Always doubtful of my own arithmetic, I am indebted for the following figures to a little boy who has recently passed the Fourth Standard at an adjacent Board-school. He informs me that during the last decade three and a quarter inches of small print have been devoted by the editor of the Field to explaining that the modern rule of play at Whist is to discard from your best protected suit, when trumps are declared against you; twenty-one square inches to supporting the usual lead of a small card, from ace to four; and three square inches to reversing Clay’s and his own long-established decision, that silence is an answer; seventy-eight square inches to minute directions when not to lead trumps from five; three hundred and fifty-eight square inches to explaining what a convention is, and one acre, two roods, and eight perches—be the same more or less—to articles and hands purporting to illustrate the American leads, and placing the sheep on the right and the goats on the left, we have:—
| Evil. | Good. |
| One acre, two roods, eight perches, plus three square inches, plus seventy-eight square inches, plus three hundred and fifty-eight square inches. | Twenty-one sq. inches, plus three and a quarter sq. inches. |
My young informant adds that the evil, if represented in square inches, is 6,273,079, and is in proportion to the good as 258,683 to 1.
The moral would seem to be, that sufficient ink may make an acre and a half of white paper black, but will never make those two sides balance.
These be thy gods, O Israel.
Our ancestors built up and handed down to us a noble game: be it our aim to keep it undefiled. The task is difficult.
Facilis descensus Averni est,
Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras,
Hic labor, hoc opus est.