Loup the Bullocks Young men go out to a green meadow, and there on all-fours plant themselves in a row about two yards distant from each other. Then he who is stationed farthest back in the bullock rank starts up and leaps over the other bullocks before him, by laying his hands on each of their backs; and when he gets over the last one leans down himself as before, whilst all the others, in rotation, follow his example; then he starts and leaps again. I have sometimes thought that we (the Scotch) have borrowed this recreation from our neighbours of the Green Isle, as at their wakes they have a play much of the same kind, which they call Riding Father Doud. One of the wakers takes a stool in his hand, another mounts that one s back, then Father Doud begins rearing and plunging, and if he unhorses his rider with a dash he does well. There is another play (at these wakes) called Kicking the Brogue, which is even ruder than Riding Father Doud, and a third one called Scuddieloof. --Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. Patterson (_Antrim and Down Glossary_) mentions a game called Leap the Bullock, which he says is the same as Leap-frog. Dickinson s _Cumberland Glossary Supplement_, under Lowp, says it means a leap or jump either running or standing. The various kinds include Catskip --one hitch, or hop, and one jump; Hitch steppin --hop, step, and lowp; a hitch, a step, and a leap; Otho --two hitches, two steps, and a leap; Lang spang --two hitches, two steps, a hitch, a step, and a leap. See Accroshay, Knights, Leap-frog.
The Blackout, the TK said musingly to me. You hear about it, and the Psiless cringe when they think it might happen to them. But you don t see it every day. You re in the Lodge, of course? he added. Of course, I said coldly. Please, he said, waving a hand at me. Don t take it so big. So am I. From five feet apart we exchanged the grip, the tactile password impossible for the Psiless to duplicate--just a light tug at each other s ear lobes, but perfect identification as TK s. I m Fowler Smythe, he said.
_=Revoking.=_ Any player failing to follow suit, when able to do so, may amend his error if he discovers his mistake before the trick in which it occurs has been turned and quitted. The card played in error then becomes an exposed card. Those who have played after him have the privilege of withdrawing their cards and substituting others, without penalty. Should the revoking player not discover his error in time, the hand must be played out, and if the revoke is detected and claimed the player in error must pay all the losses on that hand. Should the revoking player win the pool himself, he must pay the thirteen counters to the pool, and leave them for a _=Jack=_. Should he divide the pool with another player, he must pay his co-winner six counters, and put up the other seven for a Jack. If two or more players revoke in the same hand, each must pay the entire losses in that hand as if he were alone in error; so that if two should revoke and a third win the pool, the latter would receive twenty-six counters instead of thirteen. In Auction Hearts, the revoking player must also refund the amount put up by the bidder. A revoke must be claimed and proved before the pool is divided.
Why, that s the witch! The Mother pretends to beat the eldest daughter, tells her to be more careful another time, and to be sure and not let the pot boil over. The eldest daughter cries, and promises to be more careful, and the Mother goes again to the wash-tub. The same thing occurs again. The Witch comes and asks-- Please, will you lend me your tinder-box? My fire s out. Yes, certainly, if you ll bring it back directly. You shall have it in half-an-hour. While the tinder-box is being looked for she runs off with Tuesday. Then the pot boils over, and the same dialogue is repeated. The Mother comes and finds Tuesday gone. This is repeated for all the seven children in turn, different articles, gridiron, poker, &c, being borrowed each time.
A misère over-calls eight tricks. _=Kimberly Solo=_ is for four players, without any proposal and acceptance, solo being the lowest call. If all pass, a six-trick solo with a different trump is allowed. TEXT BOOKS. Solo Whist, by R.F. Green. How to Play Solo Whist, by Wilks & Pardon. For the Laws of Solo Whist, see Whist Family Laws. ILLUSTRATIVE SOLO WHIST HANDS.
If only one point is scored for each five, 20 or 21 may be game. Each player draws seven bones, and the highest double sets, each person afterward playing in turn. If double five is the first set it counts 10. The 5-0 played to this would count 10 for the second player, because one end of the line being 10 and the other 0, the total value of the two ends is still 10. Double blank played to this would count 10 more. If 5-6 is now played on one end, and 0-4 on the other, the count will be 10 again, as shown on the diagram. The figures show the order in which the dominoes were played. [Illustration] The highest possible score is 20 points, made with the 4-4 and 6-6, at different ends. If either player makes a multiple of five without noticing or claiming it, his adversary says, “_=muggins=_,” and scores it himself. If a player makes an erroneous score, it must be taken down, and his adversary marks it as penalty.
--Annaverna, Louth, Ireland (Miss R. Stephen). (_b_) Two children stand apart; one, who personates the Mother, stands still and holds out her skirts with both hands; the other personates Jenny Jones, and kneels or stoops down in a crouching position behind her companion s outstretched skirts. The other players form a line by joining hands. They sing the first, third, and every alternate verse, advancing and retiring in line while doing so. The Mother sings the answers to their questions, standing still and hiding Jenny Jones all the time from view. When the verses are finished, Jenny Jones lies down as if she were dead, and the Mother stands aside. Two of the other players then take up Jenny Jones, one by the shoulders and the other by the feet, and carry her a little distance off, where they lay her on the ground. All the players follow, generally two by two, with their handkerchiefs at their eyes and heads lowered, pretending to grieve. This is the more general way of playing the game.
, one who is temporarily out of the game, such as one who has overdrawn his hand at Vingt-et-un; as distinguished from one who has lost all his money. The latter would be spoken of as décavé. Crossing the Suit, changing the trump from the suit turned up to one of a different colour, especially in Euchre. Cross-ruff, two partners alternately trumping a different suit. Cul levé, (jouer à) playing one after another, by taking the place of the loser. A vulgar expression. Cutting, dividing the pack when presented by the dealer; or drawing lots for choice of seats and deal. Cutting In and Out, deciding by cutting which players shall give way to fresh candidates. Curse of Scotland, the nine of diamonds. Cut Shots, very fine winning hazards.
In 1767 Benjamin Franklin went to Paris, and it is generally believed that he introduced the American variety of the game known as Boston, which became the rage in Paris some time after the war of independence. So popular did whist become in Italy that we find the boxes at the opera in Florence provided with card tables in 1790. The music of the opera was considered of value chiefly as, “increasing the joy of good fortune, and soothing the affliction of bad.” A code of laws was drawn up about 1760 by the frequenters of White’s and Saunders’ in London. These seem to have remained the standard until “Cælebs” published, in 1851, the code in use at the Portland Club. In 1863 John Loraine Baldwin got together a committee at the Arlington, now the Turf Club, and they drew up the code which is still in use all over the world for English whist. In the United States, laws better suited to the American style of play were drawn up by the American Whist League in 1891, and after several revisions were finally adopted, in 1893, as the official code for League clubs. The literature of whist saw its palmiest days at the beginning of this century. 7,000 copies of Bob Short’s “Short Rules for Whist” were sold in less than a year. Mathews’, or Matthews’, “Advice to the Young Whist-Player,” went through eighteen editions between 1804 and 1828.
The value of honours, slam, or little slam, is not affected by doubling or redoubling. 10. At the conclusion of a rubber the trick and honour scores of each side are added and 250 additional points added to the score of the winners of the rubber. The size of the rubber is the difference between the completed scores. If the score of the losers of the rubber exceed that of the winners, the losers win the amount of the excess. 11. When a rubber is started with the agreement that the play shall terminate (_i.e._, no new deal shall commence) at a specified time, and the rubber is unfinished at that hour, the score is made up as it stands, 125 being added to the score of the winners of a game. A deal if started must be finished.
3. When the declarer wins the number of tricks bid or more, each above six counts on the trick score; two points when spades are trumps, six when clubs are trumps, seven when diamonds are trumps, eight when hearts are trumps, nine when royal spades are trumps, and ten when the declaration is no trump. 4. A game consists of thirty points made by tricks alone. Every deal is played out, whether or not during it the game be concluded, and any points made (even if in excess of thirty) are counted. 5. The ace, king, queen, knave, and ten of the trump suit are the honours; when no trump is declared, the aces are the honours. 6. Honours are credited to the original holders; they are valued as follows: _When a Trump is Declared._ 3[1] honours held between partners equal value of 2 tricks.
I have found this to be awkward, because the player who is gathering and shuffling the cards of one pack is called upon to cut the other. For this reason I recommend that whichever adversary is the pone for the deal in hands should allow his partner to gather and shuffle the still pack. When either adversary deals, his partner will, of course, gather and shuffle the still pack. The general rules with regard to irregularities in the deal are the same as at whist, with the following exceptions:-- A misdeal does not lose the deal unless the opponents so elect; they may prefer a new deal by the same dealer. The reason for this is that the deal is a disadvantage, especially for Mort. If Vivant or Mort offers the pack to one adversary to cut, and then deals as if the other had cut, it is a misdeal; and it is not admissible to shift the packets in order to remedy matters. It might be imagined that a card exposed in dealing, if dealt to Mort, would make no difference, as all his cards will presently be exposed. But the laws give the opponents of the dealer the option of either allowing the deal to stand, or having a new deal, or calling it a misdeal. According to the French laws, if there is any discussion in progress with regard to the previous hand or play, the dealer may lay aside the trump card, face down, until the discussion is finished. If this law prevailed in America, I think the trump would very seldom be turned immediately.
Sit down and shut up, Sime, he suggested coolly. Simonetti sagged with defeat. Look, Rose, he gasped. I want out. Bad enough that our losses can t be stopped by this creep Smythe. Now you drag in another TK. Buy me out! What s a business worth that s losing its shirt? Rose sneered. We were in clover, you fool, till this cross-roader got to us. This is our only chance to get even. That finished Simonetti.
In table stakes the betting limit is always the amount that the player has in front of him; but no player is allowed either to increase or diminish that amount while he has any cards in front of him. Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained. No player is allowed under any circumstances to borrow from another, nor to be “shy” in any pot; that is, to say, “I owe so many.” If he has any counters in front of him, his betting is limited to what he has; if he has none, he is out of the game, for that hand at least. As a player cannot increase the amount he has in front of him during the play of a hand, it is best to keep on the table at all times as much as one is likely to want to bet on any one hand. It is the usual custom, and an excellent one, to fix upon a definite hour for closing a game of table stakes, and to allow no player to retire from the game before that hour unless he is _=decavé=_, (has lost all his capital). Should he insist on retiring, whatever counters he has must be divided among the other players, and if there are any odd ones after the division, they must be put into the current pool. In table stakes, any player may _=call a sight=_ for what money or counters he has in front of him, even should another player have bet a much larger amount. For instance: A has bet three dollars, and B has only two dollars in front of him, but wishes to call A. B calls for a sight by putting his two dollars in the pool, and A must then withdraw his third dollar from the pool, but leave it on the table to be called or raised by any other player.
Main, F., with avoir this expression is indefinite, and may refer to the deal or the lead. With être, to be in the lead. Dans la main, applies to the possibilities of the hand. Placer la main, to place the lead. Make-up, to get the cards ready for the next deal. Make the Pass, to put the two parts of the pack back as they were before the cut. Maldonne, F., misdeal. Manche, F.
They insist on the rule of at least one fresh card from the hand for each additional meld in one case, but totally disregard it in another, as when they meld 240 for the round trip, instead of only 220. These local errors have crept into many of the Hoyles now upon the market, the works having probably been compiled from the individual knowledge of the author, limited by his experience in a certain locality. Many of these works devote much space to a certain game, which is evidently the compiler’s pet, and which is accurately described; while other and equally important games are full of errors and omissions, betraying a lamentable want of care in consulting the literature of the subject. While the author of this work does not believe it possible to compile a work that shall be universally accepted as the authority on all games, as a dictionary would be on spelling, he deems it at least possible to select what seems the most common usage, or the best rule, preserving the true spirit of the game, and to describe it accurately and bring the whole up to date. THE WHIST FAMILY. The most popular card games of the present day undoubtedly belong to the whist family, which embraces all those played with a full pack of fifty-two cards, ranking from the ace to the deuce, one suit being trumps, and the score being counted by tricks and honours, or by tricks alone. The oldest and most important of the group is whist itself. The game appears to be of English origin, its immediate parent being “ruff and honours.” This was an old English game in which twelve cards only were dealt to each player, the uppermost of the remaining four being turned up for the trump suit. Whoever held the ace of trumps could “ruff” or take in these four cards, discarding in their place any four he chose.
=_ The cards dealt, each player takes up his six cards and examines them with a view to laying out two cards, face downward, for the crib; leaving himself four cards with which to play. The four cards which form the crib, two from each hand, always belong to the dealer, and it is usual for each player, in discarding for the crib, to slip his two cards under the end of the cribbage board opposite to that occupied by the remainder of the pack. Cards once laid out for the crib, and the hand removed from them, cannot be taken up again. A penalty of two points may be scored by the adversary for each card so taken up again, whether it is returned to the player’s hand or not. If either player confuses his cards in any manner with those of the crib, his adversary scores two points, and may also claim a fresh deal. If it is not discovered until he comes to lay out for the crib, that a player has too many cards, the same rules apply that are given for misdealing; but if he has too few cards there is no remedy, as he has lifted his hand. He must lay out two cards for the crib and play with what remain, his adversary scoring two points penalty at the same time. _=THE STARTER.=_ Both players having discarded for the crib, the non-dealer cuts the remainder of the pack, and the dealer lifts the top card from the portion left on the table, turning it face up. The two portions being again united, the turned card is placed face up on the pack, and is known as the starter, because it forms the starting-point in the count for every hand and crib.
and XI. BLIND HOOKEY. This game is sometimes called Dutch Bank. Any number of persons may play, and a full pack of fifty-two cards is used. The cards rank from the A K Q down to the deuce. Any player may shuffle, the dealer last. The pack is then cut, and the reunited parts are placed in the centre of the table. The players then cut it into several packets, none less than four cards, all of which remain on the table face down. Some player then pushes one of the packets toward the dealer, and bets are then made on the others. Any player, except the dealer, can bet what he pleases on any packet.
_, the choose your maidens one by one, and sweep the house till the bride comes home. This game is called the Gala Ship, and the girls, forming a ring, march round singing-- Three times round goes the gala, gala ship, And three times round goes she; Three times round goes the gala, gala ship, And sinks to the bottom of the sea. They repeat this thrice, courtesying low. The first to courtesy is placed in the centre of the circle, when the others sing:-- Choose your maidens one by one, One by one, one by one; Choose your maidens one by one-- And down goes (all courtesy) Merrima Tansa! She chooses her maidens. They take her to a distance, when she is secretly told the name of her lover. The remainder of the girls imitate sweeping, and sing several stanzas to the effect that they will sweep the house till the bride comes home, when the bride is now placed within the circle, and from a score to a hundred stanzas, with marching and various imitations of what the lucky bride accomplishes or undergoes, are sung. Each one closes with Down goes Merrima Tansa and the head-ducking; and this wonderful music-drama of childhood is not concluded until the christening of the bride s first-born, with-- Next Sunday morn to church she must gae, A babe on her knee, the best of a-- And down goes Merrima Tansa! Jamieson gives the game as a ring within which one goes round with a handkerchief, with which a stroke is given in succession to every one in the ring; the person who strikes, or the taker, still repeating this rhyme:-- Here I gae round the jingie ring, The jingie ring, the jingie ring, Here I gae round the jingie ring, And through my merry-ma-tanzie. Then the handkerchief is thrown at one in the ring, who is obliged to take it up and go through the same process. He also mentions another account of the game which had been sent him, which describes the game as played in a similar manner to the versions given by Chambers. Stewart, in his _Ben Nevis and Glencoe_, p.
A player once having passed cannot come into the bidding again, except to call one of the misères. In the example just given, either Y or Z, after having twice passed, might have outbid the seven tricks by calling a little misère. Such a bid can, of course, be entertained only when it outranks any bid already made. A player is not compelled to bid the full value of his hand; but it is to his interest to go as near to it as he can with safety; because, as we shall see presently, the more he bids the more he is paid. For instance: If he can make ten tricks, but bids seven only, he will be paid for the three over-tricks, if he makes them; but the payment for seven bid and ten taken, is only 22 counters; while the payment for ten bid and ten taken is 42. As he receives from each adversary, a player who underbid his hand in this manner would lose 60 counters by his timidity. It sometimes happens that no one will make a proposal of any sort. It is very unusual to pass the deal. The trump is generally turned down, and a _=Grand=_ is played, without any trump suit. This is sometimes called a _=Misère Partout=_, or “all-round poverty”; and the object of each player is to take as few tricks as possible.
V. Should the dealer, under an impression that he has made a mistake, either count the cards on the table or the remainder of the pack. VI. Should the dealer deal two cards at once, or two cards to the same hand, and then deal a third; but if, prior to dealing that third card, the dealer can, by altering the position of one card only, rectify such error, he may do so, except as provided by the second paragraph of this Law. VII. Should the dealer omit to have the pack cut to him, and the adversaries discover the error, prior to the trump card being turned up, and before looking at their cards, but not after having done so. 45. A misdeal does not lose the deal if, during the dealing, either of the adversaries touch the cards prior to the dealer’s partner having done so; but should the latter have first interfered with the cards, notwithstanding either or both of the adversaries have subsequently done the same, the deal is lost. 46. Should three players have their right number of cards--the fourth have less than thirteen, and not discover such deficiency until he has played any of his cards, the deal stands good; should he have played, he is as answerable for any revoke he may have made as if the missing card, or cards, had been in his hand; he may search the other pack for it, or them.
Broken-down Tradesmen. Brother Ebenezer. Bubble-hole. Bubble-justice. Buck, Buck. Buck i t Neucks. Buckerels. Buckey-how. Buff. Buk-hid.