relish to the toast or muffin, which formed
part of their favourite meal, they used a
tiny dredger filled with salt, which was
called a "muffineer." If they wished to
extinguish a candle without the crush of
tallow which results from the employment
of the extinguisher, or that curtailment of
the wick which is consequent on the use of
the snuffers, they had for this purpose a
useful little instrument, which bore the
name " douter," unquestionably a
contraction of " do-outer," as the old-world
"don" and " doff" are contractions of
" do-on" and " do-off." It consisted of two
small discs of polished steel, which were
worked like snuffers, and simply pinched
out the light without shortening the wick
or destroying the symmetry of the candle.
Were our grandmothers troubled with an
annoying irritation between the shoulder-
blades, they could avail themselves of a
thin rod of ivory, terminating in the miniature
semblance of a human hand, which,
with more accuracy than elegance, was
termed a " scratch-back."

The development of the unpretending
box of toys into the magnificent combinations
which now dazzle youthful eyes,
is not analogous to that of the caterpillar
into the moth, where the more perfect
phase is attained by the destruction of the
other two. The little box of toys still
exists, is much cheaper than it was years
ago, and is procurable anywhere, but it has
lost caste. Peregrine, recalling the days of
his childhood by buying for a penny a
wooden regiment, for which his mother
would have paid sixpence or a shilling,
would seriously reflect that he must have
been a very shabby child, after all.

Where toys have outlived the operations
of time, they can be obtained at a price
which, forty years ago, would have been
deemed unreasonably reasonable. The cost
of the articles vended at that great mart of
juvenile nicknacks— the Lowther Arcade
—is a small fraction of that which would
have been demanded under the reign of
the fourth King George. Nay, with the
sole exception of the rocking-horse, those
very expensive toys, which are now so
conspicuous in the highest class of shops, did
not then exist. The toy that then cost
sixpence would now cost a penny, but, as a
general rule, there were no playthings at
golden prices to tempt the fondest and
most lavish of grandmammas. Five
shillings would have been expended in the
purchase of a gimcrack that would now cost
one; but a five- shilling present, which
would have been considered handsome
then, would make a paltry figure now.

In the Georgian era, we children were
easily satisfied, and that brings me back to
the toys that are either lost utterly, or are
sunk into a low social stratum, whence they
are not to be recovered.

I clearly recollect that I had a great
admiration for a plaything which was
called sometimes Jacob's Ladder,
sometimes Aaron's Bells. It consisted of six
oblong pieces of wood, adorned with
pictures on both sides, and so connected with
tapes that when the top piece, which was
held in the hand, was turned down, all
the others would turn down likewise by an
apparently spontaneous movement, causing
a new series of pictures to be presented to
the eye, which was highly gratified by the
change, as were also the ears by the clattering
of the wooden tablets and the tinkling
of some little bells with which they were
decorated. The last time I saw Jacob's
Ladder was many years ago. A very
rudely made specimen of the article, without
any bells, was carried about the streets
by an itinerant vendor, at an absurdly low
price.

By the way, the itinerant toymen seem
always to have dealt in a class of ware
different from, that sold in shops. Early in
this century a Chinaman, who sold a small
drum, which, with peas inside, answered
the purpose of a rattle, and a fish suspended
at the end of a line, was as well-known a
figure as the old Turk who sold rhubarb
in Cheapside. There was another drum
which was hung from a stick by a piece of
horsehair, and when this was whirled
round a rattling sound was produced, not
by the drum itself, which was merely a
weight, but by the friction of the horsehair
against the stick. A modern and very
attractive street toy was an ingenious
machine, the mere movement of which caused
a large flock of clay birds to flutter down
a number of wires. Ten years have not
elapsed since this ingenious toy was at the
height of its popularity, but we do not
often see it now.

The flat wooden snake, with joints of
catgut, which, held by the tip of the tail,
waves backwards and forwards to the terror
of timid urchins, has still its place in some
toy-shops; so also has the toad, whose tail,
turned round, is fastened under the throat
with cobbler's- wax, and who leaps when
the wax becomes less adhesive, though
this rude method of producing spontaneous
motion is driven into shade by the