FASHION IN PASTIMES.
WHILE a certain number of pastimes remain fairly constant in the hold which they exert over the affections of the British public, others are subject to consider- able, or even astonishing, fluctuations. The curve of popu- larity, for example, described by croquet in the Last thirty years would be something like the back of a dromedary. Most people deemed it dead beyond redemption, when it was all the while cultivated by an esoteric coterie of enthusiasts, and within the last few years it has emerged from obscurity to such good purpose as to compete effectively with the very game which apparently gave it its death-blow,—lawn-tennis. The fluctuations of lawn-tennis, again, are in their way quite as remarkable. For a while it carried all before it. Everybody played the game, and the fact that it was practically the first active pastime in which the two sexes freely participated lent it an immense social prestige. Then gradually it fell into the hands A specialists, and is now cultivated mainly by experts, the recent championship meeting at Wimbledon attracting an audience curiously unlike that which used to assemble in the days of the Renshaws. For lawn-tennis, from having been essentially a pastime for the upper classes, has now been abandoned in great measure by well-to-do, and almost wholly by "smart," people, and has found acceptance in a totally different social stratum. Thus at the present moment it is played extensively by Board-school pupil. teachers at their "centres," and, in fine, after having begun life under comparatively aristocratic auspices—as the offshoot of the most aristocratic of all pastimes—it has already become declassj, and but for the expense of the implements required would sink lower still in the social scale. Concurrently with the social decline of lawn-tennis, we have witnessed in the last decade the social promotion of bicycling, which was only discovered by the " classes " a few seasons back, after having been long regarded as a recreation only fit for bank clerks and mechanics ; "cads on casters" they were all called. Yet another pastime, which from having been an accom- plishment of the wealthy has happily been placed of late years within the reach of all classes of the com- munity, is that of swimming. And here, so far from the democratising of the pastime having impaired its vogue in aristocratic or plutocratic circles, one has only to point to the establishment of the Bath Club as a proof to the contrary. As for the duck-like proficiency of the modern street-arab, an amusing instance was recently furnished to the present writer by a school inspector. It appears that in a riverside quarter of London the attendance officer had the greatest difficulty in tracing truants, as they were in the habit of evading pursuit by plunging into the Thames.
It is impossible at the present day to write of pastimes and abstain from alluding to golf. One of the most remarkable merits of that fascinating and exasperating pastime is that, although styled a " Royal " as well as an ancient game, it is hedged about by no class restrictions or exclusiveness, and is cultivated with equal enthusiasm by railway-porters and .Cabinet Ministers. The association of amateurs and pro- fessionals in golf is attended with lees friction and prejudice than in any other game, cricket not excepted. The pro- fessional status, again, is more generously and judiciously defined than in rowing, the institution on many greens of artisans' clubs, which contend in amicable rivalry with the ordinary amateurs, having worked with perfect smoothness. Golf in England, it may be added, has already outgrown the stage of a mania, and at the present moment the vast majority .of its devotees play it because they like it, and not because it is the proper thing to do, or because it serves as an excuse for wearing highly coloured hose, or promotes a thirst for aloe-gin or white port. The surrender of America to the charms of golf is even more remarkable, since, until its advent, the average American seemed unable to make leisure for any form of recreation. Cricket in America has only a small following, and most other pastimes are in the hands of professionals. But golf has changed all that, and now, throughout the length and breadth of the States, business men, to the great profit of their health if not the increase of their incomes, are in the habit of devoting one or more afternoons in the week to exercise on the links. Golf, in short, has succeeded, where all other temptations have failed, in rescuing the American from the grinding, but in the main self-imposed, tyranny of the office. And that this is no exaggerated picture of what has taken place, may be gathered from the testimony of the New York Evening Post, a paper which is by no means given to over-estimate the importance of physical culture. As a set-off against these commanding merits, it may be urged that golf breeds a larger proportion of bores, or " shop " talkers, than any other game played beneath the sun ; also that the tyranny of constant competitions detracts in great measure from its attractiveness, and even value, as a recreation. Still, few pastimes have stood the teat of an enormous expansion of popularity so well, or have been more fortunate in their literary and political hierophants. If base-ball had been championed by so graceful and convincing a pen as that of Mr. Horace Hutchinson, or cultivated by so interesting a personage as Mr. Balfour, it might have emerged from the stage of exotic existence which it still leads on our shores.
The leading tendency in modern pastime is to develop its spectacular aspect, mainly, if not entirely, from commercial motives. Over a great part of the Midlands and the North of England amateur football has been submerged by pro- fessionalism, and the clubs are financed by small syndicates, who engage players—generally from across the Border—and recoup themselves by the takings at the "gate." Hence the anomaly of a football team named after the town for which they play, but not containing a single local player. These inter- club matches are witnessed by enormous crowds—ten thousand being quite an ordinary number—including most of the able- bodied youth of the neighbourhood, who apparently prefer the Continental practice of hiring athletes to make sport for them to the older method of playing games themselves. Professional football, in fact, approximates more closely than any other institution, save that of the bull-ring, to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome. It is certainly exciting to watch, but it involves a great expenditure of money, encourages loafing, drinking, and betting amongst the spectators, and develops in the football gladiator himself qualities which, to put it mildly, do not condace to domestic happiness. Cricket, also, has been enormously developed on its spectacular side of late years, bat, happily, the amateur element is still able to hold its own, and we do not find here that disparity between the numbers of those who play and those who look on, which is observable in the case of Associa- tion football. Every Saturday afternoon, for instance, the playing fields at Baynes Park are crowded with hundreds, almost thousands, of cricketers, with only a very small sprinkling of spectators, an infinitely healthier and more satisfactory spectacle to any one who is interested in the physical wellbeing of the masses than that presented at a professional football match, when fifty thousand people, packed like sardines, will sacrifice a whole afternoon to witness the performance of two teams of mercenaries. The reductio ad absurdum of this cult of professional pastime was reached a year or so ago, when a leading daily paper, the organ of militant democracy, ardently advocated the introduction of the famous Basque game of pelota, because of its great spectacular possibilities. Now, pelota is undoubtedly a splendid game, as the most patriotic Britishers have reluctantly admitted; but it is so arduous and exhausting that for practical purposes it can only be played by highly trained experts of great strength or endurance—the Basques are men of marvellous physique— who for the rest are notorious for " selling " their matches. No, we have plenty of games, and plenty of professionalism, with all its attendant evils, without importing pelota. As it is, the Chronicle has testified its reverence for the dignity of the cricket professional by placing him on an equality with the amateur in the matter of initials, instead of calling him by his surname tout court. If pelota players were to be in- %reduced, we should probably be asked to elect them as honorary Aldermen to the L.O.C.
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