Shovel Board
The game of Shovel Board was once a very important national pastime, and was much played among fashionable people. Master Slender, in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” makes a reference to the game, from which it would appear that Shovel Board was in Shakspere’s time both popular and fashionable.
The game was formerly played upon a long, low table that usually stood in the large hall of a gentleman’s house, but was soon adapted to smaller tables, and was indeed frequently played on the floor, the necessary limits being chalked out on the bricks. The following description of the game will be found applicable, whether it be played on the floor or on the orthodox table or board, it being premised that the space marked out on the floor should be about twenty-five or thirty feet in length and three feet in breadth, a space corresponding with the size of an ancient Shovel Board.
The tables on which the game is now played vary somewhat in length, but are usually three feet to three and a half feet wide. At one end of the table a line is drawn parallel with the edge, and three or four inches from it; at four feet distance another line is made over which it is necessary for the weight to pass when shoved or thrown. The players stand at the end of the table, opposite to the two lines above mentioned, each having four flat metal weights, which they alternately shove from them one at a time. The object of the play is to give sufficient impetus to the weight to carry it beyond the mark nearest to the opposite edge of the table, but so as to keep it on the table. If the weight is shoved so that it hangs over the edge without falling, three are counted towards game; if between the line and edge, without hanging over, two are scored; if on the line one only is credited to the player. The game is usually eleven when two play, but when more than two are jointly concerned that number should be increased.
Those weights that glance off the side of the table, that do not pass the first line, or that fall off the table at the opposite edge, it will be seen do not score. It is sometimes allowed that all weights passing the first, or four-foot line, score one, instead of making it incumbent that the second line should be reached.
The following description of the game, which differs somewhat from the above, appears in the “English Cyclopædia”:—“The origin of the game Shuffle, or Shovel Board, is doubtful; it has been practised for many generations... and has lately been largely introduced into America.... The board, or alley, is thirty feet long by twenty inches wide, perfectly level, like a billiard table, and constructed of some wood which will not warp. Before commencing to play, it is sprinkled with fine sand, and five inches from each end a line is drawn across the board, parallel with the ends. Eight weights or pieces are required, divided into two sets of four each, and marked with distinctive features. The game is played by four people, two against two, one on either side standing at each end of the board. Twenty-one points have to be scored to win a game; each piece which lies over or inside the line, at the end of a round being ‘in,’ and scoring two points in favour of the side to which it belongs, whilst a piece partly projecting over the end of the board scores three points. Should no piece be ‘in’ at the end of a round, that nearest the line counts as one point, and a piece lying exactly on the line is counted ’in.’ The players ‘shuffle’ alternately from each end of the board, the great object of each competitor being to ’shuffle’ his own piece in, or drive his opponent’s off the board.”