ORIGIN OF POPULAR GAMES.

Dice-Shaking, Chess, and Polo Rank As Patriarchs, While Ping-Pong and Basket-Ball May be Said to Be Only Fledgelings Just Out of the Incubator—Football Was Taken to England by the Romans.

Few nations are able to boast of such a great variety of games as are played in Great Britain and the United States. In many cases the Anglo-Saxon has been responsible for the preservation of games which are now almost unknown in the countries in which they had their origin. Some of these forms of diversion are older than the Roman Empire, while others, like ping-pong and basket-ball, are of recent invention.

BASEBALL holds undisputed sway as the American national game. It is founded on the old English game of rounders, and for almost a century it has been known in the Eastern States in various forms.

BASKET-BALL is unique, inasmuch as it was the invention of one man, and was completed at a single sitting. In 1891, in the course of a lecture at the Young Men’s Christian Association in Plainfield, Massachusetts, the lecturer spoke of the mental processes of invention, and used a game, with its limitations and necessities, as an illustration. James Naismith, who was a member of the class, worked out basket-ball that same night as an ideal game to meet the case. It was presented the next day in the lecture-room and put in practise with the aid of the members of the gymnasium. From there it spread to other branches of the Young Men’s Christian Association and subsequently to athletic clubs and the general public.

BILLIARDS is believed by some to have been brought from the East by the Crusaders, while others claim an English origin for it and find it allied to the game of bowls. Still others assert that the French developed it from an ancient German game. It seems pretty certain that the first person to give form and rule to the game was an artist, named Henrique Devigne, who lived in the reign of Charles IX. One writer sees in billiards the ancient game of paille-maille played on a table instead of on the ground, and this is indeed a very reasonable assumption.

BOWLS, or bowling, is one of the most popular and ancient of English pastimes, its origin being traceable to the twelfth century. It was held in such disfavor for years that laws were enacted against it and it was an illegal pursuit. Alleys were built, however, as it could not be played out-of-doors during the winter, and the game flourished in spite of opposition. In the beginning of the eighteenth century greens began to increase, while the alleys were rigorously and absolutely suppressed. It soon became a royal game, and no gentleman’s place was complete without a bowling-green.

CHECKERS is said by some to be a very old game, while others declare it to be of comparatively modern origin. Whence it came is absolutely unknown. The game is also called draughts, and there are many varieties of it—Chinese, English, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Turkish. It is also found among the native tribes of the interior of New Zealand.

CHESS always has been the subject of more dispute, so far as its origin is concerned, than any other game. It is probably the most ancient as well as the most intellectual of games, and it is played all over the world. The belief which is most generally accepted is that it came from the Hindoos, and the most conservative estimate places its age at one thousand years. Some persons, however, claim an age of from four to five thousand years for it. Its basis is the art of war, and the Hindoo name for it, chaturanga, means the four “angas” or members of an army which are given in Hindoo writings as elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers.

CRICKET is the national game of Englishmen, and seems always to have been played in Britain. The first mention of it is found in a manuscript of the thirteenth century. The name comes from the Saxon cric or cryc, a crooked stick—an obvious reference to the bat with which it is played. Wherever the English have colonized, the game is played, and in many of the British possessions it has become popular with the natives, notably in New Zealand.

CROQUET is said to have been derived from paille-maille, or mall, which was played in Languedoc in the thirteenth century. Mall was very popular in England at the time of the Stuarts. No other game has had such fluctuations of fortune as croquet, as it sunk into oblivion by the end of the eighteenth century, yet was revived during the middle of the nineteenth, and assumed almost the popularity of a national game.

CURLING has been popular in North Britain for the last three centuries, and is regarded as a Scottish game. It is possible that some of the Flemish merchants brought it into the country toward the close of the sixteenth century, but however that may be, it owes its development to the Scotch, and is now decidedly the national game of Scotland.

DICE are said by some to have had their origin in occult sources, but more reasonably they are ascribed to Psalmedes, of Greece, B.C. 1244. Those exhumed at Thebes are identical with those used to-day, and the games played with them are the simplest and most widely known games of chance in the world.

FOOTBALL was undoubtedly introduced into England by the Romans, and is, therefore, older than the national game of cricket. Varieties of it may be found in many parts of the world. It is known in the Philippines and through the Polynesian Islands, among the Eskimos, the Faroe Islands, and even by the Maoris of New Zealand. The Greeks also played it.

GOLF is popularly supposed to have its origin In Scotland, but there seems to be good reason for believing that it came from Holland. The name itself is undoubtedly of German or Dutch extraction, and an enactment of James I of England, bearing date 1618, refers to a considerable importation of golf-balls from Holland, and at the same time places a restriction upon this extravagant use, in a foreign country, of the coin of the realm.

LACROSSE is the national ball-game of Canada. It came from the aboriginal red men, who doubtless played it for many centuries before the discovery of the New World. Different tribes played it in different ways, and it was usually very rough. The name was given to it by the French Canadians, who saw the resemblance between the curved netted stick used in playing it and a bishop’s crozier or crosse.

PING-PONG is really table-tennis, and had its origin in that game. Its immense popularity lasted only a brief space of time, and its greatest vogue was in France and America.

POKER is probably a development of il frusso, an Italian game of the fifteenth century. A similar game called primiera was played in Italy in the sixteenth century, and thence journeyed into Spain. In France this became ambigu, and later appeared in England under the name of brag. Poker is distinctly an American game, and seems to have descended more directly from the game of brag than from any of the others.

POLO is of Eastern origin, and has been a favorite pastime in Persia, Tatary, and the frontiers of India from prehistoric times. The name of the game varies with the district, and the rules are not the same on minor points, though they are substantially alike on the main issues. China and Japan also have a game closely resembling the Persian sport.

POOL AND PYRAMIDS are both a form of billiards, and their origin from the same source is apparent.

SHUFFLEBOARD probably comes from the same source as quoits, curling, and bowling. It was immensely popular in England during the reign of Henry VIII. Subsequently it was one of the games forbidden by law because it turned the people from the practise of archery.

TENNIS is pronounced the oldest of all the existing ball-games. It is impossible to give its origin, but it was played in Europe during the Middle Ages, in the parks or ditches of the feudal castles. It was at first the pastime of kings and nobles, but later it grew popular with all classes. The French took it from the Italians and the English from the French.

WHIST undoubtedly is derived from the old game of trumps, which has a purely English lineage. There is no record of the origin of this game nor of its development into ruff-and-honors, which was the parent of whist. The earliest reference to it is believed to be in a sermon of Latimer’s, about the year 1529. The name probably is derived from the “hist” or “silence” which close attention to play demands of the players.