describe are extremely simple as compared with rounders, and yet the
latter game is entirely overlooked!

But upon what ground have these later writers based their assumption?
Many, doubtless, have simply followed the writings from this side of the
Atlantic; others have been misled by their ignorance of the actual age
of our game, for there are even many Americans who think base-ball was
introduced by the Knickerbocker and following clubs; a few, with the
proverbial insular idea, have concluded that base-ball must be of
English origin, if for no other reason, because it ought to be.

It is not my intention to declare the old game of rounders a myth. There
is ample living testimony to its existence as early perhaps as 1830, but
that it was a popular English game before base-ball was played here I am
not yet ready to believe. Before we accept the statement that base-hall
is "only a species of glorified rounders," we should demand some proof
that the latter is really the older game. In this connection it will be
important to remember that there were two English games called
"rounders," but entirely distinct the one from the other. Johnson's
Dictionary, edition of 1876, describes the first, and presumably the
older, as similar to "fives" or hand-ball, while the second is the game
supposed to be allied to base-ball. "Fives" is one of the oldest of
games, and if it or a similar game was called "rounders," it will
require something more than the mere occurrence of the name in some old
writing to prove that the game referred to is the "rounders" as now
played. And if this cannot be shown, why might we not claim, with as
much reason as the other theory has been maintained, that the "old
English game of rounders" is only a poor imitation of the older American
game of base-ball?

Up to this point we have waived the question of resemblance between the
two games, but let us now inquire what are the points of similarity.

Are these, after all, so striking as to warrant the assumption that one
game was derived from the other, no matter which may be shown to be the
older? In each there are "sides;" the ball is tossed to the striker, who
hits it with a bat; he is out if the ball so hit is caught; he runs to
different bases in succession and may be put out if hit by the ball when
between the bases. But with this the resemblance ceases. In base-ball
nine men constitute a side, while in rounders there may be any number
over three. In ba