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 quently formulated into a code of playing rules adopted by the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, of New York, upon its organization in 1845. The number of players participating in a game was limited to eighteen—nine on a side; a Pitcher, a Catcher, a Short Stop, First, Second and Third Basemen, Right, Center, and Left Fielders, Four Bases, Bat and Ball, and was the game of Base Ball substantially as played to-day.

The following, from the Memphis Appeal, of date unknown to the writer, is a fair and interesting description of the game as played in the days of long ago:

"Time will not turn backward in his flight, but the mind can travel back to the days before Base Ball, or at least to the days before Base Ball was so well known and before it had become so scientific. There were ball games in those days, in town and country, and the country ball game was an event. There were no clubs. The country boy of those days was not gregarious. He preferred flocking by himself and remaining independent. On Saturday afternoons the neighborhood boys met on some well cropped pasture, and whether ten or forty, every one was to take part in the game. Self-appointed leaders divided the boys into two companies by alternately picking one until the supply was exhausted. The bat, which was no round stick, such as is now used, but a stout paddle, with a blade two inches thick and four inches wide, with a convenient handle dressed onto it, was the chosen arbiter. One of the leaders spat on one side of the bat, which was honestly called 'the paddle,' and asked the leader of the opposition forces, 'Wet, or dry?' The paddle was then sent whirling up into the air, and when it came down, whichever side won went to the bat, while the others scattered over the field. The ball was not what would be called a National League ball, nowadays, but it served every purpose. It was usually made on the spot by some boy offering up his woolen socks as an oblation, and these were raveled and wound round a bullet, a handful of strips cut from a rubber overshoe, a piece of cork or almost anything, or nothing, when anything was not available. The winding of this ball was an art, and whoever could excel in this art was looked upon as a superior being. The ball must be a perfect sphere and the threads as regularly laid as the wire on a helix of a magnetic armature. When the winding was complete the surface of the ball was thoroughly sewed with a large needle and thread to prevent it from