The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-08
INSANE THROUGH CHESS
EXPERTS IN THIS GAME WHO HAVE
LOST MENTAL PoIsE.
An Intellectual Strain and Absorb
tion which Finally Gre
ates Wreck.
New York Mail and Express.

life. Dispatches from Melrose. Mass.
late that the old gentleman. though past
seventy-one. was still keen at the game.
and that. having played chess all his life.
he was at length a victim OF its fascination.
He was playing game with his wife when
he died. Physicians say that his death was
due to apoplexy. caused by mental concen-
tration so intense that the blood rushed 10
his head in a flow too large for the brains
capacity.
The news Of this sacrifice 10 the ancient
and honorable game did not interrupt for
long the silent battles at the Manhattan
Chess Club. when the tidings were carried
there by one who was curious TO know
something about the fatalities Of this i'm
perial pastime. Nothing but death or III
ness can interrupt these games till the
checkmate comes.
Dead at the chess table? Well. that was
a good way TO die" said one who stood
watching a player put a red knight into a
position OF exquisite peril while he lie. his
fingers get burned by the twenty-eighth
match he had used on that one pipe OF to-
bacco Profound stiffness brooded over the
room where a score Of men. most of them
past the middle age. pulled htful. blue-grsy
fumes OF the herb o. grace and for hours
and hours said not a word. They were be-
meath the spell-the same spell that has
these thousands of years held in still alb
straction Hindu princes. Medean priests.
Chinese statesmen. Roman soldiers. French
philosophers and many A common man.
from fire worshiper 10 Broadway merchant.
while their boards grew long, and empires
rose and fell. and civilization piled high Its
monuments around them. man may hon.
orably take of his hat TO the centuries
saturated pawns and immemorial kings and
queens that can so engage the attention OF
a man that even death finds him indif-
ferent
POE on CHESS PLAYING.
II was Edgar Allen Poe who. perhaps.
best characterized in a few terse sentences
that mental quality OF the chess player
which sometimes develops into insanity
and makes possible such singular deaths as
that of the old gentleman in Melrose. The
game Of chess" wrote Poe in that ire
sistible, grewsome tale. The Murders in
the Rue Morgue." lis greatly misunder-
stood in its effects upon mental character.
The higher powers of the reflective
intellect are more decided and more use
fully tasked by the transformations game
Of oraughts than by all the elaborate friv-
olty of chess. In this latter the
attention Ia called powerfully into play. IL
ii flag for instant oversight is COM
mitted resulting in injury or defeat.
I
centrative rather than the more acute play
er who cOnQuers. The best chess
player in christendom may be little more
4 than the best player OF chess; but pron-
/ cheney in whist implies capacity for sue
! cess in those more important undertakings
where mind struggles with mind.
/ All Of this the veteran chess player gem
| orally will admit with serene content 20
| be true. Also he looks with complacency
upon the chance he runs Of getting into a
game and starving TO death from sheer
/ forgetfulness, or sitting sanely down to the
! checkered table and arising from Il fan
tastic lunatic. The games the thing. after
| all.
81 never have heard OF a case just like
| that" said Mr.. r. w. Dahl. who is one Of
the most indefatigsble PLAYERS at the Man
| haitian Chess Club. Still it's easy 10 be-
| lieve that death could be caused by too
| close application. Intense thinking long
maintained draws the blood into the brain
| and there is perhaps no concentration 30
| deep as that of the successful chess player.
| The game gets away with some men. just
as religion or perpetual motion hurries 9TH
ers into an asylum or the grave. Now and
| then the mind turns or the man who drives
| il too hard: something breaks, and the
| whole machine goes TO pieces or moves
| lamely and incompetently 10 the end OF its
sTEINITZ WENT MAD
There was Steinitz. When he lost his
| great contest with Lasker I'm Moscow ne
showed the first sign OF alteration by de-
claring ne going 10 send a wireless
message to President Cleveland. In his
| room there was a telephone which was not
! connected with the system. Steinltz talked
his message into the receiver and said ne
would have an answer in twenty-four
hours. The next day, no answer having
| come, he opened a window and shouted the
message into the air. That was enough for
his friends, and he was taken TO an asylum.
| A peculiar feature Of his madness was that
in his rambling talk he never dealt in terms
of chess, but raved continually about elec-
tricity. He conceived that he sur
rounded by maze Of electric currents, and
he warned all who came near him not 10
come into contact with these. lest they
suffer injury. Steinitz was brought 10
| America and died insane at Wards island.
Look at that picture there" Mr. Dahl
said pointing to a painting the wall OF
the clubhouse. II was the portrait Of a
| youthful-looking man. with a fine dignifed
face and deep-set, solemn eyes.
THAT is a good likeness OF Morphy, the
greatest chess player Of them all. He. too.
went insane through too close applicat ion
| his disjointed talk he could be got 10 sa
| nothing about chess, but babbled constant
~ Of erratic things. His father had been a
| lawyer, and he himself had a fine legal
mind and a good training in technical Ia "
and controversy. But chess got him, and
he died in a New Orleans asylum. You will
find other instances like these-all varia-
lions upon the one theme"
Mr.. Dahl became contemplative, and his
steadfaSt and cold gray eyes swept over the
tables and the books containing the chess
lore OF centuries upon centuries. Opening
a ponderous tome, he pointed 70 a printed
page filled with columns OF letters and hg-
ures in queer com oinations that looked like
cabalistic keys &c some treasure or mys-
terry of the ages. There were six hundred
such pages in the volume.
a LIFETIME WORK.
These are merely the recorded varia-
tons of the first move" he went on. A
lifetime Of work is there for a man who
would learn all these combinations. a vast
literature has been built up around the
game, which Steinitz used 10 say is toe
much science TO be a game. and too much
a game 10 be a science. He took il so seri.
Gus that he advocated the establishment OF
chairs in universities TO teach the intricate
secrets OF the game.
The danger 10 me is that the fascina.
ton OF IL becomes irresistible, and ever
though il should not kill or madden all q,
US IL units many a man for other voca.
tions and avocations OF life. II actually
grows into a bad habit like any OF the other
small and pleasant vices OF which Shak.
speare says the gods make instruments "a
scourge Blackburn, the Englishnnan
will not permit his son 10 learn the game
for the reason. as he declares that a ches.
player, even though he may not lose hi.
mind. comes soon 10 be good for little elss
frne aFn L.