Wednesday, March 26, 2014

An Old Game: Two Sides of the Road

As a child I was familiar with a game played by two people on long car trips, involving points for things you saw on your own side. One version was the "animal game," which assigned points to birds, dogs, cats, cows, horses, and so on, with the proviso that if you passed a graveyard on your side you lost all your points. So I was much amused, to read in an 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, this description of a game:
TRAVELLING PIQUET. A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pass by on the side next them, according to the following estimation:

  A parson riding a grey horse, without furniture; game.
  An old woman under a hedge; ditto.
  A cat looking out of a window; 60.
  A man, woman, and child, in a buggy; 40.
  A man with a woman behind him; 30.
  A flock of sheep; 20.
  A flock of geese; 10.
  A post chaise; 5.
  A horseman; 2.
  A man or woman walking; 1.
Do such things still survive, or have they been entirely replaced by hand-held games and portable video players?

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