Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/548

532 the stake of his own soul has been far more popular than the game itself.

The stake of one's own soul is not often, if ever, consciously made; but one of the abuses to which we have alluded is the habit of staking money or things of money value upon the issue of a game. To say nothing of the moral character of gambling, the stake of even sixpence is just so much detracted from the real interest and value of the game itself. Wagers of every kind, for even the most trifling amounts, are to be avoided; they are essentially bad. But when they take the guise of forfeits or prizes in games, they are doubly mischievous, injuring the utility of the diversion, as well as fostering, to some trifling extent at least, that gambling spirit which is one of the great destructive agencies to the human race.

Another ground on which games may be classified is the manner and amount to which the social element enters into them. Here, again, cards have an advantage, which greatly increases their favor with the people. • The social element enters into cards in a great variety of ways. There are games admitting several persons, but requiring all to keep whist; there are games admitting several persons, and allowing free conversation. There are games for two persons, and there are various solitaires. An invalid's hours are often necessarily spent in solitude; and he tires of reading, of whittling, of crocheting, or knitting; and yet tires of idleness. Then a solitaire is valuable; and he may choose, from the solitaires at cards, a kind which shall suit his taste and his needs; since the different solitaires in cards vary greatly, in the amount of thought and of skill required to play them.

The severely intellectual game of chess offers also a numerous set of solitaires. Every chess-column in a newspaper furnishes problems of greater or less difficulty. A diagram gives the position of a few pieces toward the close of a supposed game; and the party to be victor is required to checkmate, in a specified number of moves. Setting your men according to the diagram, you play for both parties; endeavoring to prevent the game from ending so soon, and yet endeavoring, with equal fidelity, to bring it to a close as required.

The new game of halma, which has acquired so sudden a popularity in some parts of the country, furnishes, like chess, an unlimited variety of problems; either one of which may be considered, like any enigma or puzzle, a solitaire. The most general statement of a problem in halma would be, to move a given number of men from one given position to another, in a given number of moves. One problem proposed by ourselves has proved so wonderfully rich in the number of possible solutions, that we