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had purchased with nearly half his property." A strong spirit of play characterises a Malayan. After having resigned every thing to the good fortune of the winner, he is reduced to a horrid state of desperation; he then loosens a certain lock of hair, which indicates war and destruction to all the raving gamester meets. He intoxicates himself with opium, and, working himself up to a fit of frenzy, he bites and kills all that comes in his way. But, as soon as ever this lock is seen flowing, it is lawful to fire at the person, and to destroy him as fast as possible. It is this which

our sailors call "to run a muck." Thus Dryden writes:

"Frontless, and satire-proof, he scours the streets,
And runs an Indian Muck at all he meets."

The ancient nations were not less addicted to gaming. To notice the more modern ones were a melancholy task: there is hardly a family in Europe who cannot record, from their own domestic annals, the dreadful prevalence of this unfortunate passion. Affection has felt the keenest lacerations, and genius been irrecoverably lost, by a wanton sport, which dooms to destruction the hope of families, and consumes the heart of the gamester with corrosive agony.

"Accept this advice, you who sit down to play,

The best throw of the dice, is to throw them away."

COCK-FIGHTING.

Cock-fighting, as a sport, was derived from the Athenians, on the following occasion. When Themistocles was marching his army against the Persians, he, by the way, espying two cocks fighting, caused his army to stop, and addressed them as follows. "Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, nor for glory, nor for liberty, nor for the safety of their children, but only because the one will not give way to the other." This so encouraged the Grecians, that they fought strenuously, and obtained the victory over the Persians; upon which, cock-fighting was, by a particular law, ordained to be annually celebrated by the Athenians.

Cæsar mentions the English cocks in his Commentaries; but the earliest notice of cock-fighting in England is by Fitzstephens, who died 1191. He mentions this as one of the amusements of the Londoners, together with the game of foot-ball.

An ingenious writer says-" Cock-fighting is a despicable amusement, and plainly open to all the objections against boxing, without having any thing to say for itself. Cruelty and cowardice notoriously go together. In cock-fighting they are both at their height. If any body means to be convinced, let him look at Hogarth's picture of it, and the faces concerned. Would the gambler in that picture, the most absorbed in the hope of

winning, ever forget his own bones, as he does those of the brave animals before him? Cock-fighting has been in use among nations of great valour, our own for one; but it was the barbarous, and not the brave part of the national spirit that maintained it, and one that had not yet been led to think on the subject. Better knowledge puts an end to all excuses of that sort."

QUOITS.

This game, no doubt, is of great antiquity, and was known to the ancient Greeks; for we find in Homer's Iliad, at least in Pope's translation of it, book xxiii. line 973, the following:

"Then hurl'd the hero, thundering on the ground

A mass of iron (an enormous round),

Whose weight and size the circling Greeks admire,
Rude from the furnace, and but shaped by fire.
Let him whose might can hurl this bowl, arise,
Who further hurls it, take it as his prize."

FOOT-BALL.

Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in the Statistical Account of Scotland, says, that at Scone, in the county of Perth, the game of foot-ball is a prominent amusement; and that it is a proverb in this part of the country, "all is fair at the ball of Scone." Sir Frederick goes on to say, that this custom is supposed to have had its origin in the days of chivalry; when an Italian is reported to have come into this part of the country, challenging all the parishes, under a certain penalty in case of declining his challenge. All the parishes declined this challenge excepting Scone, which beat the foreigner, and in commemoration of this gallant action the game was instituted.

ORIGINS AND ANTIQUITY OF VARIOUS JUVENILE AMUSEMENTS.
"Children and youth engage my pen,
"Tis labour lost to write for men."

Trochus, in antiquity, denotes the exercise, or the game of the hoop. The hoop was of iron, five or six feet in diameter, set on the inside with a number of iron rings. The boys and young men used to whirl this along, as is now done at school with modern hoops, directing it with a rod of iron having a wooden handle, which the Romans called radius. The clattering of the rings served partly as a notice for persons to keep out of the way. Horace, in his Art of Poetry, mentions the hoop as one of the manly sports. Strutt says, the hoop is a pastime of uncertain origin, but much in practice at present, and especially in London, where the boys appear with their hoops in the public streets, and

are sometimes very troublesome to those who are passing through them. Addison says, I have seen at Rome an antique statue of time, with a wheel, or hoop, of marble in his hand.

Skipping. This amusement is probably very ancient. It is performed by a rope held by both ends; that is, one in each hand, and thrown forwards or backwards over the head and under the feet alternately. In the hop season, a hop-stem stripped of its leaves, is used instead of a rope. Boys often contend for skill in the game, and he who passes the rope about most times without interruption is the conqueror. This, also, was an amusement practised by the Romans.

The Top.-The Top was used in ancient days by the Grecian boys: it was also well known at Rome in the days of Virgil, and with us as early, at least, as the fourteenth century.

Duck and Drake. This is a very silly pastime, though inferior to few in point of antiquity. It is called, in Greek, epostrakismos, and was anciently played with flat shells, which the boys threw into the water, and he whose shell rebounded most frequently from the surface, before it finally sunk, was the conqueror.

Marbles.-Marbles seem to have been used by the boys as substitutes for bowls; formerly nuts and round stones were used,

It is said of Augustus, when young, that by way of amusement he spent many hours in playing with little Moorish boys, cum nucibus, with nuts.

Hopping, and Sliding on One Leg.-Hopping is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, hoppan, which signifies to leap, or dance. Hence, dancings are in the country called Hops. The word in its original meaning is preserved in Grasshopper.

These are both very innocent amusements, and were practised by the Grecian youth; one they called akinetinda, which was a struggle between the competitors who should stand longest motionless upon the sole of his foot; the other, denominated ascoliasmos, was dancing or hopping upon one foot; the conqueror being he who could hop the most frequently, and continue the performance longer than any of his comrades; and this pastime is alluded to by an English author in an old comedy, wherein a boy, boasting of his proficiency in various school games, adds,

"And I hop a good way upon my one legge."

Shuttlecock.-Shuttlecock is a boyish sport of long standing; it appears to have been a fashionable pastime among grown persons in the reign of James the First, and is mentioned as such in an old comedy, "The Two Maids of Moretlacke," printed A.D. 1609, of that time, wherein it is said, "To play at Shuttle-cock, methinks, is the game now." And among the anecdotes of Prince Henry, son to James the First, is the following: "His Highness playing at shittle-cocke with one far taller than himself, and

hytting him by chance with the shittle-cocke upon the forehead, "this is," quoth he, "the encounter of David with Goliath."

Tetter-totter, or See-saw.-Tetter-totter, or see-saw, an amusing, but sometimes a dangerous game, so well known to rustic lads and lasses, and mentioned by Gay:

"Across the fallen oak the plank I laid,

And myself poised against the tottering maid;
High leap'd the plank, adown Buxoma fell."

Cross and Pile, or Head or Tail.-Cross and Pile, or, with us, "Head or Tail," was formerly played at court; Edward the Second was partial to this, and such like frivolous diversions. In one of his wardrobe rolls we meet with the following entries:

66

Item, paid to Henry, the king's barber, for money which he lent to the king to play at Cross and Pile, five shillings. Item, paid to Pires Barnard, usher of the king's chamber, money which he lent the king, and which he lost at Cross and Pile; to Monsieur Robert Watteville, eightpence."

Anciently the English coins were stamped with a Cross on one side. This game is evidently derived from a pastime called ostrachinda, known in ancient times to the Grecian boys, and practised by them on various occasions. Having procured a shell, it was seared over with pitch on one side for distinction sake, and the other side was left white; a boy tossed up this shell, and his antagonist called white or black, and his success was determined by the white or black part of the shell being uppermost.

OLYMPIAN GAMES.

The Olympian Games derive their names from the public games celebrated every fourth year at Olympia, in Peloponnesus. These games were instituted in honour of Jupiter, but at what time, or by whom, is not known. After they had been neglected and discontinued for some time, they were restored by Iphitus, king of Elis, in the year B.C. 884; and it is from this date that the Olympian periods are reckoned in chronology.

REMARKABLE CUSTOMS, &c., &c.

DUELLING.

Although frequent and bloody were the single combats of the age of chivalry, yet the present system of duelling by challenge takes its data from Francis the First of France, who, sensibly mortified by the repeated defeats his armies had met with from

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those of his imperial rival, Charles the Fifth, emperor of Ger many, wrote the latter, challenging him to meet him in single combat, and thereby decide their differences, and put an end to the bloodshed and devastation which had ensued from their rivalship. Charles, however, was too much of a politician to accept the challenge. Another writer says:—

"Duelling is one of the most common among the few relics of barbarous usage. The introduction of pistols has brought with it no small share of burlesque and cowardice. In close fighting, a man entered the lists with a heart prepared either to conquer or perish; and, therefore, only those who were characterised for courage ventured to the contest. But different, far different, it is with the pistols. Any recreant coward dares to challenge on the smallest offence to his honour-and why? Because those handy factotums; those reconcilers of nothings-yclept seconds, either omit to charge with ball, or recommend the principals, by a preconcerted arrangement between them, to fire wide of the mark. Now, this can be deemed nothing short of arrant knavery and cowardice; for he who possesses true courage or bravery, will take care to exert them only when actually necessary, and when excited by some momentous circumstance. He will look over trifles with a becoming and dignified demeanour, and will never presume to speak of his high spirit in an egotistical manner."

This is all well as far as it goes, and may be particularly applicable to gentlemen of the Stock Exchange; but, let this writer remember, that the pistol puts the weak man on a par with the strong; the timid with the powerful; and the delicate, although brave man, on a footing with the cowardly bully. There is no doubt, however, that duelling in any sense, would be more honoured in the breach than the observance.

GIVING THE LIE.

"thou

The great affront of giving the lie, arose from the phrase, liest," in the oath taken by the defendant in judicial combats, before engaging, when charged with any crime by the plaintiff; and Francis the First of France, to make current his giving the lie to the emperor, Charles the Fifth, first stamped it with infamy, by saying in a solemn assembly, that he was no honest man that would bear the lie!

HONEY-MOON.

It was the custom of the higher order of the Teutones, an ancient people who inhabited the northern parts of Germany, to drink Mead, or Metheglin, a beverage made with honey, for thirty days after every wedding. From this custom comes the expression, "to spend the honey-moon," when there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure.

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