Pits
A game at marbles. The favourite recreation with the young fishermen in West Cornwall. Forty years ago “Pits” and “Towns” were the common games, but the latter only is now played. Boys who hit their nails are looked on with great contempt, and are said “to fire Kibby.” When two are partners, and one in playing accidentally hits the other’s marble, he cries out, “No custance,” meaning that he has a right to put back the marble struck; should he fail to do so, he would be considered “out.”—Folk-lore Journal, v. 60. There is no description of the method of playing. It may be the same as “[Cherry Pits],” played with marbles instead of cherry stones (vol. i. p. 66). Mr. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children, p. 187, says “The pits are thrown over the palm; they must fall so far apart that the fingers can be passed between them. Then with a fillip of the thumb the player makes his pit strike the enemy’s and wins both.”
Pize Ball
Sides are picked; as, for example, six on one side and six on the other, and three or four marks or tuts are fixed in a field. Six go out to field, as in [cricket], and one of these throws the ball to one of those who remain “at home,” and the one “at home” strikes or pizes it with his hand. After pizing it he runs to one of the “tuts,” but if before he can get to the “tut” he is struck with the ball by one of those in the field, he is said to be burnt, or out. In that case the other side go out to field.—Addy’s Sheffield Glossary.
See “[Rounders].”
Plum Pudding
A game at marbles of two or more boys. Each puts an equal number of marbles in a row close together, a mark is made at some little distance called taw; the distance is varied according to the number of marbles in a row. The first boy tosses at the row in such a way as to pitch just on the marbles, and so strike as many as he can out of the line; all that he strikes out he takes; the rest are put close together again, and two other players take their turn in the same manner, till all the marbles are struck out of the line, when they all stake afresh and the game begins again.—Baker’s Northamptonshire Glossary.
Plum Pudding and Roast Beef
Mentioned by Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases, as the name of a game. Undescribed, but nearly the same as [French and English].