A NEW CROQUET-BOOK.* Tra editor of the handsome volume entitled
Croquet Up to Date is to be congratulated upon the attainment of an object well-nigh essential to literary success at the moment. He has succeeded in securely hitching on his subject to the great and overpowering topic of the moment,—the war in South Africa. And he has done this by the publication of a fact which, we will wager any reasonable odds, was and is unknown alike to the most learned military expert and to the most constant newspaper reader of the last six months. This fact, which we should like to communicate in adequately large type, is that President Kruger plays croquet. Croquet, to put the matter in a less dazing way, is or was recently played by the President of the Transvaal Republic. This priceless piece of "copy," to give credit where credit is due, was confided to Mr. Lillie by Messrs. Ayres, the well-known racquet and club makers, who report that one of the last sets of scientific croquet (four-inch hoops, heavy mallets, esc.) despatched from these shores in 1809 was addressed to "President Kruger, Pretoria."
We can well imagine that cynical critics who detest the slowest and most artful of outdoor games will declare that this simple and somewhat belated announcement throws a flood of light upon the character and conduct, the (supposed) obstinacy and (alleged) shiftiness, of the right honourable gentleman referred to. And it certainly does suggest a crowd of interesting socio-political questions. Where, for example, is that particular croquet set at this moment ? Is it among the numerous paraphernalia which the Boers have so uniformly succeeded in whisking away from under the very noses of our pursuing generals, even while the latter were employed in cutting the railway behind them ? Was it left in the care of Mrs. Kruger with instructions that the balls should be repainted khaki colour in order to prevent Lords Roberts and Kitchener enjoying a quiet game in leisure momenta? Did the President carry off the actual "set" in his extremely mobile saloon carriage, or merely the box labelled "croquet" and filled with bar gold? If the former, is there any level plateau in the Lydenburg district where the same could be played? It is not merely that the narrowness of the modern 4 in. hoop seems somehow connected with the "slimness" attributed to the Boers ; but that there is so much of orthodox and up-to-date croquet tactics, as any one can see from the volume before us, in what has been familiarly called "President Kruger's little game." Has not his "finesse" been sufficiently remarkable ? Is he not now engaged in "cornering,"—precisely what the experts here recommend us to do when temporarily "out of" the game, and while another person (Lord Roberts, for example) is making a long " break " ?
If any reader, after this, should question the established popularity of the "new croquet," let him know further that —by a reasonable estimate—some fifteen thousand rubber ended croquet mallets were sold last season. The rubber mallet being chiefly used by lady players, we may safely add to this another fifteen or twenty thousand of honest timber (the rubber end, it has been unkindly said, is chiefly useful for the erasure or obliteration of "foul strokes "), and we have the striking total of a sale of some thirty or forty thousand clubs per annum, which should mean (as it has continued for some years) the existence of some hundred thousand or more systematic croquet players. Their exact numbers may be as difficult to calculate exactly as those of the Boer forces, and, for a similar reason, their mobility. But all that they do, think, and feel should be abundantly apparent to the careful reader of Messrs. Longmans' portly, well-printed, and fairly illustrated volume. From the mildest and vaguest suggestion of " etiquette " to a complete (suggested) redraft of the laws of croquet, everything, we should think, is comprised some- where or other in the book. Possibly it will be no matter of vital importance to any reader to unearth any particular fact, reflec- tion, or suggestion, nor can we think the work a sufficiently serious one to require an index. The croquet enthusiast may, perhaps, read it all, especially the passages concerning him- self and friends. The casual inquirer may gaze ahead, turn- ing from the character sketch of one particular player or stylist to the question of rabble or grass courts, from the
• Croquet Up to Date. Edited by Arthur Mita. With Illustrations. London I Longmana and Co. [10a. 6d. net.]
HU:Wed of "Cowardly Tactics, by Aunt Einnza" (a highly humorous account of the prudence so often preferable to valour, containing much useful advice) to the somewhat pointless examination paper headed "Up-to-date Ideas." The utter fatuity of these latter inquiries,addressed as they are by the hopeful editor to a number of more or less reluctant celebrities whose capacity of self-expression is probably at best inferior to their play, may be illustrated bp Ncs. 3—Do y2u look at your own ball last in shooting, or at the object ball ?—and No. 10—Are you in favour of letting all burning questions go to sleep FL—a conundrum which see
ms to tend vaguely towards the humorous Irish "bull" with- out quite arriving. We do not think, moreover, that the method on which Croquet Up to Date has been constructed, or rather compiled, is a sound one. It is true that valuable histories are now written (as, presumably, all histories will have to be written in future) in subdivisions allocated to different authors. But here the subjects are not allocated, and the result is a vast amount of repetition both of matter proper to the book and of the merest gossip.
In an exposition of the game of croquet there are two departments of the subject, and perhaps only two, really calculated to provide a chapter of useful matter apiece. One of these is " openings " (of which a word later), the other the " four-ball break," which has been often described of late years, and is here fully expounded once more by Miss Gower, the present lady champion of England, and, we suspect, the most genuinely gifted proficient (of any such game) ever seen. This essay will interest the number of readers who fondly hope that some of the writer's genius may leak out through her pen, but, alas I the really interest- ing secret of "How I do it" is one the most generous celebrity cannot confide. Of the "four-ball break," indeed, and its mechanical routine (not that Miss Gower is ham- pered by it) we have, perhaps, heard too much. A player must be able, as she reminds us, to pick up the thread of the game anywhere. In fact, the first virtue of "fighting croquet" is to be able, at a glance round, to seize and make the most of existing materials. Indeed, we believe this ele- ment in it to be one of the best tests of ready ability. As to the orthodox _brea,k_ and its materials, Mr. W. W. Brace (a champion distinguished for the boldness and freedom of his play) records with justifiable pride a fourteen-point turn made with a single ball.
We are disposed to consider Mr. C. Locock's essay on "the openings" in scientific croquet as the best and most practical in the book. Mr. Locock considers, in order due, all possible policies for the player who, belated by losing the toss, finds what is prima' facie the best terrain occupied by his enemy, and has to choose between a purely negative recourse to distant safety (though, of course, it is not safety) in the "next best" corner, and the actively hostile policy of lying in your opponent's path—clinging about his legs, as it were, in the hope of confusing his common - form progress—or of tempting him astray by a carefully-laid " tice," which, in fact as often as not does quite upset the balance of the game. On these dilemmas there is really a good deal to be said. The feebleness of the titles, and the rather too obvious exhaustion of the authors of various other chapters, exhibit the palpable thinness of minor croquet "shop." The photo- graphic illustrations of the book are of no particular distinc- tion except; in some cases, that pertaining to antiquity. They include passable portraits of the best-known players, includ- ing one of the London champion of 1900, Mr. John Austin, of Maidstone, crouching behind the shelter of his famous "scythe-handled mallet," an instrument of almost as terrible an originality as the chariot of Boadicea.
A propos of the history of the game, and apart from its con- nection with the Caroline pastime of "Pall Mall," as described by.Strutt, it appears that the early English croquet of the "fiftieii" came from Ireland, and that itinvaded Ireland from Northern France, where a Mr. (or Miss) Macnaghten saw the game played by peasantry as early as 1830, with bent willow- boughs for hoops. In 1851 the game which Willi ffi-en; ing to the famous Dr. Prior, of some ten years' standing in Ireland, was first imported to these shores. Shortly after- wards, it would seem, the popular game with round arches of 18 in. width and a central cage was in full swing ; while in the "sixties," at any rate, a scientific game, with hoops of 4 in.—even of n in.—was being developed by a few experts, who have handed on the torch to our own days. But these idle reflections will, we fancy, have scarcely diverted the impatient reader's attention from the croquet question of the moment. Thus, in the words of the American minister- poet—
"I end with it as I begin Who got"
that oblong box Labelled Pretoria? Also may we not ask, recalling historic presents of tennis-balls and the like, sent to
potentates of earlier date, with ironic or bellicose significance, who sent it ?
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