from Ace five in order to signal to their partners that they had five at least of the suit instead of the fact being that the lead is so arranged lest having so many of the suit the Ace should be trumped later on. So "E. J.'s" argument would assert that the ten is led from king, knave, ten, in order to signal to your partner, that you have king, knave, ten. It is nothing of the sort. Mr. Clay gives the reason when he says the ten is led, because with that strength, you cannot afford to let the trick be made by any card less than the Queen or Ace. "It is true," he adds, "the ten is chosen to distinguish the lead from a knave, ten lead;" but that does not affect the point. Similar observations apply to all the other leads and the play of the other hands. The trick-making is the first consideration in arranging the leads and the play. The inferences to be drawn follow, and do not precede as a consideration in the matter of the arrangement. But "E. J.," nearly all through his letter, puts first what ought to be second. I thought that, if there was one principle of Whist as clear as any other, it was the principle that the primary use of trumps was to draw those of the adversaries, and the secondary use to ruff. Cavendish, I think, lays this down clearly. "E. J." says precisely the reverse. E. J." however appears to misunderstand all he reads. He talks about the rule respecting asking for trumps laid down in Baldwin's Treatise. Baldwin edited the laws, but Mr. Clay wrote the treatise. He mentions in connection with the rule, that the highest should be led of a suit, containing three low cards, that Mr. Clay went so far as to state that he refused to consider any one a player who neglected this rule. Mr. Clay may certainly have made the observation in conversation; but it is not to be found in this connection in his book. There the observation is applied to the player who with King, Queen, Knave, and less than five cards in the suit leads the Knave. Again," E. J." refers to Mr. Clay's bitter regret at the introduction of the practice of asking for trumps, and goes on to state that an objection to the practice is that it complicates the game. So far as Mr. Clay's objection and other objections I have heard go, they are just the reverse. The objection is that it simplifies the game too much. That whereas before the signal was general, when to lead trumps was a point requiring the greatest judgment; now by means of the signal, the tyro knows when his partner wants trumps led. As to Mr. Clay's bitter regret, I do not remember that he puts the matter so strongly as regards his own feeling. What he 66 states is that the inventor of the signal for trumps bitterly regretted his ingenuity as it deprived him of half the advantage he derived from his skill. One word more and I have done. Possibly I may be wrong, but up to the present time, I have not found myself so; but whenever any one who plays at Whist speaks of looking out for the signal for trumps as a separate thing, I always put him down as a bad player. If he is observant of the cards I do not see how he can miss the signal. There can never be the slightest necessity to look out for it as something special. Now in answer to his partner's complaint that after having asked for trumps he did not get them led again, "E. J." says, "I never looked for and therefore missed the signal." Such a statement together with the other matters I have pointed out, will I trust, effectually prevent any one from taking "E. J." as an authority or a guide in Whist; most especially as regards the question of asking for trumps. Or the four new dramas which we noticed in our last issue, one only, Proof, at the Adelphi, outlives the month. The remaining three have been quickly, but not too quickly, consigned to that theatrical bourne from which no plays return, and none of them are ever likely to figure as revivals, popular though revivals may be. The St. James' and Queen's theatres, which would serve admirably for temples of Janus, are again closed, and symptoms of decay are with the advancing summer beginning to be apparent at other establishments. The Little Duke, opera-bouffe or comique, though produced with much pomp and parade, and adapted by those eminent translators, the brothers Rowe, has not prospered in Islington, thus again showing that the taste for French opera-bouffe is, if not dead, yet dormant. The critics who described Mr. Irving's Louis XI. as not only the finest thing he has done, but also the finest piece of acting of the generation, have not converted the public to their views, as it is about to give way to an adaptation of the Flying Dutchman, without having run the accustomed hundred nights. The last nights are also announced of Jane Shore, Family Honour, A Fool and his Money, and other "great successes." Meanwhile at the Olympic the dusty corridors of which are more often trod by the critics than those of any other theatre, Mr. Neville, undeterred by failure after failure, produces plays of every type, from adaptations of Miss Braddon to Mr. Gilbert, from Mr. Gilbert to French comedy of intrigue, from that to Belphegor, and his next step is to a dramatised version of a poetical tale from Crabbe. Surely such a heterogeneous mass of theatrical materials was never produced at one theatre in so short a time, and this uncertain and shifting policy might alone account for the scanty public favour accorded to the Olympic. Mr. Neville is himself a favourite, is usually surrounded by an adequate staff, and the position of his theatre is not unfavourable. Experience would seem to point to strong drama after The Ticket of Leave Man or Two Orphans type as being most suitable to the Olympic, and we doubt beforehand whether a play from Crabbe or the re-appearance of Mrs. Boucicault, a lady neither of great power nor popularity, are likely in midsummer to restore its fortunes. Mr. Will's reconstruction of the Vicar of Wakefield, without any reference to the intentions of the author, having proved a great success at the Court Theatre, Miss Fowler, at present the manageress of the Royalty, has been emboldened to produce there the same author's Nell Gwynne, a play which has been long promised, and to which we have frequently made prospective reference. The production of Nell Gwynne at this time is not inappropriate, for Jane Shore, having run its course at the Princesses, Mr. Wills is thus enabled to continue his edifying history of kings' mistresses to a later date. There is plenty of fresh material from the same source for Mr. Wills to develope, though he will find it difficult to cast a romantic halo over the German ladies attached to the courts of the earlier Georges. It is needless to say that we have never admired the moral beauties of Mr. Wills's heroines, nor the unjustifiable way in which he cuts up history, and if we are met with a reference to the undoubted success of Jane Shore, we can only repeat that in our opinion that success was owing, not to any historical interest displayed by the public in Jane Shore herself, but to the domestic and intensely dramatic incidents of the scenes where she is driven through the streets, incidents that touched the sympathics of playgoers, not because the leading personage was Jane Shore, but because she was the heroine of strong melodramatic situations. Whatever success may attend Nell Gwynne is not likely to be a success of this kind, for there is no popular treatment of the heroine, and Mr. Wills has not even invented a situation where Nell Gwynne might be seen scattering smiles and coins amongst a crowd of wooden-legged Chelsea pensioners, and receiving in advance the blessings of posterity. At the Royalty there are no street scenes, no generous populace and brutal soldiery, but boudoirs and palace chambers, with the rustling of silks and the odour of perfumes. The play, too, can hardly be called even historical romance, but is chiefly occupied with what is known in Eastern politics as an intrigue of the harem. The acts are a series of wordy fights between Nell Gwynne and the French Duchess of Portsmouth, in which the former has always the best of it, as she has also in the matter of dresses, facts which must be rather galling to some of our dramatic critics, whose sympathies on the stage are usually philo-French and anti-English. There is a sort of story in which Nell Gwynne, with the aid of a former lover, defeats a plot against the King, in which Buckingham and the Duchess of Portsmouth are engaged, and the moral appears to be that whilst it is a bad thing for an English king to have a French mistress, it is patriotic in him to have an English one. This is the moral historical, and there is a subsidiary moral that it is better for a woman to be a rich man's mistress than a poor man's wife. Nell Gwynne has half-promised to abandon the Court and become the wife of her old lover, George Selwyn, and in a scene intended to be serious, she contrasts the two lives it is in her power to lead, that of Selwyn's wife and that of Charles' mistress, and after much deliberation, decides that it would be better for herself and for England to continue in her present position. We repeat that this is intended seriously, and the fact that Mr. Wills can, by the mouth of his heroine, argue in such fashion, shows the bias of his mind. In this play all the characters are ignoble. Selwyn, who would marry Nell Gwynne, is in the same position as the lover in La Traviata or in Madelaine Morel, the play we noticed last month. The king is represented as a maudlin idiot, now laughing hysterically over Nell's hits at her rival, now whining like a cur when she talks of leaving him. Both Charles II. and Buckingham, here represented as a mean plotter against his king, are sadly deteriorated from the noble personages delineated by Mr. Wills in his play of Buckingham, produced a year or two ago at the Olympic. In that play they abounded in generous sentiments and in rectitude of conduct, and were contrasted favourably with the objectionable Cromwell. If they can have so fallen off in a few years, as we see them in Nell Gwynne, what, reasoning a fortiori, would have been the terrible condition of Cromwell had he lived a little longer! Mr. Sothern, who has returned to us from America, has probably already found out that playgoers are not so easily pleased as they were when he first appeared in this country. His Lord Dundreary was a marvellous creation, and was, until elaborated and exaggerated over-much, worthy of all the praise ever bestowed upon it; but it is an open question whether, if Our American Cousin had been first produced at the present time the excellence of Dundreary would have been allowed to atone for the general feebleness of the play. If under such circumstances there would have been some doubt over Dundreary, there can be none over Mr. Sothern's Fitzaltamont in the Crushed Tragedian, or rather, the Prompter's Box, which is as inartistic as it is imbecile. Mr. Sothern has not only ruined the play by giving undue prominence to a subordinate character, and so marring the interest felt in the leading personages of the story, but has totally misconceived the character itself. Mr. Byron, who was the original Fitzaltamont, and who, as the author of the play, ought to know how the part should be acted, made of the unsuccessful tragedian a blighted being, who moved sadly, silently, and unobtrusively amongst the dramatis persona quietly uttering his unintentionally funny sayings. Mr. Sothern, on the other hand, makes the tragedian carry the stage into private life, and gasp, scowl, shout, and attitudinise, as actors, successful or the reverse, are not accustomed to do. Nor is the conception original, for the burlesquing of the villain of melodrama has been the stock-in-trade of every low-comedian for many years. The mischief of Mr. Sothern's erroneous conception is not confined to the character he represents, but extends also to the whole motive of the play, for Fitzaltamont though a subordinate character, is in some degree, instrumental in promoting the development of the story, and in burlesquing him, Mr. Sothern turns the story into ridicule. In the third act, this character is supposed to jump from the window of a room, in order to support the heroine at her début, the actor who should support her having been drugged by a jealous rival of the young lady. Mr. Sothern shows us a man falling backwards out of the window, which is declared to be eighteen feet from the ground, amidst thunder and lightning. Other instances could be named, and more especially the finish, or what is known as the "tag," which in folly without humour could hardly be excelled. Altogether, Mr. Sothern cannot be congratulated on his latest effort, nor our American Cousins, who are said to have received it with much applause, on their dramatic taste. If we may judge by Mr. Sothern himself, by the music imported to enliven the play, and by the lady, also imported, who takes the part of Miss Mountcashel, the United States are not keeping pace with the Old World in theatrical improvements. Revivalism in plays is apparently on the wane, and the majority of recent productions have been, if not original at least new, such as adaptations from novels and French plays. Our Club at the Strand and Family Honour at the Aquarium claim to be original as well as new. We have no reason to doubt the originality of Our Club, but Mr. Burnand its author, is a practised translator from the French, and has evidently sought inspiration from the inexhaustible sources of French farce. The play is hardly short enough for the Strand, but is still too short for a proper development of the numerous incidents, mistakes and difficulties introduced by the author. It is, however, not unamusing, but hardly meets with the usual applause and laughter at the Strand, perhaps because the management have raised the price of the gallery, and so eliminated a very appreciative element of the Strand audience. Family Honour is a play of a more ambitious order belonging rather to what is vaguely called drama than to comedy, and is the work of Mr. Marshall, a gentleman who after the manner of" single speech" Hamilton has subsisted as a dramatist for a long time on the approval conferred upon False Shame, a play produced some years ago by Mr. Montague at the Globe. We must confess that our strongest recollections, in connection with False Shame, are of Mr. Montague's series of elaborate toilettes, but it was much praised at the time as an effort to combine a A serious interest with modern comedy manners. We have now got far in advance of finikin comedy which indeed has almost disappeared from the stage, and Family Honour is nearly all seriousness and gloom. Playgoers are always prepared to laugh or to cry if adequate reason is given them so to do, but they do not care to weep over the sorrows of a gentleman who parts from his wife on the merest suspicion of her misconduct, or of a wife who, having it in her power to dispel her husband's suspicions in the easiest manner, fails to do so. Inadequacy of motive in a serious play, and this is the fatal drawback to Family Honour, acts like a blight on the sympathies of an audience which passes rapidly from a state of irritation to one of indifference. There are many points of Mr. Marshall's play difficult to understand. We fail to see why the hero should be elderly, or at least middleaged, unless the necessary presence of Mr. Farren in the cast supplies the motive. We fail to see why the heroine's half-brother, who appears only once, should enter in a truculent fashion, railing against the world, intent on blackmail, and depart in five minutes, subdued to a lamb-like state by a few words of kindness from his sister; and we fail to see why the hero should at once mistake the departing half-brother for a lover and separate from his wife without further enquiry. It is true that after much preparation in bringing them together, the husband and wife are reconciled in a moment, but this does not reconcile us to such diffuseness in working up to such very brief situations. The play, however, is well written, and well acted by the Aquarium company, and much credit is due to the management for its attempt to establish a daily afternoon theatre, where playgoers who object to late hours can witness good plays and good acting. The permanent success of the experiment is, however doubtful, at least so far as the summer months are concerned. We have mentioned that the Little Duke, though produced in a very complete manner, failed to succeed at the Philharmonic, and it is rumoured that it is to be transferred to the Globe as being nearer to club-land. The probable truth of the matter is that opera bouffe has depended on the support of fashion, and now droops because that support is, for the present, transferred to the productions of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan at the Opera Comique, which may be briefly described as opera bouffe grown intelligent and put into long clothes. It is, indeed, satisfactory that good music and genuine humour should be made the leading elements of comic opera, instead of being, as they have hitherto been, subordinate to indecency of costume and vulgarity of demeanour, and we can only hope, though with no great confidence, that fashion will continue to patronise the Opera Comique. The Sorcerer has, after a long run at that theatre, given way to a similar production by Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, called H.M.S. Pinafore, though what reference the title has to the story it is impossible to discover. To this, as to the previous work, the composer has supplied pretty music, the author humourous dialogue, and the management good singers, and an excellent orchestra; and as the entertainment barely lasts a couple of hours, it is one of the most enjoyable in London. But it is only when the composer is lively in his passages that his union with the humourist is genuine. For even in comic opera the tenor must have his scena, and the soprano her opportunity for displaying her musical powers, and when these occur it matters little what the words of the libretto are. The finest morceaux of opera or oratorio would be equally effective were they sung in Italian or Chinese to serious or comic words, or even to the alphabet, for the intelligence or mind of the listener has nothing to do with the operation. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. CHESS. R. W. POPE.-June No. 77 sent-money received. F. G. LAMB and SECRETARY, DUBLIN CLUB.-Letters misdirected. See notice at end of every Number. J. E. COLBURN and C. BECKER.-Neither name in our list. To whom did you send the P.O.O.? We have posted the numbers as requested. L. NEDEMANN.-Numbers sent. BOOKS RECEIVED.-Ph. Ketts "Schachprobleme." Veit and Co., Leipsic. "Der Schachkongress." July, 1877, Veit and Co. The "Leipsic Chess Congress," by E. Schallopp. Veit and Co. T. W. (Huddersfield).-Please accept our best thanks for the translation. The solutions of " Nec male," etc., have been sent to you as desired. OLD PHILIDORIAN (1).—It is not our practice to publish the solutions of problems extracted from contemporary journals. The extracts are made with the view of directing attention to the merits of the journal referred to in each case, and that our readers may support them by subscriptions. The solutions of the problems referred to will be found in the American Chess Monthly, published by C. C. Moore, Cortlandt Street, New York, price twenty-five cents. (2) The hours of play at the meetings of the Counties Chess Association are, of course, inconvenient to the working men, but, after all, so far as the Chess World is concerned, the conventional "working man" is in a minority. T. T. (Edinburgh).-Thanks for the problem. It shall appear in due time if found correct. MIRON (Campton Vill).-Your letters received, and but for the writer's absence from town you should have heard from |