Returning to stakes, I have met here and there with an amateur
who has had scruples and preferred not even playing for the
shilling.
Buckle, Lord Lyttleton, and many eminent in chess, were
strongly in favour of the customary small stake, and I have seen
dignitaries of the Church, and spotless amateurs, pocket their
shillings with as much gusto as the poor and much abused
professional. It is a kind of voucher to mark the score.
Professor Ruskin and others who have referred to this question,
saw no objection to the time-honoured stake, and it has been the
rule at the greatest clubs, for, by fixing a custom, it was hoped
to keep the stakes within prescribed limit. It must be admitted
that the difference between one shilling and 25 pounds, 50 pounds
or 100 pounds on a game is far too large.
Since the growth of the foreign demands for stakes, not thought
of in the days of Philidor, La Bourdonnais, McDonnell, Staunton
and Morphy, squaring between players, has been asserted, viz.--
in 1878, 1885, and 1887, besides which it has always seemed to
me that as the stakes go up the play goes down, and it certainly
would be difficult to name a match in which so few interesting
games took place as that between Steinitz and Zukertort for 400
pounds a side, played in the United States at New York, St.
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