The grent. international tournament of chess masters in London will not be finished till next Tuesday, but Mr. Lasker has obtained such a lead that his victory is absolutely wssared, whatever may be the result of the remaining matches. He has indeed splendidly upheld his right to the Championship of the World which he won and {maintained so brilliantly in his two matches with Steinitz, he old ox-champion is in this tournament Jefe far behind, and though he is not quite in the tail, Steinitz is perhaps regretting that he did' not retire content with his great achievements in the past. The tournament proves afresh that there are few men past middle age who can stand the long-sustained severe mental strain of these Congresses. It seems probably that Black. buro, who is well on in the fifties, will be the only man much over thirty who will appear in the prize list, The veteran Bird, who is close on seventy, will be very near the ent of the list. At present it appears that Feance and America in the persons of Janowski and Pillsbury will have a close fight for the second place, with Maroczy and Schlechter well up. Lasker, by birth a German Jew—an extraordinary proportion of the chess masters are Jews,—was aftorwards an American citizen, and is now a naturalised Briton; but the foremost of the British-born players is Blackburn, who will probably be about seventh on the list of niue prize winners.
7th July.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.