A GAME OF WHIST.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 429, 31 August 1880, Page 3

A GAME OF WHIST.

It has been said that every one thinks he can drive, and most persons think they can play whist. It seems to tho uninitiated bo simple for four people to fit down nt the .table and each to piny 13 cards. These guileless folk may be ignorant of the lead*, they m-iy have never studied the pages of Cavendish ; they afford no information to their partner ; yet they seldom, in private life, scrunlo lo cut in and spoil a'tabic. They look upon whist as they look upon a round game — not a thing to ho studied seriously, becai.se with good cards one wine, and with bad cards one loses. To read up 'the subject attentively soeins benoulh them ; whist with thorn is a game, not a science. How often do we hear men saying, ' I am very fond of taking a hand at whist, hut I can't be bothered about, the rules and all that.' Why cannot they be bothered ? What would they think of a man who said that ho was vary fond of hunting, hut who couldn't be bothered about learning to ride ; or of a man who boated, but couldn't be bothered about learning to row ; or who played cricket, rackets, lawn tennis, but couldn't be bothered to learn the game? Why do they play whist week after week and yet systematically refuse to study the subject ? To be a first-class whist player is a gift, and few thero be who possess it; but anyone not a born fool can by a few weeks' Btudy so far instruct himsolf in tho game as to acquire tho recognised rules—to know what cards to lead, what to play second-hand, what to return to his partner, and how to deal with trumps. Whist has laws, like (mathematics or political economy, and a man has no more chance of playing a rubber correctly without reading them up than he has of writing an article on the currency without knowing something of political economy, or of working out a problem without being acquainted with geometry. —' London Society.'