A War Game.—Most boys are familiar with the game known as "Tiddley-winks," in which the object is to make small bone counters hop into a cup by pressing their edges with a large bone counter.
These materials can be used for a very interesting war game, consisting of the siege of a fort. The fort is simply a front elevation, similar to that shown in Fig. 14. This is drawn out in pencil on a piece of stout cardboard (or fretwood) and coloured in with paints or crayons. The windows are then cut out; and the whole thing made to stand upright by the addition of two or three triangular supports (Fig. 15). These are hinged on to the back by means of strong tape or canvas, so that the whole thing can pack up flat.
Fig. 14.
Each player in turn places his small counters (generally six) anywhere in front of the fortress. He is now the attacking party, and his object is to shoot his counters through the different windows. If he succeeds in sending a counter through a window, then he "kills" that number of the enemy. The winner may be either the person who secures the greatest number of "kills" in a certain number of attempts—twenty-four, for instance—or the person who first succeeds in scoring say 50 "kills." Any shot missing the fort entirely—i.e. going right over or missing at the sides—is a wasted shot, and counts one off the player's score.
Fig. 15.
We propose to describe how to construct a simple
Toy Cannon—one quite easily made at a negligible cost and yet quite effective. The only extra cost will be that of a piece of strong elastic: the remainder being made of such things as cigar-or chocolate-box wood. Fig. 16 shows the finished article; and a careful study of this illustration will make clear much of the method of manufacture.