(_d_) It will be seen, from the description of the way this game is played, that it consists of imitative actions of different events in life, or of actions imitating trades and occupations. It was probably at one time played by both girls and boys, young men and young women. It is now but seldom played by boys, and therefore those verses containing lines describing male occupations are not nearly so frequently met with as those describing girls' or womens' life only. Young girl, sweetheart, or going courtin', marriage, birth of children, loss of baby and husband, widowhood, and the occupations of washing and cleaning, exactly sum up the principal and important events in many working womens' lives--comprising, in fact, the whole. This was truer many years ago than now, and the mention in many versions of school girl, teacher, governess, indicate in those versions the influence which education, first in the shape of dame or village schools, Sunday schools, and latterly Board schools, has had upon the minds and playtime of the children. These lines may certainly be looked upon as introductions by the children of comparatively modern times, and doubtless have taken the place of some older custom or habit. This game is exactly one of those to which additions and alterations of this kind can be made without destroying or materially altering, or affecting, its sense. It can live as a simple game in an almost complete state long after its original wording has been lost or forgotten, and as long as occupations continue and events occur which lend themselves to dumb action. The origin of the game I consider to be those dances and songs performed in imitation of the serious avocations of life, when such ceremonies were considered necessary to their proper performance, and acceptable to the deities presiding over such functions, arising from belief in sympathetic magic.
At harvest homes it was customary for the men engaged in the work of the farm to go through a series of performances depicting their various occupations with song and dance, from their engagement as labourers until the harvest was completed, and at some fairs the young men and women of the village, in song and dance, would go through in pantomimic representation, the several events of the year, such as courting, marriage, &c., and their several occupations.