TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than they would ordinarily. There is no music in space. People will pay to watch people make sounds. Everything on stage should be larger than in real life.
Anna Mikhaylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing cards with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she was to have two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna Mikhaylovna regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.
Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.
There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to take turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her husband moved in his sleep behind her.
The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, "This is our man."
In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to Marya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:
It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions. A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards, talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by Kerensky’s cannon....
Rostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change into dry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty. They were going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen Rostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits, changed their wet things for dry ones.
The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half- ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague feeling that in the main it was going badly.
In the meantime, the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling in the fob of his waistcoat, without any one having noticed his movements. Besides, the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying attention to anything.
In England one of the earliest caricatures extant is that in the margin of the Forest Roll of Essex, 5, ed. 1, now at the Record Office; it is a grotesque portrait of "Aaron fil Diabole" (Aaron, son of the devil), probably representing Cok, son of Aaron. It is dated 1277. Another caricature, undated, appears on a Roll containing an account of the tallages and fines paid by Jews, 17. Henry III., belonging to 1233 (Exch. of Receipt, Jews' Roll, No. 8). It is an elaborate satirical design of Jews and devils, arranged in a pediment. During the 16th century, caricature can hardly be said to have existed at all,--a grotesque of Mary Stuart as a mermaid, a pen and ink sketch of which is yet to be seen in the Rolls Office, being the only example of it known. The Great Rebellion, however, acted as the Reformation had done in Germany, and Cavaliers and Roundheads caricatured each other freely. At this period satirical pictures usually did duty as the title-pages of scurrilous pamphlets; but one instance is known of the employment during the war of a grotesque allegory as a banner, while the end of the Commonwealth produced a satirical pack of playing cards, probably of Dutch origin. The Dutch, indeed, as already has been stated, were the great purveyors of pictorial satire at this time and during the early part of the next century. In England the wit of the victorious party was rather vocal than pictorial; in France the spirit of caricature was sternly repressed; and it was from Holland, bold in its republican freedom, and rich in painters and etchers, that issued the flood of prints and medals which illustrate, through cumbrous allegories and elaborate symbolization, the principal political passages of both the former countries, from the Restoration (1660) to the South Sea Bubble (1720). The most distinguished of the Dutch artists was Romain de Hooghe (1638-1720), a follower of Callot, who, without any of the weird power of his master, possessed a certain skill in grouping and faculty of grotesque suggestiveness that made his point a most useful weapon to William of Orange during the long struggle with Louis XIV. Entry: CARICATURE
It has been much disputed whether the earliest cards were printed from wood-blocks. If so, it would appear that the art of wood-engraving, which led to that of printing, may have been developed through the demand for the multiplication of implements of play. The belief that the early card-makers or card-painters of Ulm, Nuremberg and Augsburg, from about 1418-1450, were also wood-engravers, is founded on the assumption that the cards of that period were printed from wood-blocks. It is, however, clear that the earliest cards were executed by hand, like those designed for Charles VI. Many of the earliest wood-cuts were coloured by means of a stencil, so it would seem that at the time wood-engraving was first introduced, the art of depicting and colouring figures by means of stencil plates was well known. There are no playing cards engraved on wood to which so early a date as 1423 (that of the earliest dated wood-engraving generally accepted) can be fairly assigned; and as at this period there were professional card-makers established in Germany, it is probable that wood-engraving was employed to produce cuts for sacred subjects before it was applied to cards, and that there were hand-painted and stencilled cards before there were wood-engravings of saints. The German _Briefmaler_ or card-painter probably progressed into the wood-engraver; but there is no proof that the earliest wood-engravers were the card-makers. Entry: CARDS
Among the other industries of Halle are sugar refining, machine building, the manufacture of spirits, malt, chocolate, cocoa, confectionery, cement, paper, chicory, lubricating and illuminating oil, wagon grease, carriages and playing cards, printing, dyeing and coal mining (soft brown coal). The trade, which is supervised by a chamber of commerce, is very considerable, the principal exports being machinery, raw sugar and petroleum. Halle is also noted as the seat of several important publishing firms. The Bibelanstalt (Bible institution) of von Castein is the central authority for the revision of Luther's Bible, of which it sells annually from 60,000 to 70,000 copies. Entry: HALLE
The invasion is sudden; the patients can generally tell the time when they developed the disease; e.g. acute pains in the back and loins came on quite suddenly while they were at work or walking in the street, or in the case of a medical student, while playing cards, rendering him unable to continue the game. A workman wheeling a barrow had to put it down and leave it; and an omnibus driver was unable to pull up his horses. This sudden onset is often accompanied by vertigo and nausea, and sometimes actual vomiting of bilious matter. There are pains in the limbs and general sense of aching all over; frontal headache of special severity; pains in the eyeballs, increased by the slightest movement of the eyes; shivering; general feeling of misery and weakness, and great depression of spirits, many patients, both men and women, giving way to weeping; nervous restlessness; inability to sleep, and occasionally delirium. In some cases catarrhal symptoms develop, such as running at the eyes, which are sometimes injected on the second day; sneezing and sore throat; and epistaxis, swelling of the parotid and submaxillary glands, tonsilitis, and spitting of bright blood from the pharynx may occur. There is a hard, dry cough of a paroxysmal kind, worst at night. There is often tenderness of the spleen, which is almost always found enlarged, and this persists after the acute symptoms have passed. The temperature is high at the onset of the disease. In the first twenty-four hours its range is from 100° F. in mild cases to 105° in severe cases. Entry: 1890
The student may soon understand the spirit and technical quality of the earliest Italian engraving by giving his attention to a few of the series which used erroneously to be called the "Playing Cards of Mantegna," but which have been shown by Mr Sidney Colvin to represent "a kind of encyclopaedia of knowledge." Entry: LINE
DARMSTADT, a city of Germany, capital of the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, on a plain gently sloping from the Odenwald to the Rhine, 21 m. by rail S.E. from Mainz and 17 m. S. from Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 83,000. It is the residence of the grand-duke and the seat of government of the duchy. Darmstadt consists of an old and a new town, the streets of the former being narrow and gloomy and presenting no attractive features. The new town, however, which includes the greater part of the city, contains broad streets and several fine squares. Among the latter is the stately Luisenplatz, on which are the house of parliament, the old palace and the post office, and in the centre of which is a column surmounted by the statue of the grand-duke Louis I., the founder of the new town. The square is crossed by the Rhein-strasse, the most important thoroughfare in the city, leading directly from the railway station to the ducal palace. This last, a complex of buildings, dating from various centuries, but possessing few points of special interest, is surrounded by grounds occupying the site of the old moat. Opposite to it, on the north side, and adjoining the pretty palace gardens, are the court theatre and the armoury, and a little farther west the handsome buildings of the new museum, erected in 1905 and containing the valuable scientific and art collections of the state, which were formerly housed in the palace: a library of 600,000 volumes and 4000 MSS., a museum of Egyptian and German antiquities, a picture gallery with masterpieces of old German and Dutch schools, a natural history collection and the state archives. To the right of the entrance to the palace gardens is the tomb of the "great landgravine," Caroline Henrietta, wife of the landgrave Louis IX., surmounted by a marble urn, the gift of Frederick the Great of Prussia, bearing the inscription _femina sexu, ingenio vir_. To the south of the castle lies the old town, with the market square, the town hall (lately restored and enlarged) and the town church. Of the eight churches (seven Evangelical) only the Roman Catholic is in any way imposing. There are two synagogues. The town possesses a technical high school, having (since 1900) power to confer the degree of doctor of engineering, and attended by about 2000 students, two gymnasia, a school of agriculture, an artisans' school and a botanical garden. The chemist, Justus von Liebig, was born in Darmstadt in 1803. Among the chief manufactures are the production of machinery, carpets, playing cards, chemicals, tobacco, hats, wine and beer. Entry: DARMSTADT
The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute. The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) is often quoted as evidence of cards having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century; but the games _de rege et regina_ there mentioned are now thought to have been a kind of mumming exhibition (Strutt says chess). No queen is found in the earliest European cards. In the wardrobe accounts of Edward I. (1278), Walter Stourton is paid 8s. 3d. _ad opus regis ad ludendum ad quatuor reges_, a passage which has been thought to refer to cards, but it is now supposed to mean chess, which may have been called the "game of four kings," as was the case in India (_chaturaji_). If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278, it is very remarkable that Petrarch, in his dialogue that treats of gaming, never once mentions them; and that, though Boccaccio, Chaucer and other writers of that time notice various games, there is not a single passage in them that can be fairly construed to refer to cards. Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research leads to the supposition that the word rendered _cards_ has often been mistranslated or interpolated. An early mention of a distinct series of playing cards is the entry of Charles or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI. of France, in his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, which runs thus: _Donné à Jacquemin Gringonneur, peintre, pour trois jeux de cartes, à or et à diverses couleurs, ornés de plusieurs devises, pour porter devers le Seigneur Roi, pour son êbatement, cinquante-six sols parisis_. This, of course, refers only to the painting of a set or pack of cards, which were evidently already well known. But, according to various conjectural interpretations of documents, the earliest date of the mention of cards has been pushed farther back by different authorities. For instance, in the account-books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant, and her husband, Wenceslaus of Luxemburg, there is an entry, under date of the 14th of May 1379, as follows: "Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two florins, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards" (_Quartspel met te copen_). This proves their introduction into the Netherlands at least as early as 1379. In a British Museum MS. (Egerton, 2, 419) mention is made of a game of cards (_qui ludus cartarum appellatur_) in Germany in 1377. The safe conclusion with regard to their introduction is that, though they may possibly have been known to a few persons in Europe about the middle of the 14th century, they did not come into general use until about a half-century later. Whence they came is another question that has not yet been answered satisfactorily. If we may believe the evidence of Covelluzzo of Viterbo (15th century) cards were introduced into Italy from Arabia. On the authority of a chronicle of one of his ancestors he writes: "In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them called _naib_." The Crusaders, who were inveterate gamblers, may have been the instruments of their introduction (see _Istoria della città di Viterbo_, by F. Bussi, Rome, 1743). According to other authorities, cards came first to Spain from Africa with the Moors, and it is significant that, to this day, playing cards are called in Spain _naipes_ (probably a corruption of the Arabic _Nabi_, prophet). Taken in connexion with the statement of Covelluzzo, this fact would seem to prove the wide popularity of the game of _naib_, or cards, among the Arab tribes. The meaning of the word (prophet) has been suggested to refer to the fortune-telling function of cards, and the theory has been advanced that they were used by the Moorish gypsies for that purpose. Gypsies are, however, not known to have appeared in Spain before the 15th century, at a time when cards were already well known. In regard to the word _naib_, the Italian language still preserves the name _naibi_, playing cards. Entry: CARDS
_Finance._--The revenues of the republic are derived from import and export duties, liquor, tobacco and stamp taxes, inheritance tax, salt, gunpowder and playing cards monopolies, consular charges, and sundry miscellaneous receipts, including those from posts, telegraphs and railways. Up to 1907 the customs duties were increased by surtaxes amounting at that time to 100%. The minister of finance proposed to abolish these surtaxes and double all the rates of duties involved. On exports, however, all the duties were to be abolished except those on cacao, coffee, hides, rubber, tagua (ivory nuts), hat fibre, hammock fibre and tobacco. For 1907 the revenues were £1,424,770 and the expenditures £1,383,122. Entry: ECUADOR
Hanau is the principal commercial and manufacturing town in the province, and stands next to Cassel in point of population. It manufactures ornaments of various kinds, cigars, leather, paper, playing cards, silver and platina wares, chocolate, soap, woollen cloth, hats, silk, gloves, stockings, ropes and matches. Diamond cutting is carried on and the town has also foundries, breweries, and in the neighborhood extensive powder-mills. It carries on a large trade in wood, wine and corn, in addition to its articles of manufacture. Entry: HANAU
The following list of lawful games, sports and exercises is given in _Oliphant on Horses, &c._ (6th ed.): horse-races, steeplechases, trotting matches, coursing matches, foot-races, boat-races, regattas, rowing matches, golf, wrestling matches, cricket, tennis, fives, rackets, bowls, skittles, quoits, curling, putting the stone, football, and presumably every bona-fide variety, e.g. croquet, knurr and spell, hockey or any similar games. Cock-fighting is said to have been unlawful at common law, and that and other modes of setting animals to fight are offences against the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Acts. The following are also lawful games: whist and other lawful games at cards, backgammon, bagatelle, billiards, chess, draughts and dominoes. But to allow persons to play for money at these games or at skittles or "skittle pool" or "puff and dart" on licensed premises is gaming within the Licensing Act 1872. The earlier acts declared unlawful the following games of skill: football, quoits, putting the stone, kails, tennis, bowls, clash or kails, or cloyshcayls, logating, half bowl, slide-thrift or shove-groat and backgammon. Backgammon and other games in 1739 played with backgammon tables were treated as lawful in that year. Horse-racing, long under restriction, being mentioned in the act of 1665 and many 18th-century acts, was fully legalized in 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 35). The act of 1541, so far as it declared any game of mere skill unlawful, was repealed by the Gaming Act 1845. Billiards is legal in private houses or clubs and in public places duly licensed. The following games have been declared by the statutes or the judges to be unlawful, whether played in public or in private, unless played in a royal palace where the sovereign is residing: ace of hearts, pharaoh (faro), basset and hazard (1738), passage, and every game then invented or to be invented with dice or with any other instrument, engine or device in the nature of dice having one or more figures or numbers thereon (1739), roulet or roly-poly (1744), and all lotteries (except Art Union lotteries), _rouge et noir_, _baccarat-banque_ (1884), _chemin de fer_ (1895), and all games at cards which are not games of mere skill. The definition of unlawful game does not include whist played for a prize not subscribed to by the players, but it does include playing cards for money in licensed premises; even in the private room of the licensee or with private friends during closing hours. Entry: GAMING
_Finance._--The national revenue is derived largely from the duties on imports, the duties on exports having been surrendered to the states when the republic was organized. Other sources of revenue are stamp taxes on business transactions, domestic consumption taxes (usually payable in stamps) on manufactured tobaccos, beverages, boots and shoes, textiles, matches, salt, preserved foods, hats, pharmaceutical preparations, perfumeries, candles, vinegar, walking sticks and playing cards, and taxes on lotteries, passenger tickets, salaries and dividends of joint-stock companies. Formerly import duties were payable in currency, but in 1899 it was decided to collect 10% of them in gold to provide the government with specie for its foreign remittances. The revenues and expenditures have since then been calculated in gold and currency together, to the complete mystification of the average citizen, and the gold percentage of the duties on imports has been increased to 35 and 50% (in 1907), the higher rate to apply to specified articles and rule when exchange on London is above 14 pence per milreis, and the lower when it is below. The service of the national debt absorbs a very large part of the expenditure, about 45% of the estimates for 1907 being assigned to the department of finance. The department of industry, communications and public works takes the next highest proportion, but about half its expenditures are met by special taxes, as in the case of port works and railway inspection, and by the revenues of the state railways, telegraph lines and post office. The depreciation and unstable character of the paper currency render it difficult to give a clear statement of receipts and expenditures for a term of years, the sterling equivalents often showing a decrease, through a fall in the value of the milreis, where there has been an actual increase in currency returns. This was most noticeable between 1889 and 1898, when exchange, which represents the value of the milreis, fell from a maximum of 27¾ pence (27d. being the par value of the milreis) to a minimum of 5-5/8 pence. Since 1898 there has been an upward movement of exchange, the average rate for 1905 having been very nearly 16 pence. In this period the increase in the sterling equivalents would be proportionately greater than that of the currency values. The gold and currency receipts and expenditures for the six years 1900 to 1905, inclusive, according to official returns, were as follows:-- Entry: 1905
LE NAIN, the name of three brothers, LOUIS, ANTOINE and MATHIEU, who occupy a peculiar position in the history of French art. Although they figure amongst the original members of the French Academy, their works show no trace of the influences which prevailed when that body was founded. Their sober execution and choice of colour recall characteristics of the Spanish school, and when the world of Paris was busy with mythological allegories, and the "heroic deeds" of the king, the three Le Nain devoted themselves chiefly to subjects of humble life such as "Boys Playing Cards," "The Forge," or "The Peasants' Meal." These three paintings are now in the Louvre; various others may be found in local collections, and some fine drawings may be seen in the British Museum; but the Le Nain signature is rare, and is never accompanied by initials which might enable us to distinguish the work of the brothers. Their lives are lost in obscurity; all that can be affirmed is that they were born at Laon in Picardy towards the close of the 16th century. About 1629 they went to Paris; in 1648 the three brothers were received into the Academy, and in the same year both Antoine and Louis died. Mathieu lived on till August 1677; he bore the title of chevalier, and painted many portraits. Mary of Medici and Mazarin were amongst his sitters, but these works seem to have disappeared. Entry: LE