By

NORMAN

DOUGLAS

LONDON

THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS

STAMFORD STREET, S.E.

_First Published 1916_

TO HIS FRIEND

L·K

THIS BREATHLESS

CATALOGUE

LONDON

STREET GAMES

There’s not much for _us_ to do, down our way--in the way of sports, I

mean. Nothing at all, in fact. When we come home from work we generally

go straight indoors and have a lay-down, and a cup of tea and a pipe;

or else we go out and watch a match somewhere. There’s always the

“Three Swans”, of course....

But the youngsters get on all right--seem to, at all events. Some of

them have got bats and stumps or footballs, and off they go into the

park; and some of the girls have got shuttlecocks, and off _they_ go.

But most of them haven’t, you know; so they just lark about where they

are. PAPER-CHASE and ROUNDERS, for instance; you know those? They’re

plain sailing. But some of these games, like EGG-IN-CAP (also called

EGGET), are rather complicated; and as to MONDAY-TUESDAY (or NUMBERS;

another kind of egg-in-cap)--it would take me till next Saturday _week_

to explain it. Perhaps you can make it out from this description:

“After clipping the throer calls out the name of the day in the weke

and the chap whats taken that day has to catch if he misses it they

all run away and shout no Egg if I move--becose if they dont the

throer can say a egg if you move--& that helps to make the quantity of

the Eggs. The Misser of the ball throes it at one of the player and

if he misses it is a egg to him and if he hits its a egg to the one

he hit. After the throer has hit his man--the man has to throw it up

again. If one of the player catch the Ball they throw it up again and

call out the name, the total of egg to get you out is three. After the

game is over the winner has clockwork on the Losers; they each stand

up against a wall wile the winner throes at their heads with the ball.

They can also claim 3 Hard throes or six soft ones.”

Now you know how it’s done.

Then there’s QUEENIE, which is really a girls’ game. One boy stands on

the kerbstone with his back to the street, and they call him Queenie.

He throws a ball backwards over his shoulders into the street, where

four others are standing to catch it. As soon as one of them has it,

they all hold their hands behind their backs, and then Queenie has to

turn round and face them and guess who has the ball. If he guesses

right, he goes on being Queenie; if not, the boy who has the ball takes

his place.

Why they call it QUEENIE? Because that happens to be its name. Aunt

Eliza, who has travelled all over the place and can explain mostly

everything (or thinks she can) tells me that QUEENIE is a Chinese game

and that she has seen it played there and that it must have come to

London over the docks. I daresay it did. But the worst of Aunt Eliza is

that you never know whether--

There are other ball-games, such as HOT RICE and FRENCH CRICKET and

FOOTBALL-CRICKET and FIDDLE-DE-DEE and PALM OVER (a rough game) and

CATCH (also called TEASER), which goes not as you think it does, but

like this--

“Two boys stand at each side of the road and one in the middle, that’s

Hee. One of them tries to get the ball over middle’s head for the

other to get it but if middle gets it the throer goes Hee”--

and WALL-BOUNCING and KING and MISSINGS OUT and FRENCH FOOT and

KNOCKING UP THREE CATCHERS and SWOLO (rather like hockey) and DAYS

OF THE YEAR and PUNCH-BALL and BOUNCE-BALL and TOUCH IT RUN and

HUNDRED WINS (where you knock bricks out of a ring with a ball) and

ONE-TWO-THREE-AND-A-LAIRY (I wish I knew what a-lairy meant) and ALONG

THE ROW and UNDER THE ROW and ACROSS THE ROW and RABBIT IN THE HUTCH

and FIVE-TEN and BASE (or DOLL) and WALLIE (because played against

a wall) and STRIKE UP KNOCK DOWN and IN THE HAT and DUSTHOLES, and

no doubt many more. But however many I might tell you, there are not

nearly as many as there ought to be.

Why not?

Well, Mr. Perkins--he works with the firm of Framlingham Brothers

(Limited), a likeable well-spoken gentleman, and he often watches the

children playing and sometimes we have a talk about things at the

“Three Swans”--Mr. Perkins says, speaking of ball-games, exactly what I

always say, which is this: that there’s a difficulty about ball-games,

which is this: that most of them generally need a ball; meaning you

can’t play with a ball unless you have a ball to play with. And you

generally haven’t got one--meaning the children. And then the trouble

begins. Because then you have to start thinking about something that

doesn’t need a ball.

Somebody or other may have a top, for those who care about this kind

of game. Top-games are not as fashionable as they used to be; still,

there are a good many of them left. You can play TOP-FOOTBALL, and

SKATING, and GRULLEY (also called GROWLEY, or GROWLING KEEPS, or

PLACING), and GETTING IN THE RING, and SENDING MESSAGES, and GULLEY

HOLE (or HULLY-GULLY) and FLY DUTCHMAN and BACK SCALINGS and TRACING

and RAILWAY LINE and MOUSETRAP (where you have to get the string wound

round the top as it spins) and CHUCKING and GRUDGES and GULLEY KEEP

TOP and GULLEY KNOCK ABOUT and FETCHING HOME, and PEG IN THE RING, and

BOAT-RACE, and PEGGING, and LIVE O’S, and CHIPSTONE. For CHIPSTONE you

need hard smooth ground and some pebbles and this is how you play it:

“Two lines about 6 ft apart are drorn. A boy first puts his stone on a

place half-way between the two, he spins his top picks it up and makes

it spin in the palm of his hand and chips his stone towards the line.

The first boy who gets his stone beyond the line he wins.”

I used to know quite a good deal about tops, but it’s quite a while

since I played, and I have forgotten half their names, and couldn’t

describe them if I tried. I can only remember peg-tops, whipping-tops,

mushrooms, klondykes, tomtits, boxers (made of boxwood), racing tops,

corkscrews, clodhoppers, humming tops, Russian tops, Jews’ tops, Japan

tops (rather flatter at the end than the usual kind), French tops (red

and white on the top, with a little thing for tying a piece of string

on, to spin with), and window-breakers, which are rather like mushrooms.

_And_ the dumb-bargee.

Ever heard of a dumb-bargee? It’s a kind of top after the style of a

klondyke. It’s too heavy to rise from the ground like a racer. You

simply can’t get a rise out of a dumb-bargee. Perhaps that accounts for

the name. Because it’s easy enough to get a rise out of an ordinary

bargee, isn’t it? And when you do, he’s not exactly what you call

“dumb”, is he? Not the bargees I’ve known.

And if you have no tops, you can make up games with your caps or

boots or jackets. DEAD MAN’S RISE (also called DEAD MAN’S DARK SCENERY

or COAT) is one of these jacket-games, where one party has to hide,

covered up in their coats. Shoe-games are rather commoner--there’s SIZE

OF YOUR BOOT (one boy has to be blindfolded for this), and BOOT IN THE

TUB, and NAILS, and COBBLER COBBLER MEND MY SHOE. But the commonest are

the cap-games. Here are some of them: CHIMNEY-POTS (or UPSETTING THE

CHIMNEY); HAT UNDER THE MOON; MOUSE IN TRAP; SAUSAGE; KNOCK HIM DOWN

DONKEY; PULL FOR THE SHORE SAILOR; SUGAR AND MILK; HOP O’ MY THUMB;

TOUCH-CAP. In the three last you have to go “through the mill”, if you

fail. NUTS IN CAP is played with caps and crackers (Spanish nuts); in

HITTING THE SUN you must throw your cap at your opponent’s at about

twelve yards distance; other cap-games are QUOITS (with folded-up

caps), and FIRE ENGINES, and SHYING OVER THE MOON, and SHOOTING THE

STARS, and PILING THE DONKEY, and CAP IT, and WHERE’S THIS LITTLE HAT

TO GO, and SALLY ROUND THE JAM-POT (with piled-up caps), and BALL IN

CAP, and RUN A MILE FOR A HALF-PENNY, and HOOK AND CAP, and HOT SOUP,

and FOX COME OUT OF YOUR DEN, and THROW OVER, and MILLER’S SACK, and

WHACK CAP, and HATCHING EGGS, and UNDER THE GARTER. All these are

played with caps, and some of them, such as FLIES (or SALLY) ROUND THE

JAM-POT, are really duty-games, of which I must tell you later on.

And if you have no caps, which you sometimes haven’t, you must just

find something else to play with. Buttons, for instance--everybody

knows the old game of BUTTONS (or BANG-OUT, or BANGINGS) where you

pitch them against a wall and have to measure the intervals between

them with the span of your fingers and always end up with a row about

cheating distances. You can make a fine gamble out of BUTTONS if you

play the same game with halfpennies; you can win quite a lot, when

there are no coppers about....

But nobody need play for money unless they like, and, anyhow, I don’t

care to talk about these things. Because, of course, our boys don’t

gamble, and there’s an end to it. They never try to make money,

like some do, out of silly tricks like BRAG, and BOOKS, and SPIN UP

THE PENNY, and RAPS ON THE BUGLE, and NAP, and TRUMP, and BEAT YOUR

NEIGHBOUR OUT OF DOORS, and MY BIRDIE WHISTLES, and POLISH BANKER,

and DONKEY, and TUPPENCE YOU HEAD IT, and PITCHING UP THE LINE (double

or single), and SHOVE HA’PENNY, and NEAREST THE LINE TAKES, and

CHUCK-FARDEN, and PONTOON,[A] and PIEMAN, and ODD MAN SPINS, and ON THE

STICK, and GUESSING WITH THREE CARDS, and GUESSING WITH SIX CARDS, and

ANCHOR-CROWN-HEAD, and PITCH AND TOSS and BLIND SAM and OVERS KEEPS--or

whatever all these things are called; no, not _our_ boys. They never

climb down to the cut[B] on a Sunday afternoon like some people

do--although, as a matter of fact, it’s a pretty safe place just now,

because only three weeks ago a couple of peelers were chucked into the

water for interfering.

Many of these sports are played with cigarette-cards or with ordinary

playing cards, or with either; and I might tell you the names of some

of those of the first kind, seeing that the lads have to play their

card-games out of doors, hereabouts, if--if it weren’t for the gambling

they lead to. For instance, there’s KNOCKING DOLLY OUT O’ BED where you

lay down three for a king, two for a jack, one for a queen and none

for an ace, and--well, there you are! You must just come and ask some

of the boys higher up the street; maybe they’ve heard of the game[C].

Ours are respectable. Gambling is forbidden by law, and they know it.

That’s why you have to be so darned careful not to get copped.

Or you can play with tins, or bits of metal and wood, or with nuts.

In THROWING THE NICKER (or TIN ON THE LINE) you really ought to use

a piece of lead or tin, or an old key, but sometimes you haven’t got

one, and then you must put up with a slate; and the same with NIXIE and

PITCH OUT and PITCHING ON THE HAT and PITCHING IN THE HAT and BULLS EYE

and ONE, TWO, THREE and OVER THE LINE. There are many tin-can games,

such as TIN-CAN BUMP and TIN-CAN JUMP and TIN-CAN CATCH and TIN-CAN

FISHING and TIN-CAN FETCH IT and TIN-CAN RACING and TIN-CAN GO IT and

TIN-CAN TOUCH and TIN-CAN HIDE IT and TIN-CAN HAVE IT and COCK-SHY and

CATCH THE RIDER and PITCHING UP THE WALL. The best of all of them is

TIN-CAN COPPER (or KICK-CAN POLICEMAN) which goes like this:--

“You get a tin and place it on the road. You then toss up who is to

be tin-can copper. After the one is found you throw it up the street

& then go and hide. The one who has to go after the can must not turn

round and must come back backwards. When he has got back he puts the

tin down & then looks to see if he can see you--if he see you he

points were you are and shout your name & Bangs the can down three

times, if he does not see you you can creep up and steal the can &

fling it up the road again and all of them can hide. The last one

caught is the Tin-can-Copper”.

There are different ways of playing TIPPIT and I can’t stop to explain

them; one is played with sticks, and one without, and another with

tin; and you can play tippit with a top and a coin; in fact, it’s one

of those names, like “fire-engines” or “pitching up the line”, that

don’t mean anything in particular and are used for all kinds of sports.

With sticks you can also play CUNJER, and CATCHING THE FALLING WAND (a

ring-game for children) and SEIZING STICKS (or SCOTCH AND ENGLISH):--

“One of A.’s side tries to rush and get a stick from B.’s side without

being caught. If he is caught he remains a prisoner, unless touched

by one of his own side again. But no sticks can be taken by any one

while there are prisoners. The game is won by the side who get all the

sticks”--

and WAND BALANCE RACE and different kinds of TIBBY-CAT (or NIBBY-CAP)

such as SETS and RUNS and WOGGLES and CATCHERS and SINGLES. You can’t

play TIBBY-CAT if there are any blue boys hanging around; they’re down

on the game, because people sometimes get their windows smashed or

their eyes bunged up.