Mr. Napier (_Folk-lore Record_, iv. 474), in his description of the West Scotland example, evidently considered the game to be thoroughly representative of Scottish life, and this, indeed, seems to be the most striking feature of the game in all the variants. The domestic economy which they reveal is in no case out of keeping with the known facts of everyday peasant life, and many a mother has denied to her child s friends the companionship they desired because of the work to be done. In most cases the burden of the song rests upon the question of health, but in two cases, namely, Colchester and Deptford, the question is put as to where Jenny Jones is at the time of the visit. It is curious that the refrain of Farewell, ladies, should appear in such widely separated districts as Scotland, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Middlesex, Hants, Lincoln, and Barnes. With reference to the colours for mourning, there is an obvious addition of crape introduced into the Deptford version which is very suggestive of the decadence going on. The four colours used in most versions are red, blue, white, and black, colours which have been known to the people from ancient times. Black is accepted as the correct colour in all versions except five, where white is declared to be the colour which the dead wear. The method of question and answer is adopted for all the rhyme-movements.
42. The dealer, having examined his hand, must declare to win at least one odd trick,[8] either with a specified suit, or at no trump. 43. After the dealer has declared, each player in turn, beginning on the dealer’s left, must pass, make a higher declaration, double the last declaration, or redouble a declaration which has been doubled, subject to the provisions of Law 54. 44. A declaration of a greater number of tricks in a suit of lower value, which equals the last declaration in value of points, is a higher declaration; _e.g._, a declaration of “three spades” is higher than “one club.” 45. A player in his turn may overbid the previous adverse declaration any number of times, and may also overbid his partner, but he cannot overbid his own declaration which has been passed by the three others.
Any further bets are disregarded. If any player bets on the opposite side of the table to that on which he is seated, his bet is not paid until all five of the players on that side have been settled with, because such a bet is regarded as that of an outsider, not belonging to that side of the table. If the player actually holding cards is not the one nearest the banker, he is still the first one to be paid, and then those beyond him in order. For instance: The third player holds cards; after him the fourth and fifth are paid, and then the first and second, each alternately with a player on the other side of the table. _=Banco.=_ Each player in turn, beginning with the one to whom cards will be dealt first, has the right to go banco; that is, to challenge the banker to play for his entire capital at a single coup. Such a proposition takes precedence of all others. If the bank loses such a coup, it must be put up to the highest bidder again, or offered to the next player on the list. If it wins, the same player, or any other player, may make a similar offer for the next coup, which will now be for double the first amount, of course; but no player is allowed to offer banco more than twice in succession. _=Dealing.
This is called Abundance Déclarée, or _=A Slam=_. While the object of the proposing player is to win or lose the declared number of tricks, that of his adversaries is to prevent him from doing so, if possible. There are no honours, and the only factor in the count is the number of tricks actually taken. The highest card played of the suit led wins the trick, and trumps, if any, win against all other suits. _=METHOD OF DECLARING.=_ The eldest hand has the first say, and after examining his cards he may make any of the several propositions just enumerated. The smallest proposal he can make is to take 8 tricks with the assistance of a partner. To do this he should have four reasonably sure tricks in his own hand. Some players say he should be strong in trumps; while others claim that the eldest hand should propose only on general strength. The former is the better plan.
Frage is no longer played. In a _=Tourné=_, the successful bidder turns one of the skat cards face upward on the table before looking at the second card. He may turn over whichever card he pleases, but the one he turns fixes the trump suit for that hand. If the card turned over is a Jack, he may change to a Grand; but he must do so before he sees the second card in the Skat. If the player does not like the first card he turns, he need not show it, but may put it in his hand and turn the other. This second one must be the trump; or a Grand may be played if the card is a Jack. In case the game is lost after taking the second card, it costs double. This is called _=Passt mir Nicht=_. In a _=Solo=_, the skat cards are not touched, the successful bidder naming the trump to suit the hand of ten cards originally dealt him. The Skat belongs to him, as in Frage and Tourné, but he must not see its contents until the hand is played out, when any points and Matadores it may contain will count for him.
_=Gathering Tricks.=_ The tricks must be turned down as taken in, and any player looking at a trick once turned and quitted may be called upon to play with the remainder of his hand exposed, but not liable to be called. _=Abandoned Hands.=_ If, after taking one or more tricks, a player throws his cards upon the table, he loses the point; if he has not taken a trick, he loses two points. But if the cards are thrown down claiming the point or the game, and the claim is good, there is no penalty. If the cards are abandoned with the admission that the adversary wins the point or the game, and the adversary cannot win more than is admitted, there is no penalty. _=SCORING.=_ A game consists of five points, which are made by tricks, by penalties, and by marking the King. A player winning three tricks out of the five possible, counts one point toward game; winning all five tricks, which is called _=the vole=_, counts two points. The player holding or turning up the King of trumps may mark one point for it, but he is not compelled to do so.
As the cards are withdrawn in this manner a spring pushes the remainder of the pack upward. The first card in sight at the beginning of each deal is called _=soda=_, and the last card left in the box is _=in hoc=_. The first card withdrawn is placed about six inches from the box, and the second is laid close to the box itself. [Illustration] Every two cards withdrawn in this manner are called a _=turn=_, and there are twenty-five turns in each deal, Soda and Hoc being dead cards. In making the first turn, the Soda begins the pile farther from the box, and the next card taken out is called a _=loser=_, which is placed close to the box. The card left face upward in the box is the _=winner=_ for that turn, so that there must be a winner and a loser for every turn; the loser outside the box, and the winner left in it. On the next and all following turns, the winning card on the previous turn will be placed on the same pile as the Soda, so that it shall be possible at any time to decide which cards have won, and which have lost. The _=Object of the Game=_ is for the players to guess whether the various cards on which they place their money will win or lose. They are at liberty to select any card they please, from the ace to the King, and to bet any amount within the established limit of the bank. _=The Layout.
|Sift the lady s |Sieve my lady s | -- | | |oatmeal. |oatmeal. | | | 3.|Sift it into flour. |Grind my lady s flour.| -- | | 4.| -- | -- |For a lady s daughter.| | 5.| -- | -- | -- | | 6.|Put it in a chest of |Put it in a chestnut.
You re one, I told her. You can heal many people. She shook her head. Only could do it because I love you, Billy Joe, she said. We ll teach you, I promised her. Would you like to learn? You ve heard of the Lodge, haven t you? Lordy! she gasped. You re as good as in it, I told her. Now tell me, what am I going to do tomorrow morning? She got up and started to pace the room, sniffling. Why would you do that? she said at length. You are going to the bank, first thing.
One of the trump sequence on the table would then be free to regain the lead and declare the double bézique; but if the bézique was declared first, the sequence might have to be broken into to regain the lead. With a plain-suit sequence and four Aces, declare the Aces first. They will then be free to win tricks for the purpose of making other declarations. It is seldom right to show the bézique cards in other combinations, and four Jacks is a very bad meld, because it shows your adversary that he cannot hope for double bézique. By holding up bézique cards, even if you know they are of no use to you, you may lead your adversary to break up his hand, hoping to draw the card or cards you hold. _=Trumps.=_ Small trumps may be used to advantage in winning brisques, but you should keep at least one small trump to get the lead at critical periods of the hand, or to make an important declaration. It is bad policy to trump in to make minor declarations, unless your time is short. It is seldom right to lead the trump Ace, except at the end of the hand, or when you have duplicates, but leading high trumps to prevent an adversary from declaring further is a common stratagem, if you know from the cards in your hand, and those played, that your adversary may get the cards to meld something of importance. _=The Last Tricks.
Vesey vasey vum, Buck aboo has come! Find it if you can and take it home, Vesey vasey vum. --Newlyn West, near Penzance (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 49). One child hides an article, while those who are to search for it go in another room (or out of the way somewhere). When it is hidden, they are called to find it by one of the above rhymes being sung or said. The searchers are enabled more readily to find the hidden article by being told hot, very hot, scorching, burning, or cold, very cold, and freezing, when near to or far from the hidden article. Sometimes several may agree to hide the article, and only one to be the finder. In the Penzance game one child is blindfolded, other children hide something, then shout the words. Search is then made for the hidden object: when found, the finder in his turn is blindfolded. There appears to be some mistake in the description of this game.
_=10th Trick.=_ If A leads the ♢2, and hearts are led again, he must take all the remaining hearts. By taking three at once he can escape the rest. B sees that if he passes this trick A will at once lead the ♢2, and he will take all the remaining hearts; so he takes these three and throws the lead to Y, who has no chance to injure him. _11th Trick._ Z keeps two clubs, hoping that if Y gets in and leads clubs, B may discard a diamond instead of a heart, in which case Z would get clear. _=No. 4.=_ A, with his dangerous suit of spades, clears up the hearts at once. _=6th Trick.
--Barnes (A. B. Gomme). Bittle-battle The Sussex game of Stoolball. There is a tradition that this game was originally played by the milkmaids with their milking-stools, which they used for bats; but this word makes it more probable that the stool was the wicket, and that it was defended with the bittle, which would be called the bittle-bat.--Parish s _Sussex Dialect_. See Stoolball. Bitty-base Bishop Kennet (in _MS. Lansd._ 1033) gives this name as a term for Prisoner s Base.
” Bohn’s Handbook of Games. Cribbage, by Rawdon Crawley. Dick’s Handbook of Cribbage. PIQUET. Piquet is supposed to have been introduced during the reign of Charles VII., and was designed as a motif for a ballet of living cards which was given in the palace of Chinon. Of the etymology of the word piquet, little or nothing is known, but the game itself is one of those perennials that have survived much more pretentious rivals, and, thanks to its intrinsic merits, it has never since its invention ceased to be more or less à la mode. There are several varieties of Piquet, but the straightforward game for two players, sometimes called _=Piquet au Cent=_, or 100 points up, is the most common and popular, and will be first described. _=CARDS.=_ Piquet is played with a pack of thirty-two cards, all below the Seven being deleted.
--Burne s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 222. Halliwell calls this a game at ball, and the rhyme runs-- Cuckoo cherry tree, Catch a bird and bring it me; Let the tree be high or low, Let it hail, rain or snow. See Hide and Seek. Cuddy and the Powks Two boys join hands and feet over the back of a third, the which creeps away with them on hands and knees to a certain distance; and if able to do this, he, the Cuddy, must have a ride as one of the powks on some other s back.--Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. Cudgel [Illustration: Change of sides] [Illustration: A run] Four or more boys can play this game, and sides are chosen. Two holes are made in the ground at a distance of about eight or ten feet apart. A ring about a foot in diameter is made round each hole. A boy stands at each hole with a stick, which he puts into the hole to guard it.
_=Suggestions for Good Play=_ will be found in Binocle. FOUR-HANDED BÉZIQUE. In this variation, four persons may play; each for himself or two against two, partners sitting opposite each other. Four packs of thirty-two cards each are shuffled together and used as one. Triple bézique counts 1500. When a player wins a trick, either he or his partner may declare everything in the hand, but only one combination can be scored at a time. The advantage of showing all the combinations in the hand is that they may be built up by either partner. For instance: One partner has declared bézique and royal marriage, scoring the marriage only. His partner wins the next trick and adds A 10 J to the marriage, scoring the sequence; or perhaps shows three Kings or Queens, making fours. The players usually divide after the stock is exhausted, and for the last eight tricks each takes one of his former adversaries for a partner, but without changing seats.
If he draws the exposed card, he must keep it. If the dealer gives any player an incorrect number of cards in any round after the first, and does not detect and correct the error before he deals to the next player, the dealer cannot count anything that hand. The number of cards in each hand must be restored to four, either by drawing from them, face down, or adding from the stock. If any player lifts his cards before the dealer has helped all the players, including himself, a misdeal cannot be claimed. _=Objects of the Game.=_ The object in Cassino is to secure certain cards and combinations of cards which count toward game. These are as follows:-- _Points._ The majority of _=Cards=_ taken in. 3 The majority of _=Spades=_ taken in. 1 The Ten of diamonds, _=Big Cassino=_.
No supplies or stores can be delivered during a move if T. and S. have moved. Rivers impassable. Next as to Supply in the Field: All troops must be kept supplied with food, ammunition, and forage. The players must give up, every six moves, one packet of food per thirty men; one packet of forage per six horses; one packet of ammunition per thirty infantry which fire for six consecutive moves. These supplies, at the time when they are given up, must be within six feet of the infantry they belong to and eighteen feet of the cavalry. Isolated bodies of less than thirty infantry require no supplies--a body is isolated if it is more than twelve feet off another body. In calculating supplies for infantry the fractions either count as thirty if fifteen or over, or as nothing if less than fifteen. Thus forty-six infantry require two packets of food or ammunition; forty-four infantry require one packet of food.
_=Purchase Nap=_; sometimes called _=Écarté Nap=_, is a variation of the pool game. After the cards are dealt, and before any bids are made, each player in turn, beginning on the dealer’s left, may discard as many cards as he pleases, the dealer giving him others in their place. For each card so exchanged, the player pays one counter to the pool. Only one round of exchanges is allowed, and bids are then in order. A player having once refused to buy, or having named the number of cards he wishes to exchange, cannot amend his decision. Any player winning five tricks on a nap bid takes the entire pool. This is a very good game, and increases both the bids and the play against them. _=Widows.=_ Another variation is to deal five cards in the centre of the table, face downward, the dealer giving the cards to the widow just before helping himself in each round. Any player in his proper turn to bid may take the widow, and from the total of ten cards so obtained select five on which he must bid nap, discarding the others face downward.
APPENDIX LITTLE WARS AND KRIEGSPIEL THIS little book has, I hope, been perfectly frank about its intentions. It is not a book upon Kriegspiel. It gives merely a game that may be played by two or four or six amateurish persons in an afternoon and evening with toy soldiers. But it has a very distinct relation to Kriegspiel; and since the main portion of it was written and published in a magazine, I have had quite a considerable correspondence with military people who have been interested by it, and who have shown a very friendly spirit towards it--in spite of the pacific outbreak in its concluding section. They tell me--what I already a little suspected--that Kriegspiel, as it is played by the British Army, is a very dull and unsatisfactory exercise, lacking in realism, in stir and the unexpected, obsessed by the umpire at every turn, and of very doubtful value in waking up the imagination, which should be its chief function. I am particularly indebted to Colonel Mark Sykes for advice and information in this matter. He has pointed out to me the possibility of developing Little Wars into a vivid and inspiring Kriegspiel, in which the element of the umpire would be reduced to a minimum; and it would be ungrateful to him, and a waste of an interesting opportunity, if I did not add this Appendix, pointing out how a Kriegspiel of real educational value for junior officers may be developed out of the amusing methods of Little War. If Great War is to be played at all, the better it is played the more humanely it will be done. I see no inconsistency in deploring the practice while perfecting the method. But I am a civilian, and Kriegspiel is not my proper business.
For instance: At 4 all, it is useless to turn anything down unless you have a certain euchre in the next suit, and nothing in the turn-up. Even then, the adversaries are almost certain to cross the suit and go out. With the score 3 all, the dealer should be very careful about taking up on a weak hand, because a euchre loses the game. If he is weak, but has a chance in the next suit, or a bower in the cross suits, he should turn it down. It is a common stratagem to turn it down for a euchre when the dealer is better in the next suit, and has only 2 to go. _=PLAYING ALONE.=_ The dealer has the best chance to get a lone hand; but the eldest hand is more likely to succeed with one, on account of the advantage of the lead. It is an invariable rule for any player to go alone when he has three certain tricks, unless he is 3 up, and can win the game with a march. A lone hand should be played with both bowers and the ace, no matter how worthless the other cards; or with five trumps to the ace without either bower; or two high trumps and three aces in plain suits; or three good trumps and two aces. The theory of this is that while the march might possibly be made with partner’s assistance, if partner has the cards necessary to make a march, the adversaries have little or nothing, and there is a very good chance to make a lone hand if three tricks of it are certain.
O. Addy). VIII. Pinto went to sleep one night, And Pinto was his name oh! P-i-n-t-o, P-i-n-t-o, And Pinto was his name oh. --Enbourne, Berks (Miss Kimber). (_b_) In the Lancashire version, one child represents the Miller. The rest of the children stand round in a circle, with the Miller in the centre. All dance round and sing the verses. When it comes to the spelling part of the rhyme, the Miller points at one child, who must call out the right letter. If the child fails to do this she becomes Miller.
Such a bid over-calls one of the same number in diamonds. If the eldest hand has no proposal to make, he says, “I pass,” and the others in turn have an opportunity to bid. The bids outrank one another according to their order in the foregoing table, and the rank of the suits in which they are made. The players bid against one another, until all but one declare to pass, he then becomes the single player against the three others. A player having once passed cannot come into the bidding again, even to call a misère. In this respect the game differs from Boston. A player is not compelled to bid the full value of his hand, but it is to his interest to do so, and he should make the full announcement the first time he bids, because if he has had a good hand for ten tricks, and begins with a bid of seven, he cannot increase his proposal unless some player bids over him. _=PARTNERS.=_ Before playing, the successful bidder may call for a partner if he chooses to do so. The player accepting him undertakes that the two together shall win three tricks more than the number bid.
Dalies. Davie-drap. Deadily. Diamond Ring. Dibbs. Dinah. Dip o the Kit. Dish-a-loof. Doddart. Doncaster Cherries.
” _=The Kitty=_ is now an almost universal adjunct to the pool. In clubs, it pays for the cards, and for an occasional round of refreshments; in small poker parties it defrays the expense of the weekly supper. When the amount is excessive, or accumulates too rapidly, it is often used to give the players a “free ride” by paying all their antes in a “kitty jack pot.” The kitty is usually kept by the banker, who takes a white counter out of every pool in which triplets or better are shown to the board, and a red counter out of every jack pot. These counters must be kept apart from the other chips, and must be accounted for at the end of the game by paying the kitty so much in cash, just as if it was one of the players. Gambling houses and poker rooms are supposed to derive their entire revenue from this source, and those of the lowest class invent endless excuses for taking out for the kitty. In many houses there is a sliding scale for various hands; one counter being taken for two pairs; two counters for triplets; three for straights or flushes; and a red for fours, jack pots, and misdeals. It is not uncommon for the proprietors of such games to find thirty or forty dollars in the kitty after a night’s play with five-cent chips. _=TABLE STAKES.=_ This is one of several variations in arranging the stakes and the betting limit.
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If he fails, he neither wins nor loses; because he is playing against a foul hand. If the bidder has more than his right number of cards he must pay if he loses; but wins nothing if he succeeds. If he has less than his right number of cards, he is simply supposed to have lost the trick for which he has no card to play. _=PLAYING OUT OF TURN.=_ If any adversary of the bidder leads or plays out of turn, he forfeits three counters to the bidder, independently of the result of the hand, and receives nothing if the bid is defeated. If the bidder leads out of turn, the card must be taken back, unless all have followed the erroneous lead, in which case the trick is good. There is no penalty if he plays out of turn. _=REVOKES.=_ When a revoke is detected and claimed, the hands are immediately abandoned, and the individual player in fault must pay all the counters depending on the result. If he is the bidder, he pays each adversary; if he is opposed to the bidder, he pays for himself and for each of his partners.
I knew I d find you here. And I came sich a fer piece, Billy Joe! Don t make me go off again, darlin Billy! While I prefer to gamble for cash, I had reason while on a job for sticking to a known amount of chips. She stood there while I got a thousand dollars worth of ten-buck markers, looking at me with some kind of plea in her eyes. This again was not in the pattern. Most hustlers can t keep their eyes off your chips. She puppy-dogged behind me to the crap table I had decided needed my attention. It was crowded, but there s always room for one more sucker. And still one more, for the sniffly girl with the hair-colored hair pressed in against my useless right arm when I elbowed my way in between the gamblers, directly across from the dealers. Billy Joe! she said, just loud enough to hear over the chanting of the dealers and the excited chatter of the dice players. Billy Joe! What a corn-ball routine! * * * * * I took stock before beginning to lose my stack of chips.