Southwest-sentinel. [volume] (Silver City, N.M.) 1883-189?, 1895-12-10
SAME OLD GAMES.
We ARe PLAYING THOSE INVENTED
BY THE ANclENTs.

1he Anasriean Indians rlayed fIasakalt.
Criokst, Lawn TennIa. Cheas and Cheek
srs Date Prom Away Back--NoveltIss In
Games Raroly Catch on.
Few q tho hundreds Of now games
that are invented every year become
popular. They may be seen in any toy
store By the scorc-lawn games and
parloF games, games of cards and games
Of ball, games for young and for old.
They are a melancholy sight, for not
one Of them will ever take the place Of
tho old standbys Of infancy and boy
hood. Even the names Of most Of them
will never be heard Of by the majority
Of American boys and girls. This is the
logic Of history.
It seems an easy matter to invent
game. The best games are 80 simple,
yet a popular game was never yet in
vented. Every ono of them has grown,
and the best of them have been growing
for hundreds Of years. Scientific men
tell us that all sorts Of queer creatures
once lived ON this earth-great lizards
with wings; sea monsters, half whale,
half seal, and rhinocoroses larger than
elephants. All these havo died away be-
cause they were not ftted to live, while
those animals that were fit for life have
gone on growing better and better, till
some--the horse, for instance---we could
not do without II is Just 80 with
games. Those live that are fit to live,
and the rest die
Our best games form o sort Of aris-
tocracy. Their pedigreeS run back to
very ancient times, and no modern up
start can compete with them. Take
baseball and cricket. for instance, prob
ably the most popular outdoor games Of
modern times, the one in our own coun-
try, the other ia England. They are
first cousins, and their hold ON Amer
ican and English boys is in all proba-
bility due to the fact that they each unite
two strong lines Of descent-that Of the
bat and ball games-to which tennis,
lacrosse, hockey, croQuet and, more dis
family, billiards also belong, and that
Of the goal games, such rs tag. puss in
the corner, spy and dozens Of others
All the nations we know anything
about had bat and ball games ages ago.
Nobody invented the bat and ball. They
grew up with our civilization from the
time when little sayages used to knock
about pebble or a fruit with a stick.
So with the goal games-they have al
ways been popular. Their name is still
legion. The goal part-thct is, the run
ming from base to base-is o much more
important part of the game in baseball
than it is in cricket, and for this reason
we Americans are justified in looking
upon baseball as the better game, all
other things being equal To be sure,
neither baseball nor cricket is the game
it was 500 years ago, but both have
grown, not changed.
Any one who chooses may trace the
growth Of cricket from the year 1900.
It is not as easy to trace the pedigree Of
baseball, for. just as with n great many
American families, there is break in
the record back in colonial times. Il is
known to have been played by tho In
dianR. Il is a thoroughly American
gnme, and no one loves IL less because
some people claim roundors as its an
cestor and others reject the claim with
scorn.
As for indoor games, we may prove
their nobility in just tho same way.
Chess comes down to us from tho an
cient Hindoos, by way OF Persia. Check
ers were played in Egypt, and then in
Greece and Rome. Cards made thoir ap-
pearance in Europe in 1850, and the
Chinese say that they used them two
centuries earlier than this. Tenpins was
certainly played in the thirteenth cen
tury, and probably much earlier. All
these have grown, bub they have not
changed their nature.
Lawn tennis is only, 1ffshoot Of the
old game Of court ten y, said TO have
been brought into Gan, = Roman sol
diers and still played Again only a
growth, not a new device. There is
halma-only variation of the old pyr-
amid game of checkers. How about
parchesiY The pompous title, IN Royal
Game OF India, -" inscribed on the old
parchesi board, is often thought to have
been only an advertising dodge, but IL
was quite true. Parohesi, called by the
Hindoos pachisi, is widely played ia
Asiatie countries, and the Spanish ex-
plorers even found the Aztecs playing it
under the name Of patolh in Mexico,
whittier it may have boen carried across
the Pacific.
These and many other instances are
worth thinking over deeply, for they
teach a lesson II any one is tired Of
the old games and wants something a
little different, let him alter the old in
the direction Of growth rather than try
TO invent something quite different. The
most successful inventors Of games have
followed this rule. Indeed II Is more
than a rule. It is a law Of nature. You
might as we'll try to please the human
palate with food made out Of sand and
sawdust as to force boy or man TO get
enjoyment out Of n game that does not
contain the old. VIII tried game oio.
ments. New York World.
words which Rhyme Not.
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