Chapter II: Part 2

There is no longer any doubt that golf is threatening the supremacy of our national game. Judged by the only true standard--the amount of space allotted to it in the daily press--it is manifest that the encroachments of this insidious pastime have now reached a point where the cricket reformer must bestir himself before it is too late. We are convinced that so far we have been taking much too narrow a view. The time has come to look for light and leading outside the confines of our own Book of Rules. There are other games besides cricket. Let us call them to our councils.

In the first place a valuable hint may surely be found in the development of Rugby football. It is common knowledge what immense results have followed the introduction, some twenty years ago, of the Four Three-quarter System. No spectator (and we cannot exist without the spectator) would ever dream now of returning to the old formation. Very well. The same principle can be easily adapted to our requirements in the form of the Three Batsmen System. The pitch would become an equilateral triangle, and we should suggest that the bowler have the option of bowling (from his own corner) at either of the two outlying batsmen (at theirs). Lots of interesting developments would follow, as, for instance, the institution of a sort of silly-point-short-mid-on in the centre of the triangle. (Should he be allowed to wear gloves?)

Golf has also a lesson to teach us. We are all familiar with the huge strides that have been made by the introduction of the rubber-cored ball. We don't want to plagiarize, although a rubber-cored cricket ball is a nice idea. Why not aim at the opposite extreme and try a ball "reinforced" with concrete? The tingling of the batsman's fingers which might result could be neutralised by the use of a rubber-faced bat. This reform would, we believe, have one happy consequence. People wouldn't be so keen to play with their legs.

As to lawn tennis--another dangerous rival--we hear a good deal in these days about "foot-faults." That seems to show the trend of modern thought. If we are to be in the swim we shall have to reconsider our no-ball rule. Why not make it a no-ball every time unless the bowler has both feet in the air at the moment when the ball leaves his hand? One might put up a little hurdle--nothing obtrusive--only a matter of a few inches high.

We believe that something might even be done by borrowing from hockey the principle of the semi-circle, outside of which a goal may not be shot. The whole pitch might be enclosed in a circular crease--which would look uncommonly well in Press photographs. (We cannot exist without the Press.) No fielder inside the magic circle would be allowed to stop the ball with his feet.

Finally there is the case of billiards, not a game that is very closely allied to cricket, but one from which much may be learned. How has billiards brightened itself? By adopting the great principle of "barring" certain strokes. Here we have got on to something really valuable. We propose to go one better, and draw up a schedule of the different conditions of barring under which matches may be played. It will only remain for secretaries, when fixtures are made, to arrange the terms by negotiation. In time to come, should we be able to carry our point, we shall all be familiar with such announcements as the following:--

Notts. _v._ Surrey. (Cut-barred.)
Gentlemen _v._ Players. (L.b.w.-barred.)
England _v._ Australia. (Googly-and-yorker-barred.)

We do not pretend to have exhausted the subject, but we have made a start. We must look about us. Something may be learned, we firmly believe, even from skittles and ping-pong. Our national game cannot afford to exclude special features. It should have the best of everything.

* * * * *

"No."

"Well, I am, and this is her pew."]

* * * * *

Professional Candour.

"The sermon over, a collection was taken, and hardly a person
present did not contribute. Mgr. Benson's sermon went to the
hardest heart there. Even the journalists contributed."

_The Universe._

* * * * *

THE HERE, THERE AND LONDON LETTER.

_With apologies to "The Westminster_ Gazette."_

The Home of the South Saxons.

Sussex, the county for which Mr. C. B. Fry (who hurt his leg in the Lord's centenary match) used to play before he moved to Hampshire, is an attractive division of the country to the south of London with a long sea border. Mr. Kipling has praised it in some memorable verses, and among frequent visitors to its principal town, Brighton, is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The word Sussex is a contraction of South Saxon. All will wish the old Oxonian a speedy recovery from his strain.

A Monetary Proverb.

The origin of the old saying, "Penny wise, pound foolish," which has come into vogue again in connection with the revised income tax--for who can deny that the saving of the penny is wise?--is lost in obscurity; but there is no doubt that it is very ancient. Many nations have the same proverb in different terms as applied to their own currency. In France the coins to which the saying best applies would be the sou and the louis; in America, the cent and the dollar; and so forth.

Cordiality before Party.

The circumstance of Mr. Lulu Harcourt's unveiling a memorial to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Mr. Austen Chamberlain at the Albert Dock Hospital is not without precedent. On more than one occasion party differences have been similarly forgotten. Thus several golf-players contributed to _The Daily Telegraph_ shilling fund in honour of the great W. G. Grace some few years ago. Such sinking of private shibboleths is a very excellent thing and goes far to show how thoroughly sound and healthy English public life really is _au fond_.

The Names of Colleges.

Exeter College, Oxford, which has just celebrated its six hundredth anniversary, is not the only college which bears the same name as that of a city. Pembroke is another. Keble is, of course, named after the hymn-writer and divine; and Balliol, where C. S. C. played the wag so divertingly, after Balliol. _À propos_ of Oxford, it is a question whether that extremely amusing book, _Verdant Green_, is still much read by freshers.

The Author of _The Little Minister._

Sir James Barrie, who is said to have written a revue for production this autumn at a West-End Theatre, must not be confounded with the French sculptor, Barye, in spite of the similarity of name. Barye is famous chiefly for his bronzes of lions; and fortunately, in making his studies of these dangerous animals, he escaped the fate which so often befalls the trainer of wild beasts whose animals suddenly turn upon him.

* * * * *

ONCE UPON A TIME.

The Alien.

Once upon a time a poet was sitting at his desk in his cottage near the woods, trying to write.

It was a hot summer day and great fat white clouds were sailing across the sky. He knew that he ought to be out, but still he sat on, pen in hand, trying to write.

Suddenly, among all the other sounds of busy urgent life that were filling the warm sweet air, he heard the new and unaccustomed song of a bird. At least not new and not unaccustomed, but new and unaccustomed there, in this sylvan retreat. The notes poured out, now shrill, now mellow, now bubbling like musical water, but always rich with the joy of life, the fulness of happiness. Where had he heard it before? What bird could it be?

Suddenly the poet's housekeeper hurried in. "Oh, Sir," she exclaimed, "isn't it a pity? Someone's canary has got free, and it's singing out here something beautiful."

"Of course," said the poet--"a canary;" and he hastened out to see it. But before he could get there the bird had flown to a clump of elms a little way off, from which proceeded sweeter and more tumultuously exultant song than they had ever known.

The poet walked to the elms with his field-glasses, and after a while he discerned among the million leaves, the little yellow bird, with its throat trembling with rapture.

But the poet and his housekeeper were not the only creatures who had heard the strange melody.

"I say," said one sparrow to another, "did you hear that?"

"What?" inquired the other sparrow, who was busy collecting food for a very greedy family.

"Why, listen," said the first sparrow.

"Bless my soul," said the second. "I never heard that before."

"That's a strange bird," said the first sparrow; "I've seen it. It's all yellow."

"All yellow?" said the other. "What awful cheek!"

"Yes, isn't it?" replied the first sparrow. "Can you understand what it says?"

"Not a note," said the second. "Another of those foreigners, I suppose. We shan't have a tree to call our own soon."

"That's so," said the first. "There's no end to them. Nightingales are bad enough, grumbling all night, and swallows, although there's not so many of them this year as usual; but when it comes to yellow birds--well."

"Hullo," said a passing tit, "what's the trouble now?"

"Listen," said the sparrows.

The tit was all attention for a minute while the gay triumphant song went on.

"Well," he said, "that's a rum go. That's new, that is. Novel, I call it. What is it?"

"It's a yellow foreigner," said the sparrows.

"What's to be done with it?" the tit asked.

"There's only one thing for self-respecting British birds to do," said the first sparrow. "Stop it. Teach it a lesson."

"Absolutely," said the tit. "I'll go and find some others."

"Yes, so will we," said the sparrows; and off they all flew, full of righteous purpose.

Meanwhile the canary sang on and on, and the poet at the foot of the tree listened with delight.

Suddenly, however, he was conscious of a new sound--a noisy chirping and harsh squeaking which seemed to fill the air, and a great cloud of small angry birds assailed the tree. For a while the uproar was immense, and the song ceased; and then, out of the heart of the tumult, pursued almost to the ground where the poet stood, fell the body of a little yellow bird, pecked to death by a thousand avenging furies.

Seeing the poet they made off in a pack, still shrilling and squawking, but conscious of the highest rectitude.

The poet picked up the poor mutilated body. It was still warm and it twitched a little, but never could its life and music return.

While he stood thoughtfully there an old woman, holding an open cage and followed by half-a-dozen children, hobbled along the path.

"My canary got away," she said. "Have you seen it? It flew in this direction."

"I'm afraid I have seen it," said the poet, and he opened his hand.

"My little pet!" said the old woman. "It sang so beautifully, and it used to feed from my fingers. My little pet."

The poet returned to his work. "'In tooth and claw,'" he muttered to himself, "'In tooth and claw.'"

* * * * *

The Doctor, six down at the turn, "suggests" to his opponent that they are playing croquet, and wins by two and one.]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)

_Tents of a Night_ (Smith, Elder) is a quite ordinary story, about entirely commonplace persons, which has however an original twist in it. I never met a story that conveyed so vividly the nastiness of a summer holiday that isn't nice. The holiday was in Brittany, just the common round, Cherbourg, Coutances, Mont St. Michel, and the rest of it; and the holiday-makers were _Mr._ and _Mrs. Hepburn_, their niece _Anne_, and a rather pleasant flapper named _Barbara_ whom they had taken in charge. _Anne_ is the heroine and central character of the holiday; and certainly whatever discomforts it contained she seems to have done her successful best to add to. "This is a beastly place!" was her written comment upon St. Michel; and it was typical of her attitude throughout. Of course the real trouble with _Anne_ was something deeper than drains or crowded hotels or the smell of too many omelettes: she was in love. Apparently she was more or less in love with two men, _Dragotin Voinovich_ (whose name was a constant worry to _Anne's_ aunt, and I am bound to say that I share her feelings about it) and _Jimmy Fordyce_, a pleasant young Englishman who pulls the girls out of quicksands and makes himself generally agreeable. In the end, however--but on second thoughts the end, emotionally speaking, of _Anne_ is just what I shall not tell you, as it is precisely the thing that redeems the book from being commonplace. This you will enjoy; and also those remarkably real descriptions of various plage-hotels in August, the noise, the crowds, the long hot meals, the sunshine and constant wind, the sand on the staircase, and the general atmosphere of wet bathing-gowns--all these are a luxurious delight to read about in a comfortable English room. Miss Mary Findlater evidently knows them.

* * * * *

Dippers who have given a new meaning to the classical motto, _Respice finem_, are so common amongst novel readers that Patricia Wentworth will only have herself to thank if many who are unfamiliar with her work fail to do justice to a book nine-tenths of which is thoroughly interesting and excellently well-written. As a boy, the hero of _Simon Heriot_ (Melrose) is misunderstood, and although _Mr. Martin_, his step-father, is a somewhat stagey specimen of the heavy and vulgar papa, the child's emotions (as, for instance, when he pretends that the storm of his parent's wrath is the ordeal of the Inquisition or some far-away battle of paladins in which he is contending) are finely conceived, and many of the later passages in _Simon's_ life--his unhappy love affair with _Maud Courtney_, his relations with his grandmother and with _William Forster_, the schoolmaster--are quite engrossing and give occasion for memorable sketches of character. It is when the natural end of the story is reached, and _Simon_ has come into his own and has just been wedded to his proper affinity, that the structure seems to me to fall with a crash. I might perhaps, though not without reluctance, have pardoned an impertinent railway accident which leaves the young man apparently crippled for life, but the last chapters, in which he finds spiritual comfort and (after the doctors have given up hope) complete anatomical readjustment through the ministrations of faith healing, alienated me entirely. From the outset the obvious scheme of the novel is to bring the hero back happily to the home and, if you will, the rustic church of his ancestors; and, though the science of Christian healing may do all that its adherents claim for it, it has about as much to do with the case of _Simon Heriot_ as the dancing dervishes or the rites of Voodoo.

Demetra Vaka has melted my literary heart. By way of homage to her I eat the dust and recant all the hard and bitter things I said and thought in my youth concerning Ancient Greece; especially I apologise, on behalf of myself and my pedagogues, for after regarding its language as a dead one. _A Child of the Orient_ (Lane) has taught me better, though the last object the author appears to have in view is to educate. This "Greek girl brought up in a Turkish household" writes to amuse, entertain and charm, and her success is abundant. Whether it is attributable to the romantic particulars of the Turkish household or to the ingenuous personality of the Greek girl, I hesitate to say, since both are so captivating; but this I know, that, considered as descriptive sketches or personal episodes, each of the twenty-two chapters is a separate delight. For the ready writer material is not wanting in the Near East; a fine theme is provided in the national ambition of the Greek, who cannot forget his glorious past and be content with his less conspicuous present. As for the love interest, who should supply this better than the Turk? In these days of cosmopolitanism there are bound to be romantic complications in the lives of a polygamous people situate in a monogamous continent. By way of postscript the authoress travels abroad and deals with alien matters; her impression, I gather, is that if her ancestors of classical times could see our world of to-day and express an opinion upon it the best of their praise would be reserved for the fact of the British Empire, and the worst of their abuse be spent upon what is known as American humour. I am so constituted that I cannot but be prejudiced in favour of a writer gifted with so profound a judgment.

* * * * *

The creatrix of _Pam_ must look to her laurels. Slovenliness is the aptest word to apply to the workmanship of _Maria_ (Hutchinson), the latest heroine of the Baroness Von Hutten. _Maria_ has the air of having been contracted for, while that fastidious overseer who lurks at the elbow of every honest craftsman, condemning this or that phrase, readjusting the other faulty piece of construction, has frankly abandoned the contractor. _Maria_ was the daughter of an artist cadger (name of _Drello_), friend of the great and seller of their autograph letters, whereby he was astute enough to make a comfortable living. _Maria_ had a dull brother named _Laertes_, who accidentally met a highness, who fell very abruptly in love with _Maria_ and made her strictly dishonourable proposals. _Maria_ drew herself up, compelled him to apologise and go away, until the nineteenth chapter, when she made similar proposals to the highness, now a duly and unhappily married _King of Sarmania_. But she is saved by the chivalrous love-lorn dwarf, _Tomsk_, who, with the irascible singing-master _Sulzer_, is responsible for the chief elements of vitality in this rather suburban romance. And I found myself never believing in _Maria's_ wondrous beauty and quite sharing _Sulzer's_ poor opinion of her singing. But this of course was mere prejudice.

* * * * *

In _Grizel Married_ (Mills and Boon) Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey exhibits the highest-handed method of treating Romance that ever I met. For consider the situation to be resolved. _Dane Peignton_ was engaged to _Teresa_, but in love with _Lady Cassandra Raynor_, whose husband, I regret to add, was still alive. _Dane_ and _Cassandra_ had never told their love, and concealment might have continued to prey on their damask cheeks, if Mrs. Vaizey had not (very naturally), wished to give us a big emotional scene of avowal. It is the way in which this is done that compels my homage. Off go the characters on a picnic, obviously big with fate. _Teresa_ goes, and _Dane_ and _Cassandra_, the fourth being _Grizel_, whom you may recall pleasantly from an earlier book; but, though she fills the title _rôle_ in this one, she has little to do with its development. Of course I saw that something tragic was going to happen to somebody on that picnic--cliffs or tides or mad bulls or something. But I don't suppose that in twenty guesses you could get at the actual instrument of destiny. _Cassandra_ chokes over a fish-bone! That's what I meant about Mrs. Vaizey's courage. And the reward of it is that, after your first moment of incredulity, the fish-bone isn't in the least bit absurd. Poor _Cassandra_ comes quite near to expiring of it; and _Dane_, having thumped and battered her into safety, sobs out his wild and whirling passion, while _Grizel_ and poor _Teresa_ have just to sit about and listen. It really is rather a striking and original climax; incidentally it is far the best scene in an otherwise not very brilliant tale. But, having attended that picnic, I shall be astonished if you don't, want to go on to the end and see how it all straightens out.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"At 9.30 o'clock, as the fog lifted somewhat, the rescuing
steamer Lyonnesse had sighted the Gothland, fast on the rocks,
with a bad list to starboard, and apparently partly filled with
pater."

_Daily Chronicle._

"Our Special Correspondent's" father seems to be a big man.

* * * * *

"While the class watches, the teacher pronounces all the words.
Then the whole class pronounces them while the teacher points,
skipping around."--_Hawaii Educational Review._

A pretty scene, if the teacher is a man of graceful movements.