A New Game

Ladies, we are told, are growing tired of lawn tennis. When tennis came in it was an easy, rather lazy, go-as-you-please kind of game. but as time went on it experienced the common fate of such pastimes, and was surrounded by rules and regulations until it became almost as scientific as cricket. It was necessary to be constantly playing if you were not to be set down as a duffer. Moreover, the simple leisurely game permitted young ladies to keep comfortably cool and look their best – which is, after all, an essential requirement in an outdoor game for women. Now the pace is so furious that the young person who engages in tennis gets very hot and crumpled by a disagreeable process.

The disderatum, therefore, seems to be some game that will possess the interest of lawn tennis without requiring quite so much physical exertion, and we understand that Mr. Mackie, of the training ship, Mercury, has invented a game which combines the activity of lawn tennis with the skill of billiards. Those who like activity will find plenty of scope for their energies on one side, and those who like taking things calmly can go on the other. Such a combination as this ought to be popular, and if Mr. Mackie can carry out all that he claims for his new game he will be hailed as a public benefactor.

Source: Isle of Wight Observer 18 July 1891 

Picture source: A Rally 1885 by Sir John Lavery, Wikimedia commons