The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1898-08-13 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

BIIMBLEPUPPY.  What is bumblepuppy ? asks a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette. Well, it is a game something like whist, but although Mr. Pembridge has indissolubly linked the same with whist in his wellknown classic, it is not correct to assume that it owes its birth to its preseut partner. Enquiry into the subject goes to prove that long before whist had attained to its present position—or even was at all appreciated—the reproachful designation, though not intended as such, had been applied to a certain pot-house pastime known as "nine-holes." The game, says Mr. Home, was by some called "bubble the justice," on the supposition that it could not be set aside by the justices, who had, by an Act of Parliament, about 1780, caused the skittle grounds in and near London to be levelled and the frames removed. No such pastime was mentioned in the prohibitory statutes; hence it continued to flourish after its fellows had been suppressed, gaining the nickname just mentioned, though that was subsequently changed to " bumblepuppy " ; and the attractive vulgarity of the last term was well adapted to the company by whom it was usually practised. . . . .  Tla aipi;ratus for playing the game was not unlike a bagatelle-board set at a certain angle—that is to say, an inclined plane led down into &circular and slightly concave space, in which were a number of small holes or cups, credited with figures of different value. The players being furnished with a certain number of small metallic balls, each stood in his turn by a mark made upon the ground, about five or six feet from the board, at which he bowled the balls down the aforesaid declivity. The game was reckoned, of course, according to the value of the figures belonging to the holes into which the balls might happen to roll. During the first half of the present century " bumblepuppy " was a favourite form of amusement with deames and his class.  Dictionaries confess their ignorance on the subject. It may be a corruption of "bubble the justice," and it may be a corruption of " tumblepuppet," the latter on the ground that skittles, or ninepins of the Aunt Sally order, may at one time have been complicated with it. The name of the inventor is lost, if he ever had one; yet the game could not have come down from the clouds. But the present generation, who have probably never heard of the term as denoting a species of bagatelle or Russian billiards, are at any rate familiar with it as applied to the noble game of whist. Strictly speaking, a " bumblepuppy " whist-player is one who pays very little attention to small cards, and who, when holding the two, the three, and the four of a suit, of which the ace has been led, will play the three or the four quite as readily as the two, not because the three cards are all of the same value, but because all small cards are to him of equal value—i.e., of no value at all. And what makes the bumblepuppist's salvation the more hopeless is the fact of his only admiring his own eccentricities. Doubtless the evolution of this suggestive bit of nomenclature when applied to the king of card games would be almost as interesting to trace as in that of the more elementary recreation of the "roll, bowl, or pitch ";order, were it not I that the attempt proves equally unsatisfactory. No one knows how, why, or when the term became attached to inferior whist. There can be but little doubt that the game of "bull," so popular on board ship, is a lineal descendant of the original " bumblepuppy." The game is now so well known that it hardly needs any description: suffice to say that it consists in throwing lead-discs, cased in leather, on to a canvas-covered board, divided into squares of varying value. It is quite in its place on board ship, but when played in the billiard-room or hall of a country house on a wet afternoon, it becomes, to the non-participator, the most irritating noise we wot of.  On board the training ship Impregnable at Devonport on Tuesday, a severe sentence was passed on a lad named Geary, who struck Cammander Stewart a few days ago, when he came before him to be punished for breaking his leave. He was paraded on the quarter-deck, and in the presence of the other boys was ordered to receive 20 outs with the birch, to undergo 90 day's hard labour at Bodmin prison, and afterwards to be dismissed the service. On Saturday morning, about eight o'clock, the Rev. John Davies, Rector of Llanynys, near Ruthin, went out for a walk and did not return. No suspicion was aroused for some time, but in the afternoon search parties were organised, and about half-past seven in the evening his dead body was found in the River Clwyd, in the parish of Llandymog, some miles from home. The event has caused a very great sensation in the Vale of Clwyd. Mr. Davies had been at Llanynys for and respected as clergyman years,raan y aectiasonheigholi the inhabitants. Some years ago his son in London committed suicide*, and ever sines Mr. Davies has been more or less broken in health. He returned last week from Llsndrindod. How he came to be drowned I. only surmised. He leaves a widow, a daughter, and Ave sons. •  Printed by the Proprietor, Thomas Burn Coventry, end published by William Riley, The Square Kenilworth.