Games and puzzles do not come within the definition of
literary matter; but as we are invited to express an opinion on The Game of the Burglar and Bobbies (E. Wolff and Son), we may say that, apart from the vulgarity of the name, we think it objectionable to make such things a matter of sport.—The Chequers Puzzle (Feltham and Co.) is not one of those terrible things that haunt one. It consists in putting into a square a number of pieces,
variously shaped, but always rectangular. It proclaims, on its surface, that "it can be done," and appears to hit the just mean between the impossible and the too easy. Bat we are not quite sure that the thing to be done is really "putting into a square." The figure represented on the cover is not a square but a rectangle, with seven chequers one way and eight the other, while in the pieces given there are sixty-four chequers.
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