Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1910 — CAN’T PLAY “CATTY" [ARTICLE]

CAN’T PLAY “CATTY"

POLICE ORDER MAKES BOYS OF BALTIMORE WAIL. Description of the Game That la Barred From the Streets Because Now and Then Some Pedestrian Is Injured. > " The Composite Kid of Baltimore has a kick —a real, genuine, heartthrobbing kick, says the Baltimore Evening Sun. Marshal Farnan has issued orders that boys must cease playing catty on the streets. The marshal told all the assembled captains of districts that Chief Engineer Samuel Dukehart of the Veteran Volunteer Firemen’s association had been struck in the face by one of the flying cattles. And the marshal said that this thing of playing catty on the streets must stop. Here is the way you play catty: Take a two or three inch piece of pine, round it off and whittle both ends to a point; lay the catty on the ground, hit one end with a stick and as it flops up in the air smash it as you would bat a ball. Then you tell the other kid to get it in so many jumps, and if he can’t do it he gets a whack across the pocket handkerchief with the bat. That’s the game Marshal Farnan is stopping, because, now and then, an indiscreet batter lands the catty in a pedestrian’s eye, or spreads consternation in a group of front step sitters in an otherwise eminently quiet neighborhood. The Composite Kid was standing outside the courthouse this morning while Marshal Farnan was Issuing his orders. He was freckled and snubnosed and had a string tied around his right great toe. In one hahd he carried a dead sparrow and in the other a cigarette. “What do you think of that?" he exclaimed in disgust. “Say, mister, what chance’s a boy got nowadays, anyhow? Why, first thing you know they’ll be passing laws to keep kids from growing. I was raised in Anne Arundel county, but my dad sold the farm and bought some ground rents up on Lexington street, so we moved to town to board. Soon’s I came here I found out there wasn t a swimming hole nearen’n Gwynn falls or the public baths over in Patterson park, where you have to wear bathing suits, and darn bathing suits for kids, that’s what I say. I saw a lot of kids crawling through a sewer pipe to swim in Jones falls up by the candy factory, but that’s too dirty for me. And we had the darndest time trying to get a place to live. The agent wanted to know how many children there was, and asked if the boys were rough on wall paper."