songs of the children of our streets.

Curious relics of past cruelties are shadowed forth in many of the
present games--some of which are not uninteresting. The barbarous custom
of whipping martyrs at the stake is perpetuated by the game of whip-top.
In a black-letter book in the British Museum, date 15--(?) occurs this
passage--

"I am good at scourging of my toppe,
You would laugh to see me morsel the pegge,
Upon one foot I can hoppe,
And dance trimly round an egge."

The apprentices of the London craftsmen followed the popular diversion
of cock-throwing on Shrove Tuesday and tossing pancakes in the
frying-pan--the latter custom is still kept up at Westminster School.
Both bear allusion to the sufferings and torments of men who died for
conscience sake.

Dice and pitch-and-toss, also modern games of the present gutter
children, in primitive times were the ways and means adopted by the
learned to consult the oracles. Much in the same way the Scotch laddie
and wee lassie play--

"Dab a prin in my lottery-book;
Dab ane, dab two, dab a' your prins awa',"

by sticking at random pins in their school-books, between the leaves of
which little pictures are placed. This is the lottery-box, the pictures
the prizes, and the pins the forfeits.

Another favourite Scotch game is--

"A' the birds of the air, and the days of the week."

Girls' pleasures are by no means so diversified as those of boys. It
would be considered a trifle too effeminate were the little men to amuse
themselves with their sisters' game of Chucks--an enchanting amusement,
played with a large-sized marble and four octagonal pieces of chalk.
Beds, another girlish game, is also played on the pavement--a piece of
broken pot, china or earthenware, being kicked from one of the beds or
divisions marked out on the flags to another, the girls hopping on one
leg while doing so. It is a pastime better known as Hop Scotch, and is
played in every village and town of the British Isles, varying slightly
in detail. The rhymes used by street children to decide who is to begin
the game are numerous.

The Scotch version of a well-known one is given below--

"Zickety, dickety, dock, the mouse ran up the nock,
The nock struck one, down the mouse ran,
Zickety, dickety, dock."

"Anery, twaery, tickery, seven,
Aliby, crackeby, ten or eleven;
Pin pan, muskidan,
Tweedlum, twodlum, twenty-one."

Amongst t