Game of Nations (1876)

Card game using representations of four continents as the suits, Europe, Asia, Africa and Europe. The suits have 13 cards. Special cards rank higher, in this order. Map, Man, Woman, Child. These are called the Titles. A random card is selected and that suit are trumps, here called Stars. It is for four players divided into two teams and is essentially Whist. Players must follow suit, can trump, etc. Every trick above 6 scores a point. There are also bonus points for Titles. After the deal before play begins, should your side have all the four Titles in the Stars suit, your team scores four extra points. If three of them you score 3 points. Two each per team scores nothing extra. The game also includes rules for playing The Game of Monkey. Any number can play. Take out one card at random. The value of that card means that only three others are in play. Deal out all the cards that are left. In turn a player may discard any pair in his hand on to the table, calling out, say, "A pair of Maps" or "A pair of sixes" and so on. Then the next player throws out a pair. If a player does not have a pair, he draws a card from the hand of the player on his right. Eventually, using this mechanic, all the cards will be matched as pairs except for the Monkey, the card drawn at random at the start. The player holding the Monkey at the end - quote "rejoices in the pleasure of being called the 'Monkey'. Curiously, it doesn't say if the 'Monkey' wins the game or loses it. If it is a 'pleasure' I suppose he wins.