The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1935. CURATES AND CRINOLINES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1935. CURATES AND CRINOLINES.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistavce, For the ■future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

"Croquet's a fright," said a young Irish lady in one of the Sommerville-Koss stories; "you'd be cooking a leg of mutton while you're waiting your turn." Perhaps so, but it is not to be condemned on that account alone. After all, there have been games of billiards in which one player could prepare a whole series of meals -while waiting for his turn, and what of tail-end batsmen who sit in pavilions while the Ilobbses and the Bradmans turn the long grnciousness of afternoon into a scourge for bowlers'? No, the prejudice against croquet does not arise from this feature, and since Auckland is witnessing this week a national croquet championship, graced by the presence of the chairman of the English Croquet Council and other English players, it is worth while considering the feelings it arouses among the uninitiated and its standing among games. Lieutenant-Colonel du Pre, our visitor, says it is "no longer a game of curates and crinolines." The remark is perhaps a little unfortunate, for it may be taken to endorse a prevalent but unjust view of curates. "There is something which excites compassion in the very name of a curate," said "Sydney Smith, but a less worthy sentiment is sometimes evoked. Yet all curates are not like the rivals in the "Bab Ballad" or the hero of "The Private Secretary." They sweat in scrums and hit sixers. A citrate was once the best fast-medium bowler in New Zealand. And after all, a bishop has to start as a curate.

Nevertheless croquet has suffered from its association with curates and crinolines. It came into popularity in England in the middle of last century, and for some time was the most popular game with certain classes. For this crinolines were partly responsible. It was about the only game in the open air that wearers of these extraordinary garments could play. Besides, those were days when woman was surrounded by an aura of defenceless fragility. It is said that croquet "went out with the crinoline, but had to be revived because of the need for a pastime that was not unduly strenuous, that placed no strain on the nervous system, and that was not overweighted with rules." It certainly declined greatly in popularity, to be revived, with improved implements and a more scientific form of play, in the middle 'nineties. What did most to oust it was the arrival and extraordinary success of lawn tennis. It has been said that lawn tennis was born on English croquet lawns. The premier tennis club in the world —the All-England at Wimbledon — retains the word "croquet" in its title.

The thought of croquet suggests Old English vicarage or manor gardens, with smooth lawns bordered by elms and oaks and cedars, and "groups under the dreaming garden trees." It suggests, too —especially to those who know "Punch" —the absurd clothes of the 'sixties and 'seventies. It seems to have been, a leisurely, beautiful game. "And then," says the critic quoted above, "the people who are never happy unless they are governing something took hold of it, formed associations, passed rules, inaugurated championship, competitions —and ruined it," This explains his previous reference to a game .that imposed no nervous strain. Did it not? Croquet has always been known as a game trying to the temper. The present game, one would say, imposes almost as much strain as golf. The lawn is as true as a bowling green, the hoops narrower, the skill of the good player deadly. "Execution on a good lawn has become so accurate," says an authority, "that the result of a match too often depends on the spin of a coin." Billiards gone to grass, say the irreverent. Surely, however, there is no need to grieve so much. Cricket in high places has' been "improved" almost out of recognition, but cricketers continue to enjoy themselves hugely on village greens and colonial paddocks. Similarly, it is possible for the great mass of the obscure —who know nothing of "bisque" and "peeling" and "roquet"—to pitch croquet hoops on any reasonably level patch of grass and get a deal of fun out of the game.