Evening star., 1899-07-29
IN CHESS CIRCLES.

Another quiet week has passed in local
chess circles. Nothing is in sight except an
occasional rapid transit when anything
like sufficient numbers can be cornered.
A fall tourney, with greater effort to get
together at one time more of the good
players of the club and with adequate
prizes, is talked Of, and will likely come
to pass. A continuous tourney to take the
place of the skttle games ordinarily played
around the club has also been mentioned
lately In checker circles corresponding
quiet maintains The only incident to
br eak the monotOny was the advent some
time since of an individual from some
where out in the cold who felt that he was
a world beater and hadn't any objections
in the world to saying so-nuch TO the
amusement of the habitues-and was badly
beaten on the only two occasions he played
By men not near the top of the heap. A
chess player who sat by, reading, uncon-
sciously rubbed it in awfully hard.
Another IF the chess players undertook
to engage the stranger until checker man
appeared, and gave him a good drubblng.
The reader was unconscious of that fact
when the world-beater asked him If that
man wasn't the best checker player in the
club. Him. said the reader, looking at
the man going out of the door, mes no
checker player at all.
Messrs Mundelle and Potts are contest
ing a friendly match, the best in fifty games.
The score to date is even.
The Times Democrat of New Orleans of
last Sunday devotes four columns to that
ciIy'S chess club, including a cut of the
four-story club house, its reading room and
four of its more important members, among
whom is eX-Rapresentative Chas. f. Buck.
The club has now 500 members, the limit.
Applications for membership are on file
from 2kb other persons, Ihe aGnllS
sion fee is $50 and the annual dues $50. A
very hourishing condition of affairs, indeed.
Its class Of members is indicated in the
opening paragraph. IF the greatest good
to the greatest number be sound political
economy and good ethics, and if social clubs
play any useful part in the civilized pro-
gress of today, then the chess checker and
" hist clubs proud boast that though one
of the younger, it is the chief club here, is
not without a measure of justification.
1t is, par excellence, the club of the aver
age young man Of the better classes of
New Orleans. Its members are drawn from
recognized society circles, from solid busi-
ness circles, from high professional ranks
and from that great class which is to the
machinery of society what betting and
gearing are to the factory, the best ele
ment of employees and smaller Independent
men"
1t should be added that of all the associ-
ationS of men none is SO cosmopolitan as
that resulting from chess. 1t is an amuse
ment and at the same time an employment
that engages men above the average INTEL
ligence. AS Bonaparte amused himself at
odd times with algebraic problems so the
chess player finds pleasure in problems over
the board
In riches and employment the divergence
of these men in social sense is very great,
vet in their association as chess players no
class of men come together on so near a
basis of equality, without assumption on
the one hand or condescension on the other.
The following game comes from the Lon
don tourney: