Slate Games

: NURSERY GAMES
: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales

Entertaining puzzles or exercises upon the slate are generally great

favorites with children. A great variety of them are current in the

nursery, or rather were so some years ago. The story of the four rich

men, the four poor men, and the pond, was one of these; the difficulty

merely requiring a zig-zag inclosure to enable it to be satisfactorily

solved.



Once upon a time there was a pond lying upon common land, which was

extremely commodious for fishing, bathing, and various other purposes.

Not far from it lived four poor men, to whom it was of great service;

and farther off, there lived four rich men. The latter envied the poor

men the use of the pond, and, as inclosure bills had not then come into

fashion, they wished to invent an inclosure-wall which should shut out

the poor men from the pond, although they lived so near it, and still

give free access to the rich men, who resided at a greater distance. How

was this done?