ipulated by the fingers. The modern picture theatre, with
all its attractions to grown-up folks, was foreshadowed in the very
primitive magic lantern, which threw a cloudy disc and an almost
undiscernible picture, by the aid of an evil-smelling oil lamp, on an
old sheet hung up in the nursery.

Old Games.

There are many curios reminding us of indoor games and winter amusements
now obsolete, and of the change which has gone on in games still played.
When we recall the number of new games which have been introduced during
the last quarter of a century, it is surprising how few have survived.
New games come and go, and their accessories are discarded as but toys
of the moment. Most of the popular games are those which have been
handed down throughout the ages, many of them of great antiquity,
especially scientific games and games of skill. Among these games, or
rather the apparatus for playing them, are often curios, for they are
quite different to and often more decorative than those used in playing
similar games to-day. We are accustomed to plain leather or wood chess
and draught boards and the regulation patterns of the men nowadays, but
formerly much time was expended in decorating and enriching chess boards
and men. The boards often served other purposes too, many being
beautifully inlaid and reversible; thus the older game boards were
fitted with slides for backgammon, provision being made for chess,
merelles, and fox and geese, the oak of which they were often made being
relieved with rich marqueterie (_tarsia_) of ebony, ivory, and silver.

It is not often that a collection of old chessmen is found among
household curios, although it was not uncommon to discover among sundry
ivory carvings a few odd pieces which had been secured on account of
their beautiful carving. In India and China some very remarkable
chessmen have been produced. The origin of the game is lost in
antiquity, although it was played in the East at a very early period. It
is said to have been introduced into Spain from Arabia, and to have been
played by the Hindus more than a thousand years ago. It was certainly
known in this country before the Norman Conquest. Some few years ago a
very remarkable collection of chessmen, such as may be seen in isolated
sets or still more frequently represented by single pieces in cabinets
of old ivories, was dispersed under the hammer in a London saleroom.
There were Chinese sets in red and white, wonderful f