HISTORY OF THE PACK OF CARDS
tion
Fool or Ace,
of
illogical
— to
it
was natural
— though
15
absurdly
continue the reduction from that end of the
pack. Thus we have the very ridiculous pack containing
Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and the four Court cards.
If the Piquet pack had been derived from the original
Tarot pack of
fifty-six cards, it
would undoubtedly have
contained One, Two, Three, Four, Jack, Knight, Queen
and King.
a very curious fact that there should be four suits
a pack of cards, although as already shown these
balance nicely with the four Estates
Priests or Rulers,
It is
in
:
Warriors or Fighting Men, Merchants or Artisans, and
the Tillers
of
the
Soil
or
common
people.
An
early
Eastern form of the game of Chess was a four-players
variation, each alternate player partnering his vis-a-vis,
same as in modern Bridge or Whist. The two
partners in this form of Chess used pieces of a similar
colour two using red pieces, the other pair using white
just the
—
Then from the East, dating from about the
we have the four suits of the Tarocchi cards,
again two red and two black.
or black
same
!
period,
common Eastern origin for
Chess and Cards, and the probability seems to be that
card playing or Divination has been derived from Chess.
It is worth noting that there is an obscure form of Chess
All this points clearly to a
which the pieces are all off the board at first, as are
the cards in the hands of a player
they are placed on
the board or table one at a time, as the player's turn,
in
;
comes round, and they are not active
displayed
—just
till
they are thus
as in card games.
In the early years of the fifteenth century, the art of
was perfected, and printed coloured cards
came into use in place of the old hand-painted packs.
About the middle of that century, the present suit
engraving