About 1770 the games[10] popular at Eton were “Cricket, Fives, Shirking Walls, Scrambling Walls, Bally-cally, Battledores, Pegtop, Peg in the ring, Goals, Hopscotch, Heading, Conquering Lobs, Hoops, Marbles, Trap-ball, Steal-baggage, Puss in the corner, Cat-gallows, Kites, Cloyster and Flyer gigs, Tops, Humming-Tops, Hunt the Hare, Hunt the dark lanthorn, Chuck, Sinks, Store-Caps, Hustle-cap.” Of football, it will be observed, there is no mention; nevertheless it was played, though not in very good repute. Fives, of course, was then played between the buttresses of the Chapel, the favourite time being before eleven-o’clock school, when a ring of spectators would assemble to watch good players. As every one knows, the pepper-box of the modern fives court takes its origin from the stone termination of the steps leading up to the Chapel door, which was copied in the first regular fives court built at Eton in 1847. It would seem that the old Eton authorities, whilst not disapproving of games, did not attach any very considerable importance to them. In theory, indeed, boating on the Thames was forbidden, but in practice even Keate tolerated the joys of the river, though he made violent efforts to prevent any rowing before Easter, in order to prevent the boys from catching chills. [SN: HOCKEY] In the ’forties of the last century foot races and the three-mile steeplechase, with its almost impossible jumps and immersions, were a source of considerable interest just before Easter. The winter games were then football and hockey, the latter of which, however, only held its ground for a time, during which it was patronised by many of the swells. There was then a tradition, which still seems to exist, that it had been from time to time forbidden as dangerous; nevertheless it was played for years without either injury or any reprimand. The sticks were not rough, but smoothed and artificially bent, with blades about a foot long. There were two clubs, called upper and lower hockey; but football gradually superseded it, and the game entirely disappeared about the year 1853. With regard to the prohibition, a writer mentions (in 1832) hockey and football as the chief winter games at Eton, and says that more came away “hobbling” from the latter than from the former, but speaks further on of a boy having in his room “an illegal hockey-stick.” He observes that this fine old game had died out in England, except at Eton and Sandhurst, and adds quaintly: “It is one of the most elegant and gentlemanly exercises, being susceptible of very graceful attitudes, and requiring great speed of foot.”