THIS beautiful and scientific game is comparatively but little known in this country, although it may be fairly questioned if it does not afford as wide a field for brilliant combination as chess itself.

It is played upon a board containing 100 squares, the number of pieces are 40, the mechanism of which, and the march of the game, will be soon understood by perusing the following treatise :

RULES OF POLISH DRAUGHTS.

1. The pawn moves forward diagonally one square at a time, except on taking, when he may be moved as often as there remain pieces to be taken, and also backwards for that purpose.

2. If you touch a pawn it must be moved, but as long as the finger is not taken off, it may be moved at pleasure. If, again, you touch several pawns for the purpose of arranging them, you must give notice to that effect, or your adversary may oblige you to play which of them he choses.

3. When several pawns are to be taken, they must not be removed from the board until the piece capturing them has reached its last square.

4. When you have several pawns to take, if in removing them you leave by mistake one or more on the board, your adversary has the right to huff you if he choses. Should he not do this, he can oblige you to take. But if your adversary who has the right of huffing has touched the pawn to be huffed, he loses the right to make you take it, and must huff you.

5. When a player refuses to capture a piece, he loses the game. This rule is founded upon the consideration that whoever refuses to take, refuses to play, and of course throws up the game.

6. When a player who can take on one side only, touches accidentally another pawn than the one which he ought to take, or, when he can take on several sides, he touches another pawn than that which he ought to take on the most favourable side, his adversary may either huff the pawn in question, or oblige him to play the one touched.

7. After the move is made, you can no longer huff, if the player who neglected taking the first time does so the following move, or if the pawn

which ought to have taken has changed its position; but if things remain in the same state, the player who neglected to huff or to insist on your taking, may do so after several moves, whether he perceived or not at first the fault of his adversary.

8. The pawn or the queen which captures, not only cannot repass over a square it has once leapt, but on the contrary must halt upon the square over which it has passed, and upon which there is a pawn or a queen which forms a part of those that may be taken, if this pawn or this queen has another behind it, although there may be beyond several pieces that it might take; and what is more, this pawn or the queen placed behind the pawn or the queen which ought to take, has the right to take this pawn or queen if undefended. The following example will illustrate our position: White has a pawn upon 27, 32, 33, and 37, and a queen at 43.

Black has a pawn at 3, 4, 9, and 19, and a queen at 10 and 13.

Black queen at 13 can take 4, and is obliged to place herself at 28, because she is stopped by the pawn 32, which she cannot take till she has placed herself so that the white pawn at 32, which is behind her, takes her and two other pawns, and goes to queen at 5.

9. The following are the circumstances under which the huff may take place :

1st. When instead of taking the greatest number of pieces you are able, you take an inferior number. Thus if on one side you have the option of capturing four pawns, and on another three, you must take the former.

2d. Again, supposing with equal numbers that there are pawns on one side and queens on the other, or a queen and some pawns, in that case you

must capture the queens or the queen, as the lastmentioned piece is more valuable than a pawn. However, when on one side you can take three pawns, and on the other a queen and a pawn, or even two queens, you must capture the former, as they exceed the latter in number.

10. When a pawn reaches one of the squares upon which it is crowned, he must do so by a move which terminates there, for on reaching it, should there be an adversary's piece en prise, he is obliged to take it, and continue still a pawn.

11. A queen differs from a pawn not only by its march, but also in its mode of capturing. It differs in its march from the pawn in this, that like the bishop at chess it may move from one extremity of the board to the other, if the space be open, that is, when on the line there are none of her own pieces or of the adversary's which are not en prise. It differs again from the pawn in its manner of capturing, because, in doing so, it may traverse several squares at once, provided they are empty, so that it may turn to the right or the left, and sweep round the board.

12. When two equal players at the end of a game are left, one with three queens, and the other with only one, but which occupies the great central line, it is a drawn game. However, when the single queen does not occupy the central line, there are sever always of winning; but as they are not forced, and as the game must have an end, the player having the three queens cannot oblige his adversary to play more than twenty moves, and the latter cannot refuse. If the player having the three queens gives an advantage, he can only demand twenty coups; but if the advantage consists in drawing the game, then he is allowed

twenty-five coups; after which he loses the game if his adversary still preserves his queen.

13. In a game, the number of coups of which are limited, you cannot exceed them under the pretence that the coup which exceeds the conventional number is a necessary consequence of the one preceding it. In such a case the game is won when the last coup of the number agreed upon is played. The following example will illustrate the position:

Suppose the player having the three white queens occupies the squares 13, 25, and 41, and the adversary's single black queen 26. In this position, there have been nineteen coups played, and it is now the turn of the white to play and commence the twentieth coup; he sacrifices the queen at 13; black takes her, and places itself at 3, and thus terminates the twentieth coup; the game is now over, although by continuing it the white must have won the game by sacrificing the queen at 41; but then it would have exceeded the number of coups agreed upon. A coup is not complete until each player has played once; thus when the first player plays for the twentieth time, the twentieth coup is not completed until the last player has played the same number of times.

14. When at the end of a game a player who has only one queen offers his adversary who has a queen and two pawns, or two pawns and a queen, to crown the two pawns or the pawn, in order to count the number of coups, limited as above, the latter must accept the offer, or the first may draw the game.

15. When a player makes a false move, the adversary has the option or not of correcting it. Playing an adversary's pawn, for instance, is not a fault.