Name for teetotum ordinarily manufactured by sticking a pointed peg through a bone button.—Easther’s Almondbury Glossary; also in SW. Lincolnshire, Cole’s Glossary.
See “[Totum].”
Scotch-hoppers
In Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1677, in the verses to the reader, on the back of the title-page, concerning the chief matters in the volume, among many other articles of intelligence, the author professes to show—
“The time when school boys should play at Scotch-hoppers.”
Another allusion occurs in the same periodical for 1707—“Lawyers and Physitians have little to do this month, and therefore they may (if they will) play at Scotch-hoppers. Some men put their hands into peoples’ pockets open, and extract it clutch’d, of that beware. But counsel without a cure, is a body without a soul.” And again, in 1740—“The fifth house tells ye whether whores be sound or not; when it is good to eat tripes, bloat herrings, fry’d frogs, rotten eggs, and monkey’s tails butter’d, or an ox liver well stuck with fish hooks; when it is the most convenient time for an old man to play at Scotch-hoppers amongst the boys. In it also is found plainly, that the best armour of proof against the fleas, is to go drunk to bed.”
See “[Hopscotch],” “[Tray-Trip].”
Scots and English
Boys first choose sides. The two chosen leaders join both hands, and raising them high enough to let the others pass through below, cry—
Brother Jack, if ye’ll be mine,
I’ll gie ye claret wine;
Claret wine is good and fine,
Through the needle ee, boys.