There is one thing of which those who deny the identity of any counting-out rhymes with spells are not aware. These incantations are very much in vogue with the Italian peasantry, as with the gypsies. They are repeated on all occasions for every disorder, for every trifle lost, for every want. Every child has heard them, and their jingle and even their obscurity make them attractive. They are just what children would be likely to remember and to sing over, and the applying them to games and to "counting-out" would follow as a matter of course. In a country where every peasant, servant-girl and child knows at least a few spells, the wonder would be if some of these were not thus popularized or perverted. It is one thing to sit in one's library and demonstrate that this or that ought not to be, because it is founded on a "theory" or "idea," and quite another to live among people where these ideas are in active operation. Washington Irving has recorded that one of the Dutch governors of New York achieved a vast reputation for wisdom by shrugging his shoulders at everything and saying, "I have my doubts as to that." And truly the race of Wouter van Twiller is not extinct as yet by any means among modern critics. It is worth noting in this connection that in Mrs. Valentine's Nursery Rhymes (Camden edition) there are fifteen charms given which are all of a magical nature. Since the foregoing chapter was written I have obtained in Florence several additional instances of children's rhymes which were spells. Nearly allied to this subject of sorcery in the nursery is The Game of the Child-stealing Witch, which, as W. Wells Newell has shown in a very interesting and valuable contribution to the American Folk-Lore Journal, vol. iii., April, 1890, is found in many languages and lands.