The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1929-07-18

the beautifully decorated Italian cards with raised
borders which were sometimes dotted check
cred. Then, too the suit signs on the italian
cards were very different from those of any other
country. They were long curved swords or
scimitars, standing for the nobility; cups for the
clergy; danar, or money, for the citizens; and
bastoni, or clubs, for the peasants
In fact it seems that there was no uniformity
in the matter of suit signs in any one country.
Since most of the playing cards were made for
the mobiles on special order, the makers often
placed them such designs for suit signs as
would best please their patron Sometimes he
chose them himself an in other cases figures
from his coat-of-arms were taken. Reference
has already been made to the prevailing suit signs
in the cards made by the Germans but these
hunting symbols not uniformly used in that
country. One set of round cards made in Cologne
had suit signs of flowers, parrots and rabbits.
Another used lions, monkeys, parrots and pea
cocks.
The suit signs of today-spades, hearts, dia-
monds and clubs-orginated in France and made
their first appearance early in the Fifteenth cen
fury. They were called occurs (hearts), piques
(spades) trehes (clubs) and carreaux (diamonds).
The suit of occurs stood for the church, clergy;
the carreaux was symbocal of the arroW-heads
of the vassals (the class from which the archers
and bowmen were drawn; the treles, or clover,
sgnified the husbandman, and the pques, or the
points of ances represented the knights. 1t was
about this time, too, that the court cards were
first named and these, too, we owe to the French.
The earliest known cards printed from wood
blocks which are preserved to this day are six
cards from a set made in Provence in 1440. Four
of these are in the British museum and two are
in the museum of the United States Playing Card
company in Cincinnati (Figure u. They are the
knaves or Wallets, as they known in France
and bear the names of famous knights, Lanceot
Hogier and Valery 1t is interesting to note that
during the French revolution when the house OF
Bourbon was dethroned, the kings and queens
disappeared from playing cards also. Instead
there were substituted philosophers (for the
kings) embematic personages (for the queens)
and sansculotes or the revolving Workmen (for
the knaves).
Playing cards came into England early in the
Fifteenth century. during the fighting in Nor
mandy and Touraine, Anjou and Poitou English
soldiers brought back French cards with them
and these served as the models for English card
makers In spite of the fact that paper was not
made In England until the end of the century, in
1863 upon the petition of the English craftsmen,
the importation Of playing cards was forbidden
BY 1884, card playing had become an important
part of the Christmas festivities at least among
the nobility, and it spread so rapidly to the lower
classes that Henry VII in 1895 issued an edict
forbiddng their use to servants and apprentices
except during the Christmas holidays
Although the French gave to US the familiar
suit signs and the figures on the picture cards.
the queer costumes which we see on the kings,
queens and jacks when we pick up our hands,
are English of the time of Henry VII The queer
looking lappets over the queens ears are the
same kind as were worn by the ladies OF Henry's
court although the wearing of their crowns far
back on their heads did not become common
until Queen Eizabeths time. The knaves with
their fat caps "broade on the crowne like the