How Many Miles to Babylon? In the 1824 edition of "The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" there's a description of the rhyme and the game, giving the distance as "six, seven or a lang eight". The rhyme was originally accompanied by a singing game in which two lines face each other, with one player in the middle. At the end of the rhyme the players have to cross the space and any caught help the original player in the middle catch the others. The game seems to have fallen out of use in the twentieth century. In literature In film In music How Many Miles to Babylon?
The Bells (play) "The Bells", by Leopold Lewis. The opening night of "The Bells" on 25 November 1871 was held before a small audience, and during the performance a woman fainted in the stalls. The audience sat in stunned silence at the end of the play. However, they then gave the play, and Irving's performance, a great ovation. George R Sims later wrote for "The Evening News": "... There were plenty of stalls vacant at the Lyceum, and the author and I sat in two of them... The first part of "The Bells" was not very enthusiastically received, but the audience was undoubtedly