Judge Sewall wrote of Shrove Tuesday in Boston in 1685 that there was great disorder in Boston by reason of "cock-skailing." Another year he tells of a young lad going through Boston streets "carrying a cock on his back and a bell in his hand." Several friends followed him, loosely blindfolded and carrying cart whips; and under pretence of striking at him managed to distribute their blows with stinging force on the gaping crowd around. This was an old English custom. At a later date the sport of shying at leaden cocks prevailed. The "dumps" which were thrown, and the crude little images of lead and pewter shaped like a cock, were often made and sold by apprentices as part of their perquisites. Cock-fighting was popular in the Southern colonies and New York. There are prohibitions against it in the rules of William and Mary College. Certainly it was not encouraged or permitted here as in English schools, where boys had cock-fights in the schoolroom; and where that great teacher, Roger Ascham, impoverished himself with dicing and cock-fighting. Cock-fights were often held on Shrove Tuesday. The picture of Colonel Richard Wynkoop, shown on the opposite page, was painted when he was twelve years old; the dim figures of two fighting cocks can be seen by his side. They are obscured by the sword which the colonel carried during the Revolution, and which is thrust in front of the picture. The cruel Dutch sport of riding for the goose, was riding at full speed to catch a swinging greased goose. Young lads sometimes took part in this, but no small boys. [Illustration: Cornelius D. Wynkoop, Eight Years Old, 1742] In _The Schole of Vertue_, 1557, we read:-- "O, Lytle childe, eschew thou ever game For that hath brought many one to shame. As dysing, and cardynge, and such other playes Which many undoeth, as we see nowe-a-dayes." Playing cards were fiercely hated, and their sale prohibited in Puritan communities, but games of cards could not be "beaten down." Grown folk had a love of card-playing and gaming which seemed almost hereditary. But I do not believe young children indulged much in card-playing in any of the colonies. William Bradford, then governor of the colony at Plymouth, thus grimly records in his now famous Log-book, the first Christmas Day in that settlement:--