The national games of the different countries are said to be: Italy, Minchiate; Germany, Landsknechtspiel, or Lansquenet; France, Piquet; Spain, El Hombre; America, Poker.
AMERICA.
THE history of Playing-cards would be incomplete without some reference to their introduction into America, and a slight sketch of the games most in favour in that country. History tells us that Columbus carried cards with him in his ship on the voyage of discovery in 1492, and that his sailors employed every spare moment playing with them, until their superstitious fancies persuaded them that this impious practice was the cause of the long voyage and contrary winds which alarmed them so greatly. During the frenzy caused by this panic, they flung overboard their Jonahs (the cards). Their safe arrival at what they believed to be the Promised Land caused them to forget their fears, and they soon regretted the rashness with which they had sacrificed their beloved amusement; so with considerable ingenuity they made for themselves new packs from the leaves of the copas-tree. Tradition states that the sacrificed cards had been made of leather. The introduction of cards into America, their first makers, and the materials used, are therefore matters of history, and call for no research or speculation.
Plate 13.
A few years after the discovery of America, another history relates that on the conquest of Mexico, and during the captivity of her unfortunate king, Montezuma, he was deeply interested in watching the games of cards played by the conquerors in his presence.
The Spanish marks of suits are now to be found on the cards used in Mexico; but the inhabitants of that country are gradually adopting the French marks used in their sister republic, the United States, and the old cards will soon be as obsolete as their forefathers, the Tarots.
In those parts of the United States that were first settled by religious fanatics it would be useless to search for any record of cards, as they were looked upon with horror by both the Puritans and the Quakers, and together with all games, such as Chess, Draughts, etc., were considered inventions of the Evil One, and their use was sternly forbidden; and it is more than probable that the famous “Mayflower,” which seems to have contained enough furniture (judging from the alleged specimens preserved) to have filled an ordinary-sized town, did not contain one card-table or pack of playing-cards. It was natural, however, that some amusement should be craved by the younger members of society, and that games which were considered more harmless than the “Devil’s books” (as cards were named by the Puritans) should have been sought for and discovered. Among these were the various kinds of instructive cards which had been invented so many years previously by the Franciscan friar, and which had met with so much favour in parts of Europe. These cards taught various branches of science to the player, and were very numerous; and packs of them by degrees forced their way into different places where the wicked French cards, with their royal dames and kings and their scampish knaves,—whose names alone were synonymous with wrongdoing, gambling, and thieving,—and the innocent-looking but bad little pips, were strictly forbidden.
Plate 14.