Chats on Household Curios Part 16

In the relics of these former plays and sports there is much to admire, and many objects to collect.

There is something very pathetic about the household relics of the playroom and the nursery. Many little articles of clothing and valueless toys and trinkets are retained by a fond mother years after her offspring has grown up. They remind her of her early married life, and very often of children who have played in the nursery but who never lived to grow up. These pathetic relics have been carefully preserved for at least one generation. Then their a.s.sociations have been forgotten, and those into whose hands they fall probably know nothing of their origin; to them they are merely curios. A sympathetic feeling may have induced a new owner to retain them for a little while longer, although of no great intrinsic value; but oftener than not they have been kept as connecting links between the old and the new, and thus they have been handed on until their age alone would make them collectable curios in this day of reverence for all things old!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 90.--CURIOUS TYPES OF WHISTLES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 91.--QUAINT OLD TOY.

(_In the possession of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin._)]

There has been a remarkable sequence in the toys of children of all generations, and of races far apart. The same games have been played, and the same toys used. Now and then a child more careful than usual preserves his or her toys when grown to man's or woman's estate; but such collections are rare. There are some noted collections, however, which have pa.s.sed into the range of museum curios, grouped together as representative of the period when they were played with--authentic records of the playthings of that day. In Fig. 91 there is a remarkable old toy now in the diversified collection of household curios and antique furniture of Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin.

Dolls.

Probably the commonest toy is the doll, which children have ever regarded as the ideal plaything. The maternal instinct is strong in the youngest girl, and dolls are often looked upon as something more than mere toys. They are talked to, played with, and treated as if they were human beings. Their realism, at first imagined, seems to have grown up with their long use until a personality surrounds each one of the dolls in the nursery. Now and then a quaint doll is treasured as having been the plaything of more than one generation, especially so the old wooden Dutch dolls, strong and lasting, which have in some instances been handed on as playthings, almost as family heirlooms.

The most famous collection of dolls played with by one child, and yet dressed to cover almost every period of English history--a veritable history of costume--is that famous collection in the London Museum, consisting of dolls dressed by and for the late Queen Victoria, who, doubtless, had unique opportunities of copying correctly the costumes of the Court, and of others less high in social status, during the reigns of the English sovereigns who had preceded her.

Few, if any, can hope to possess such a representative collection; there are many who can find, however, curiously dressed dolls which are very helpful in learning something of local costumes and useful instructors in research after the habits and occupations of people who may have lived in places and districts little known to the present generation.

Some children's toys are much older than they appear at first sight to be, for many very similar playthings were found in the playrooms of boys and girls who lived two thousand years ago. There are the dolls and quaint little figures played with by Greek and Roman children. Among the more familiar objects were little wooden tortoises, ducks, and pigs.

Some were cleverly carved out of wood, and the arms and legs of dolls moved, much the same as the Dutch dolls of later days. Those children had chariots and horses of metal much the same as children have leaden soldiers now. They trundled hoops of bronze, in some of them bells being placed in the centre, ringing as they ran along. Some of the toys of these little Roman and Greek maidens and youths were very elaborate, and must have belonged to the children of the wealthy, who, like modern parents, gave presents to them on "name" days.

Toys have always served the double purpose of amus.e.m.e.nt and education.

Years before kindergarten methods were adopted--although unknown, probably, to parents--scientific and philosophic toys were doing good work, and driving home elementary truths. There were curious cylindrical mirrors, the inevitable kaleidoscope, and the water imps, an amusing toy, for the imps, inserted in a bowl or bottle of water, bobbed about in a curious way when the india-rubber cap which covered the neck was pressed and manipulated 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 figures standing upon concentric b.a.l.l.s; antique Persian sets in cream-coloured ivory decorated in colours and gold, kings and queens on elephants, knights on horses, and bishops on camels; Burmese sets with royal personages seated on chairs of state; and some very remarkable English porcelain, Wedgwood ware, and Minton pottery sets.

Several finds of Scandinavian chessmen, made, probably, in the twelfth century, have been made in the island of Lewis. From these and other sets met with in other places much has been learned about the evolution in the game.

The queen does not appear to have been introduced into the game until the eleventh century. The castle has undergone many changes; its older name of "rook" was derived from the Persian word _rokh_, a hero. No doubt all the pieces were then carved personalities, well understood from king to p.a.w.n. In the modern forms of Staunton and London Club patterns the knight alone retains its semblance in the horse's head--a poor subst.i.tute for the beautifully carved warrior on horseback seen in some of the older sets.

Draughts, or dames, is also a game of antiquity; and in the British Museum there is a set said to date back to the Saxon period. Some of the old boards are interesting relics, and the sets of carved draughtsmen, now scarce, are beautiful works of art.

Backgammon is one of the older kindred games, frequently played on the interior of the chess board which was for that purpose marked with twelve points or fleches in alternate colours. In this game dice were used, and some of the old dice cups are very prettily decorated.

Cribbage played with cards and a board is said to be essentially an English game. Some very remarkable cribbage boards were made many years ago, many of metal, others of wood and ivory; one exceptionally interesting piece, a bra.s.s cribbage board, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is engraved: "MR. CHRISTR ELLIOTT AT WINBORROW GREEN, SUSs.e.x 1768."

Cards, of which there are so many curious types among the old examples found in many homes, were introduced into the West of Europe from the East about the fourteenth century. At first they were hand drawn and coloured, then printed from wood blocks, being subsequently printed from blocks and plates engraved on the types which were gradually standardized. Some very interesting collections of old cards have been made, one of the most complete being that of Lady Charlotte Schreiber, now in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum.

In the days when card playing was at its height many fine bra.s.s counter trays and curious card trays were fashioned in bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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 Amus.e.m.e.nts.

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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 ponds have long been dried up and built over; it is there, however, where, during excavations, some very fine examples of the old bone skates have been found.

Relics of Old Sport.

Among the relics of old sport met with are the curious and often beautifully embroidered hoods of white leather used in the days of hawking. These pretty little hoods, which were placed over the head of the hawk when carried on the wrist to the hunting field, were often embroidered in panels and furnished with braces for tying round the hawk's head. In the British Museum there is a curious silver lock-ring for a hawk engraved with arms and owner's name, apparently of seventeenth-century workmanship. No doubt the real purport of such curios is often overlooked, for not infrequently hawks' hoods have been found amongst old dolls' clothing, having been given to children in later years as playthings.

Guns, Pistols, and Flasks.

Eastern weapons have been brought over to this country in large numbers, some of them very ancient. It is said that among some of the Arab tribes it is no uncommon thing to meet with swords and daggers of antique form, richly damascened, and sometimes with jewelled hilts, made a thousand years or more ago, and a few years ago Crusaders' relics could be met with in the East. Many of these knives have silica blades, some of the handles being of jade. Those of grey jade are often pique with gold, others, of ivory, being inlaid with jewels.

There is not very much to interest in old guns of English make, for few found in houses date back beyond the commencement of the nineteenth century. Among them, however, are flint-locks and here and there an old wheel-lock. The pistols met with among household curios are often handsome and have been preserved in leather cases, carefully stowed away. Some of them record the days of duelling, others the dangers of the road, when highway robbers lurked in every wood, and many a family coach was waylaid and its occupants robbed of their jewels and their purses of gold. To those interested in sporting, and familiar with the breech-loading guns of the present day, much interest attaches to the old powder flasks which were once necessary accompaniments of sportsmen.

There are many beautifully engraved, embossed, and decorated flasks in museums, some of the early seventeenth-century specimens being made of boxwood, others of ivory, frequently ornamented with hunting scenes. In Fig. 92 is shown a curious flint-lock powder tester, then also regarded as one of the essential accessories of the sportsman's outfit. The copper powder flask ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 93 is now in the Hull Museum. It is specially interesting in that the plain copper work is engraved in the centre with its original owner's monogram--"W R" in script. This flask, made about the year 1750, was evidently a keepsake, for engraved round the circular disc is the legend "Keep this for Joseph's sake."

In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington there are some more elaborate specimens, two of which are ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 94. They are magnificent examples of metal repousse work--a favourite decoration in the eighteenth century, copied in more inexpensive forms in the nineteenth century by makers of sporting accessories, who stamped them from dies and reproduced some of the old hunting scenes.

A review of the outdoor sports and relics of former days would scarcely be complete without some mention of swords and rapiers, which were once commonly worn, along with pistols, alas! too frequently in use when a hasty word called forth a challenge to a duel. Many of these old swords are rusty, but they frequently show marks of former use. They are needed no longer by civilians in this country, and take their places in trophies of arms, forming important features in the decorative curios of the household.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 92.--A POWDER TESTER.

FIG. 93.--A PRIMING FLASK.

(_In the Munic.i.p.al Museum, Hull._)]

XVII

MISCELLANEOUS

CHAPTER XVII

MISCELLANEOUS

Dower chests--Medicine chests--Old lacquer--The tool chest--Egyptian curios--Ancient spectacles--Curious chinaware--Garden curios--The mounting of curios--Obsolete household names.