Oh thou who persuadest man that for money down great good shall result to him from any kind of spiritual incantation--twist and turn it as ye will--mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur: "With but a single change of name, The story fits thee quite the same." And few and far between are the Romanys--or even the Romans--who would not "vara earnestly advise ye to try it." Since I wrote that last line I have met, in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, with a very interesting article on the Counting-out Rhymes of Children, in which the writer, H. Carrington Bolton, avows his belief that these doggerel verses or rhymes are the survivals of sortileges or divination by lot, and that it was practised among the ancient heathen nations as well as the Israelites:-- "The use of the lot at first received divine sanction, as in the story of Achan related by Joshua, but after this was withheld the practice fell into the hands of sorcerers--which very name signifies lot-taker. The doggerels themselves I regard as a survival of the spoken charms used by sorcerers in ancient times in conjunction with their mystic incantations. There are numerous examples of these charms, such as-- "'Huat Hanat Huat ista pista sista domiabo damnaustra.' (Cato, 235 B.C.) "And-- "'Irriori, ririori essere rhuder fere.' "And-- "'Meu, treu, mor, phor Teux, za, zor Phe, lou, chri, Ge, ze, on.' (Alexander of Tralles.) "Tylor in his 'Primitive Culture' holds that things which occupy an important place in the life-history of grown men in a savage state become the playthings of children in a period of civilization; thus the sling and the bow and arrow, which formed the weapons of mankind in an early stage of its existence, and are still the reliance of savage tribes, have become toys in the hands of all civilized children at the present day. Many games current in Europe and America are known to be sportive imitations of customs which formerly had a significant and serious aspect. "Adopting this theory, I hold that counting-out is a survival of the practice of the sorcerer, using this word in its restricted and etymological meaning, and that the spoken and written charms originally used to enforce priestly power have become adjuncts to these puerile games, and the basis of the counting-out doggrels under consideration.