This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I. Origin of Euchre. Like the origin of cards themselves, the origin of most games at cards is obscure. Naturally, this obscurity has led to many different accounts, resulting from imagination rather than from data that can be substantiated. The origin of cards has been variously located in ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I. Origin of Euchre. Like the origin of cards themselves, the origin of most games at cards is obscure. Naturally, this obscurity has led to many different accounts, resulting from imagination rather than from data that can be substantiated. The origin of cards has been variously located in Egypt, India, China, and Arabia. Some people even claim that cards are pre-historic. But in all these cases, investigation--and the subject has been investigated by learned men for years--has shown that the respective claims are merely imaginative and fanciful. Of the theories mentioned, that respecting Egypt is probably the most popular. It is not unpleasant to the general mind to connect the symbols of cards with the Pyramids, or their mysteries with the Sphinx, and it is concordant with their alleged antiquity to suppose that they furnished amusement for the Pharaohs. Nor. is it less gratifying to the imagination to believe that India, that land of storied jugglery and necromancy, should have furnished the world with playing cards. The fact that gypsies commonly use cards in telling fortunes has led to the theory that these nomads introduced this means of amusement into Europe. This supposition is further fortified by the similarity of Hindustani cards to those of Europe. The facts of the case, however, indicate that cards were introduced from Europe into India, rather than from India into Europe. The allegation that the Chinese invented the familiar cards of to-day is equally obscure and far more untrustworthy. The claim that cards are of Arabic origin, rests wholly upon the statement of a credulous writer to the effect that the Saracens introduced them into Europe by way of Spain. But this writer, although he lived some four centuries...
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