ment of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum.

In the days when card playing was at its height many fine brass counter
trays and curious card trays were fashioned in brass and copper. Some of
these may very well be collected, and are suitable receptacles for old
metal counters, of which there are many varieties. Some of these
counters were made by the diesinkers who helped tradesmen to provide
themselves with token change, and they bear a striking resemblance to
the contemporary metallic currency. Others were chiefly hand engraved,
and often sold in small metal and silver boxes, those dating from the
time of Queen Anne being the most interesting. The most popular card
counters in the early days of the nineteenth century were brass copies
of the spade-ace gold guinea, which they closely resembled, and it is
feared, when gilt, were not infrequently palmed off as genuine gold.

Outdoor Amusements.

The outdoor games practised when household curios were being fashioned
necessitated fewer accessories than such games do to-day, and many of
them were crude and obviously the work of amateurs. Yet the same games
were being played and possibly enjoyed as much, although the sport was
rougher!

When we think of winter amusements in the past somehow we conjure up
pictures of hard frosts and crisp snow, although rain, damp, and fog
were probably frequent visitors in Old England. Some of the games can be
traced back to very early days--such, for instance, as skating, many
ancient skates having been found. There is a remarkable contrast between
the beautifully made skates now used on the comparatively rare occasions
when the ice bears and the roller skates used all the year round, to
those curious bone skates, so very primitive in their construction,
examples of which are to be found in several local museums. In the Hull
Museum, among the Market Weighton antiquities, there is a choice
collection from East Yorkshire; one, made from the cannon bone of a
horse, is smooth and well polished, having seen some active use,
evidently belonging to some skater in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century.

The bone skates were fastened on to the feet much the same as metal
skates, but they had no cutting edges, and consequently the skater
carried a stick shod with an iron point, and by its aid propelled
himself forward. Fitzstephen, writing in the time of Edward II,
describes the ponds at Moorfields where the citizens of London skated.
The