RESTORING THE PLAY INHERITANCE TO AMERICA

of baseball-was especially an Easter game. In the diocese of
Auxerre, it was an ancient custom to play in the church on Easter
Monday a solemn game of ball while singing anthems appropriate
to the season. At Vienna, a dance and ball game was conducted by
the archbishop in his palace. (Is this the origin of "giving a ball"?)
Newell thinks that we have here a survival of the ancient games of
the spring festival. And baseball is still a harbinger of spring.
   There are a number of games that reflect the religious conceptions
of the Middle Ages-games in which the scales of St. Michael and
the keys of St. Peter are represented. There is the game of Old
Witch, the witch usually limping because of her cloven hoof, and the
game of Iron Tag, in which touching iron preserves from pursuit, as
of evil spirits.
   London Bridge, especially, is supposed to represent the perpetual
warfare of angels and devils over departed souls. The special relation
between bridges and the enemy of mankind long antedates bridge
whist. There are Devil's Bridges in all parts of Europe. The devil
in these traditions represents the ancient spirit of the land, who
resented the presumption of man in making safe roads across his
streams to rob him of his natural toll of deaths by drowning, and
sought revenge. In consequence, he always did his best to destroy
the bridge, and very frequently succeeded. In order to make it
stand firm and sure, he had to be propitiated, and there are many
stories of compacts between the architect and his infernal majesty,
under which the latter was entitled to the soul of the first person
crossing over the bridge--though he was generally cheated out of it
by various infantile devices which he never seemed able to anticipate.
   That is why London Bridge is forever falling down, why the
children who cross it are continually being caught, and why the game
finally ends in the tug of war (between good and evil spirits) to settle
their ultimate destination.
   Perhaps the largest class of games are those of courtship; and
these, like most of the others, were originally games of grown-ups.
Madame Celnart in "The Complete Manual of Games of Society,"
of which the second edition appeared in eighteen hundred and thirty,
is quoted by Newell as recommending kissing games, especially for
business men. The lady says: "For persons leading a sedentary life,
and occupied all day in writing and reckoning (the case with most
men), a game which demands the same attitude, the same attention
of mind, is a poor recreation. . . . On the contrary, the varying
movement of games of society, their diversity, the gracious, gay ideas
which these games inspire, the decorous caresses which they permit-
all this combines to give real amusement. These caresses can alarm
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