The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-07
rronUr1oN OF G4MBlrNG.
he Knucl1le Bones of Sheep the origin of
 Dice and Cards.
[From London Public Opinion.l ]

From London Public Oplnlon.I
 Who would suppose that playing
 ards were originally derived from the
 snueklebones of sheep? Yet such is the act. Nobody knows how long they
 were first employed for playing games
 One day it occurred to somebody that
 ! cube was better adapted to the pur- 1 pose. That must have happened in very ancient times, for the Romans of
 old had dice which were just like our l own, even to the arrangement of the numbers on the faces-i. e., the six opposite the one, the five opposite the two, and the four opposite the three. It will be observed that the sum of any two opposite numbers Is always seven. This may have something to do with the fact that seven used to be regarded as a magical number. Of the respect accorded to it there is evidence in many passages of the Bible. The most an- cient cubical die known dates back to 500 B. C.; that is, 2,500 years ago.
 It was found in Naucratus, a Greek colony in Egypt. The earliest dice were made in pairs, rights and lefts, like knuekle-bones, one of which was al- ways from the right leg and the other from the left leg of the animal. Two dice were usually employed, because there were two knuekle- bones. From that country they were carried to China, whence they have been distributed all over the world. The Chinese are great gamesters; they invented a modifica- tion of the dice, which is called the dom inc. Put two die faces side by side and you have a domino. Dominoes are said to have been devised in the year 1,120 of the Christian era by Chinese emperor for the amusement of his wives.
 As there are twenty-one possible throws with two dice, so twenty-one dominoes may be regarded as natural dominoes. However the Chinese have doubled up some of the numbers so as to make a full set for playing thirty two in all. All over Eastern Asia the customary outfit of dominoes is thirty two. Our dominoes, obtained by way of Europe, are only modified by the in- troduction of blanks. The domino game
 
 game. It is played in China, but is an, unimportant one among the many Chin ese games of dominoes. The Chinese domino games are all of them dice games elaborated. Dominoes are also used in China, like dice, for fortune tel ling. That system of divination has an extensive literature of it's own. The Chinese dominoes all have astrological names. In China cosmical names are given to the numbers on dice Six Is the throw of heaven, ace is the throw ot earth four the throw of man. while one and three are chosen to represent the harmony that unites heaven, earth and man. The throw of double five is called the ''plum-fower five and six is the tigers head" four and six is "red-head ten," one and six is Hong legged seven" and one and five is "red- mallet six" On Chinese dice the lone" and -four" are always red. while the dots on the other faces are black There is legend to the effect that on one occasion an emperor of the Ming dynas- ty was almost defeated in game by his queen. The only possibility for him to win was that the dice should turn up 'fours." They did so. and he was so gratiffed that from that time forth the Hours" on all dice were marked red.
 Take an ordinary domino of bone or wood, enlarge it, make it of paper, and it becomes a, playing card. MT. Culins study of the subject has led him to the that this is the way in which the playing card was originally evolved. The evolution began with the knuckle- bone, which became a cubical die; the latter was transformed into a domino, and the domino, in it's turn was ma into a card. A domino with two fives on 1t represents the "ten- spot" of the pack. The origin of king" queen and jack is unknown. Fossil bly, little light may be thrown upon the mystery by the fact that four sides of the knuckle-bon are called in Arabic the shah" "yizier," peasant" and slave" The same names are given to the numbers on the cubical die. the six being the shah" One of the games played in China is apparently the proto- type of whist. Nobody knows when dominoes and cards were introduced in to Europe.