We regret this
meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we
expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr.
Spayth.
The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and
inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes
followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as
theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical
treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five
moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is
absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will
understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves,
namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is
really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11;
there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may
intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a
_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11
determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of
the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and
so, too, under the _Bristol_.
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