No game has been more popular with children than this, and any summer evening, in the poorer quarters of the cities, it may still be seen how six years instructs three years in the proper way of conducting it. Two players, by their uplifted hands, form an arch, representing the bridge, under which passes the train of children, each clinging to the garments of the predecessor, and hurrying to get safely by. The last of the train is caught by the lowered arms of the guardians of the bridge, and asked, "Will you have a diamond necklace or a gold pin?" "a rose or a cabbage?" or some equivalent question. The keepers have already privately agreed which of the two each of these objects shall represent, and, according to the prisoner's choice, he is placed behind one or the other. When all are caught, the game ends with a "Tug of War," the two sides pulling against each other; and the child who lets go, and breaks the line, is pointed at and derided. The words of the rhyme sung while the row passes under the bridge are now reduced to two lines, London Bridge is falling down, My fair lady! Readers may wonder why this well-known game should be classed as _mythological_; but such a character appears in the European versions. Thus, in Suabia, the two keepers of the "Golden Bridge" are called respectively the "Devil" and the "Angel," and the object is to decide who shall be devils and who angels. In France the game is known as "Heaven and Hell." The children who have made a good choice, after the selection is finished, pursue the devils, making the sign of horns with fingers extended from the forehead. In Italy, the name of the sport is "Open the Gates." The gates are those of the Inferno and of Paradise; _St. Peter_ is the keeper of one, _St. Paul_ of the other. The children choose between _wine_ and _water_; but when the destiny of the last child is decided, the two girls who represent the keepers of the bridge break their arch of lifted hands and move in different directions, followed by their subjects, "while the cries and shrieks of the players condemned to the Inferno contrast with the pathetic songs and sweet cadences of those destined to the happiness of Paradise." The game is mentioned by Rabelais (about A.D. 1533) under the name of the "Fallen Bridge." In German versions, the keepers are called "Devil and Angel," "King and Emperor," or "Sun and Moon." In this latter form the game has been one of the few kept up by the Germans of Pennsylvania, who call it the "Bridge of Holland."[127]