Popular Amusements

by J. T. Crane

[CHAPTER VII.]

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.