trifling as it is, comes from about a score of Her Majesty's
subjects, and the total in a year does not now equal a sum very
usual in a glove fight, or a Championship Billiard match, and
the sums provided in a generation by our present machinery would
not equal the value of one Al Mamun's musk balls or the rewards
to Ruy Lopez for a single match.

The time allowed for consideration of the moves in chess, and
the management of the clocks used to regulate such is a most
important element in estimating the relative strength of chess
players. So important, in fact, that pure chess, and chess with
clocks is found by experience to be a very different thing with
certain players. Bird finds the clocks more trouble than the
chess, and as everybody knows is heavily handicapped by them,
hence his force and success in ordinary play is far greater than in
tournaments. Take the time limit alone for two players of equal
reputation, who may not be disturbed or distracted by the clocks,
a difference in the time limit of ten or even five moves an hour
would in some cases turn the scale between them. Passing over the
faster Bird; and other English players who prefer the slower rate
take a very notable example, Steinitz and Zukertort. After the
Criterion Great Tournament of 1883 opinions differed much as to
which of these was the stronger player, but after the match at
15 moves an hour, in the United States, won by Steinitz with a
score of 10 to 4, the palm has been generally awarded to
Steinitz, and without any qualification whatever the term of
champion of the chess world has been universally accorded to him
and still continues to be so, notwithstanding the superior claims
of Dr. Tarrasch based upon victory in three successive
International Chess Tournaments, Breslan 1889, Manchester 1890,