Laws. The laws that govern the game are almost identical with those for Bridge.
Preference
This is a simplified form of Vint, for three players, with a thirty-two-card pack. The cards rank: A K Q J 10 9 8 7, and the suits rank: Hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. Hearts are always preference. There are no hands played without a trump suit.
If four persons play, the dealer takes no cards. The three active players make up a pool, each putting in an equal amount at first, and the bidder putting into it as many as he bids for the privilege of naming the trump suit.
Any one may deal the first hand, after the deal passes to the left. Three cards are given to each player the first round, then two are laid off for a widow, then four to each player, and then three to each. Beginning on the dealer’s left, each player in turn may name the trump if he thinks he can take at least six of the ten tricks to be played for. Bids outrank one another in the order of the suits, hearts being preference always. The number of tricks is not mentioned. In case there are no bids, each in turn has a second chance to bid for the widow. These bids are made in counters, to be put into cards, and then names the trump suit.
The players agree upon a value for the tricks won, and payments are made from the pool according to the rank of the trump suit.
—from Foster’s Encyclopedia of Games by R.F. Foster. Published in 1897, Foster’s exhaustive manual of indoor gaming is a relic of a pre-electric entertainment. The “Preference” version of vint is recommended for beginners.
Argument Over A Card Game. Painting by Jan Steen (1626–1679).
The Duelist’s Supplement
Against the Dueclass="underline" Writing in Protest of Dueling
Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich (1908–1974) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The title is derived from Isaiah 2:4 and reads in fulclass="underline" “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
Forever Denied of Ecclesiastical Sepulture:
The Church Against Dueling
The Official Ban
CHAPTER XIX.
Duelling is prohibited under the most severe penalties.
The detestable custom of duelling, introduced by the contrivance of the devil, that by the bloody death of the body, he may accomplish the ruin of the soul, shall be utterly exterminated from the Christian world. Any emperor, kings, dukes, princes, marquises, counts, and temporal lords by whatsoever other name entitled, who shall grant a place within their territories for single combat between Christians, shall be thereupon excommunicated, and shall be understood to be deprived of jurisdiction and dominion over any city, castle, or place, in or at which they have permitted the duel to take place, which they hold of the church; and if those places be held as a fief they shall forthwith escheat to their direct lords.
As to the persons who have fought, and those who are called their seconds (sponsors), they shall incur the penalty of excommunication, and the confiscation of all their property, and of perpetual infamy, and are to be punished as homicides, according to the sacred canons; and if they have perished in the conflict itself, they shall be forever deprived of ecclesiastical sepulture. Those also who have given counsel in the ease of a duel, whether for the question of right, or fact, or have in any other way whatever persuaded any one thereunto, as also the spectators thereof, shall be subjected to the bond of excommunication, and of a perpetual malediction; any privilege soever, or evil custom, though immemorial, notwithstanding.
—from The Canons and Decrees of The Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent. Invoked by Pope Paul III (1468–1549), the Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563 and is to this day one of the Catholic Church’s most influential ecumenical councils. The influence of the council was far reaching and immediate, as it dealt with such large subjects as the recent “Protestant heresies” as well as minutiae like curating the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Banned Books”) which led to the banning and eventual burning of books considered detrimental to the faith. Many civil laws, such as the prohibition of dueling, were also formed from these meetings.
No Exceptions
Wrongfulness of Duelling—After what has been said above there can be no doubt that duelling is contrary to the ordinances against duelling, the Council of Trent plainly indicated that duelling was essentially wrong and since then theologians have almost universally characterized it as a sinful and reprehensible course of action. However there were always a few scholars who held the opinion that cases might arise in which the unlawfulness of duelling could not be proved with certainty by mere reason. But this opinion has not been tenable since Pope Benedict XIV in the Bull “Detestabilem” of the year 1752 condemned the following propositions: (1) “A soldier would be blameless and not liable to punishment for sending or accepting a challenge if he would be considered timid and cowardly, worthy of contempt, and unfit for military duty, were he not to send a challenge or accept such, and who would for this reason lose the position which supported him and his family, or who would be obliged to give up forever the hope of benefitting and well-earned advancement.” (2) “Those persons are excusable who defend their honour or to escape the contempt of men accept or send a challenge when they know positively that the duel will not take place but will be prevented by others.” (3) “A general or officer who accepts a challenge through fear of the loss of his reputation and his position does not come under the ecclesiastical punishment decreed by the Church for duellists.” (4) “It is permissible under the natural conditions of man to accept or send a challenge in order to save one’s fortune, when the loss of it cannot be prevented by any other means.” (5) “This permission claimed for natural conditions can also be applied to a badly guided state in which, especially, justice is openly denied by the remissness of malevolence of the authorities.” Like his predecessors, Leo XIII in his letter “Pastoralis officii,” of 12 September, 1891, to the German and Austro-Hungarian bishops, laid down the following principles: “From two points of view the Divine law fobids a man as a private person to wound or kill another, excepting when he is forced to it by self-defence. Both natural reason and the inspired Holy Scriptures proclaim this Divine law.”
—from Volume V of 1909 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference On The Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of The Catholic Church.
You’ll Poke Your Eye Out
Dueling is a little less cruel, and a little more senseless, than hazing. It adds some fairness in giving the other party an equal chance to gash the hazer; but it inflicts more damage for less cause. A young man at the age when students’ duels are fought knows not the value of a whole face; and the scars and loss of a nose are regretted for a lifetime, though they are the result of an hour’s folly. Young men should not be given a chance to ruin themselves before they get their sense, and the immorality of the practice is largely in the custom which sanctions it. Having come from a more barbarous age, it should not be tolerated now; and he who takes sport out of a duel as a looker-on, is a participant in the wrong.