Those curious little boy figures known as Chelsea and Bow Cupids are for the most part classed with ornaments, but they more appropriately belong to table appointments, for in olden time when the cloth had been removed these curious little figures were placed upon the mahogany or oaken board along with the dessert, as if to guard the fruit and the wine. The Cupids are garlanded with flowers, baskets of which they have in their hands--delightful little figures when genuine antiques. They vary in size and are said to have been divided in the past as "small" and "large" boys. Nutcrackers. Many a famous joke has been cracked over the "walnuts and wine." It was when the board was cleared of the viands that the nuts and fruit were partaken of. The edible nuts mostly favoured before foreign supplies came into the market were the hazel, walnut, chestnut, and the famous Kent filberts. Although doubtless supplemented by any objects handy, the primitive method of cracking nuts with the teeth was generally practised by the common people. What more natural than for the early inventor to see in the human head the "box" in which to place his mechanical device and to give power and leverage by utilizing the legs of the man he had carved in wood. In the Middle Ages some remarkable carvings were produced, mostly working on the same lines as the earliest forms. In the seventeenth century, when metal crackers came into vogue, pressure was applied by means of a screw, and the contemporary wood crackers were designed on that principle. Afterwards the older type of cracker was revived, both in wood and metal; subsequently the simpler form at present in use was adopted.