Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber.

CHIINESE CARDS.

193

vii. Chungfa. " Hit and Go."
No. 26. Box from Ningpo. In tablet (domino) form, bone and
blackwood. The game consists, like Khanhoo, of the ace to the 9 in
three suits, cakes (= cash), strings, and myriads, all quadrupled. The
places of Redflower, Whiteflower, and Old Thousand, however, are taken
by four each of the following cards, North, South, East, West [or, as
the Chinese have it, East, South, West, North], Chung ["a hit"]
and Fa [" go "]. There are, in addition, eight blanks, four only of which
are as a rule used in play. Thus the total number of cards in a Chungfa
pack is 4 (3 X 9 + 8) or 140, 136 of which are to be used.
viii. Liehchih (Learchur).
No. 27. A pack of 38 cards, black backs. There are 4 suits, tens,
rouleaux, strings, and cash. The cards (in the four hand game) are
arranged and rank as follows:
tens: " hundred sons," 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
rouleaux: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
strings: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
cash: "prince of Mao," "stagflower," " ace of cash," 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9.
The figures are conventional.
No. 28. Similar to the above.
No. 29. Orange backs. "Prince of Mao" and "Stagflower" are
replaced by Lin Ch'ung and Wang Ying, and "Hundred Sons" by
"Hundred Myriads."
These three packs are from the Hakka districts above Swatow and
Canton. The peculiarity of the game (so unlike the general rule in
China as to suggest a foreign origin) is that (1) there are four suits, not
three; (2) the cards take one another.
4. Cards derived from some set form of Words.
No. 30. Most, if not all, Chinese small boys commence their writing
lesson with the following twenty-five characters:~ k A?t E: {;.t f -tL + ~ $5 W IS A k )FL ^
t *k A T L 6 E - t. 1, % ift AA T ft ft
A vague meaning may be twisted out of this: "Of old the great
man Confucius converted three thousand and seventy [two] disciples; if
you youths, eight or nine students, will becomingly practice humanity
you will learn ceremonial." This meaning, however, such as it is, has
nothing to do with the application of the rigmarole to playing cards in
the Upper Valley of the Yangtse. For all practical purposes the twentyfive letters of the French alphabet would do equally well. No. 30 comes
from Ichang. It consists of cards marked with one of the first twentyo