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not assure us that such vaticination is
believed in by many, would it be credible that reasoning beings could hope to learn anything of the future from [the order in which a few pieces of painted paper [happened to fall when shuffled ? Yet it is easy to see why this or any way of telling fortunes is believed in. Many persons believe in the predictions of fortune- tellers for the seemingly excellent reason that such pre- dictions are repeatedly fulfilled. They do not notice that
happy based on known facts) (setting apart, guesses
there would have been as many fulfillment's if every prediction had been precisely reversed. It is the same with other common superstitions. Reverse them, and they
are as trustworthy as before. Let the superstition be that to everyone spilling salt at dinner some great
piece of good luck will occur before the day is over; let seven years of good fortune be promised to the person who breaks a mirror; and so on: these new
superstitions would be before long supported by as good evidence as those now in existence; and they would be worth as much--since neither would be
worth anything,
NOTES ON POKER.
THE existence and still more the flourishing condition of such a game as poker, outside mere gambling-dens, is one of the most portentous phenomena of American civilization, though it is not in this aspect that I propose just now to consider it; for the art which chiefly avails to help the gambler in playing this game is nothing more nor less than that art of which the enemy of man is proverbially said to be the father. Poker has an advantage over whist in one respect. In whist skill will do somewhat; but it will not avail to make good cards yield to bad ones. In poker the case is otherwise. A man shall have not a point in his hand; yet by sheer bluffing--in other words, by lying--he shall cause such an idea to be formed of his hand, that every one else at the table will throw up his cards, and leave to the liar full possession of the stakes. Yet, as Lawrence in ' Guy Livingstone,' and Hawley Smart in half a dozen novels, describe with approval the success of daring swindles, so the enthusiastic poker-player will tell you with pride of achievements in bluffing which can only be viewed in one way by men of honor--to wit, as barefaced lying.
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