TYRANNY OF BRIDGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 220, 26 September 1901, Page 4

TYRANNY OF BRIDGE.

To the currant number of the Fortnightly Review Lady Jeune has contributed an article on "The Social Tyranny ol Bridge." She says: " The world io England is divided into two camps, those who play bridge and those who do not. There is no impartial meeting ground, there is no modified way of regarding the aabjscb; people either are its abject slaves or its bitter opponent*. Knowing nothing of the game, and being entirely uninfluenced by its attractions, we can only approach cbe subject from the outsider's point of view and abate whit we think from onr bamble ignorant) position. That there is an irresistible charm about bridge io would be idle to deny. One his only got to look roand among one's friends and acquaintances and see what its pdwer is. No one cm be safe against the fatal attractions. The harassed politician finds scl ic« from the care wd aoxiaties of office, 'ha venerated mother of a family throws aside the responsibilities of home and children, the corfiding husband finds satisfaction in the enforced absence of his wife by the fact that she is playing bridge. The man. too old to dance and yet too young to admit that his beet d«ys are over, bow fi dj bimse'f roagbt after by the m it-1 exclusive seta bi ciosa he plays bridge; th*: oM maid, who had contentediy set led into the only life she conceived remained for ber, is harried froaa one place to another, and has an engagement li*t weiks ahead, because she has maafcred the myetsriee of the great game " Bridge has taken firm hold npon London society, and is even invading the country, though as yet, according to Ltdy Jeone, it ba? haidy bfcome known to tbe rcgn'ar county Bociety of England. "At pr*a n:> the country equire and parson are faiihfol to whist, and rfctlis with amusement the horror and (corn with wbich an | old neighbour denounced all the arguments of an aidsnt devotee of bridge As we said bifore, we spe*k at f-o:< kodwing nothing of the g»m« or its mysterious pleasures, and a e on'y tempted by the urgent representa ions of those who aver that bridge is -seriously undermining the who'e social structure of society to attempt to analyse its position. It is even said that in the House of Commons the Whipi hava the utmost difficulty ia keeping a house otiag to the supreme fuoination of this perilous, pursuit, and ib is even whuper<*d that in the ■acred precinota which gmrd the majesty of the Speiker the insidious j pastime has made its onslaughts " I