TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10108, 6 August 1898, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

He would have been a bold The Revival man who ventured to asof Croquet, sert, fifteen or twenty years ago, that the end of the century would have seen a revival of interest in croquet. If ever a game seemed thoroughly dead, that game was croquet. The atliletic young lady who is so übiquitous nowadays was just beginning to make herself heard ,and lawn tennis supplied her with all the exercise and excitement she needed. Croquet was voted slow in comparison with the new game, and the croquet box and hoops were relegated to the dusty oblivion of the lumber room. For a long time tennis had no rival, and the pleasant click of mallet on ball, once so characteristic a sound on summer afternoons and evenings, almost ceased to be heard. It would be difficult to over-estimate the benefit to this generation and those to come of the vogue of tennis. It must have had a wonderful effect in improving the physical health of the people, and particularly of women. Therefore, if its once undisputed claims to pre-eminence are now threatened, let us not forget how much we have owed to it. The "boom" in. golf —for it has been nothing less —shook it, and it received another blow from the still greater "boom." in cycling, Tecreations which undoubtedly both owe part of their popularity undoubtedly to the love of athletic exercise fostered by tennis. Now it has to face a third rival, one that it seemingly crushed out of existence. The news that a private Croquet Club had been formed in Christchurch was the first indication a good many people had that the old game was coming once more to the front here. Then-it became known that the Lancaster Park Company, in taking in the recent addition to the ground, had in contemplation the possibility of a portion of it being required for croquet. In other parts of the colony the game lias advanced more quickly than it has done in Christchurch. Dunedin and Wellington, we believe, each possess a Croquet Club, and Timani has two, each with its ground, so that croquet may once more be reckoned as one of the sports of the day. As played nowadays it is a very different affair from what it was in the seventies. Then a good-sized lawn was requisite, now the field of play is greatly diminished, and consequently the strength and skill which were then demanded have given place to skill alone, but skill of a high order. There used to be an unholy joy in sending one's opponent's ball flying into the shrubberies, now the game has to be played within chalked lines, and to venture beyond these or to send another ball over them, is sudden death. The number of the hoops is reduced, they are much smaller than they used to be, and their arrangement is totally different. The individual who on the strength of former skill at croquet now essays to play the game finds he or she has a lot to unlearn and a great deal more to learn. We do not think croquet will ruin tennis, which with many people is as much an institution as cycling. But it is certainly a far more suitable recreation for a hot afternoon. We have never yet been able to understand how young ladies could play a bard game of tennis and then go and sit by the side of others who had been keeping themselves cool. The comparison, so far as appearances went, was so greatly in favour of the latter. It is an old saying that a Domestic good mistress makes a good Treasures, servant. She does not—out of a bad one. But a good mistress keeps » good servant, when she is fortunate enough to get her; and the floating population which goes drifting about from place to place, being tried and being discarded, does sot in the least represent the majority of our domestics. It is of these "engaging" young ladies, who undertake duties so readily and carry discomfort wherever they go, that all the funny servant stories are told. A contributor to an Australian paper makes an amusing article upon "Domestic Treasures." She describes, in-the first place, a short and simple interview in a registry office. The first candidate presented the appearance of having decked herself up for a fete. "A large floral hat crowned a much touzled 'bang,* and bangles and rings adorned rather grimy wrists and fingers. A large brass safety-pin prevented absolute divorce between the Dodice and skirt of her short Jubilee red dress. "Were you wanting a lady to come and live with you? , she asked. 'No, , was the reply, 'I want a good general servant, who -will do my work.* At .this the girl flounced out of the room, and her sarill voice speaking to the array of eligibles seated in vie front office, was heard exclaiming, 'Ladies, there's an old vinegar-bottle in the next room says she is wanting a generaL , " A much more taking young person was the little Irish servant -Nelly, whose faults after all seem to have leaned to virtue's side. "With true Irish liberality she never liked visiting her friends without taking something; 'Just to make mc welcome,' she would say." One day her mistress, finding eggs, butter, cake, and candles ail nicely packed up for carrying, was moved to tell her this was not strictly honest. "Sure, mann," she replied, "you wouldn t be having mo go to my friends empty-banded. Them's for the O'Hara's —rale nice raople, and the baby sick too; ye'd never begrudge the poor baby a few eggs and a bit of cake. , " This Irish grace is a contrast with a Christchurch specimen of "dourness." A new general had arrived, and amongst other experiments at dinner time, sent up for pudding a dish of pancakes. The family looked at the dish and then at one another. To eat was clearly impossible, and yet it was her first day, and there was a wish to encourage her. Relief came in the presence of two large dogs. The plates being emptied after the fashion of

! Admiral Bartrum with things indigestible, the bell was rung, the unconscious "chef entered. Assuring herself by one glance of the disappearance of the pancakes, she addressed the amiable conspirators to save her feelings, "Well, you can't be real gentlefolks or you'd never have.eaten them!" One class of domestic we see less of in New Zealand than they do apparently in Australia— the "handy man," who is "generally a decayed gentleman, sometimes with a University degree, and almost always with a love of fiery fluids? Yet possibly some up-country station may possess some such universal genius as the one described by an Australian squatteress, "He's a good man, he can tutor, and make a good curry and a 'ash." Some time ago we noted James Payn's news of poor James Last Work. Payn'e death. A mournful interest attaches to a June number of the "Illustrated London News," which prints the last and unfinished contribution, forwarded by his executors to the paper he had so long worked for. It begins with some lively talk about Henley's poetic heresies. Mr Henley had been speaking with contempt of that highest joy to the Scottish nation, "A nicht wi . Burns," and even doubted whether any night could be passed under more unpleasant circumstances. "He is mistaken. A night with Bronchitis, of wliich many of us have lately had experience, is much worse. The two are not, of course, similar, yet have something in common in the way of melody. To a nervous parson this continuity of sound is the worst point of bronchitis. You hear something whistling and moaning, and cannot at first detect its whereabouts; it's you. You may lie on a high pillow o a low one; but after at most a minute of silence you break out again with music. What is strange, and seems to strike at the root of the scheme of creation, is that though you may be quite deaf to all external sounds, you dannot escape from these, of which, like the codfish, you are its parent. If you allow yourself a little irritation to the extent of a "Dear mc!" you are instantly threatened with suffocation. Some unseen individual clutches you by the throat, and dares you to repeat that observation. The doctor calls him Spasm. I have had a fine old time witih, many disorders. For extreme agony there are few things to beat rheumatic fever. As regards intolerable discomfort, there is nothing to vie with eczema, especially if you have lost your temper with it (once is enough); but for helpless, hopeless misery, with a struggle for life every five minutes—a night with Bronchitis!" One more paragraph, on another subject, and the hand failed. His page for that week was never finished. But what last words could have more expressed the indomitable courage and good humour of the man? He had been a most suffering man for years. He was dying at that moment, or in the throes of his last illness; and he looked upon his own sufferings with tUte old journalistic instinct to make copy! It is like Hood's last pun, a cheery trifling with the great mysteries, which is more pathetic than a hundred lamentations. A habit which appears to be In Season growing upon Christchurch And Out. men and boys is that of smoking during working hours. Ifc should be unnecessary to point out that this" is, to say the least of it, a most unbusinesslike proceeding. In Christchurch all sorts and conditions of workers, from bank clerks to bricklayers, and from road men to young lawyers, smoke, apparently, at every opportunity all day long.. One can always see at any-hour of day in .High-street, Colombo street, or Hereford street, young men and some old ones who are smoking, and who if they are not on business errands may be suspected of making some alleged business the pretext for escaping from the office for a smoke. What happens among the office people happens also among other classes of workers. A man cannot paint a square yard of the wall of a house without a pipe in his mouth, which necessitates much cleaning and filling and constant re-lighting. The carpenter at work on your house, the man who digs up your garden, almost every workman we can mention—each must smoke while he works. Quite possibly the dairyman smokes as he milks hie cows, in which case where do the ashes from his pipe go to? As likely as not into the milk. In at least one case which has come to our knowledge a butcher has been seen smoking as he cut up meat in his shop. The cleanest and tidiest smoker cannot help dropping ashes from his pipe some times, and though tobacco ash may not be injurious if consumed in milk or on a mutton chop, the idea of having to take it whether you like the flavour or not is repugnant to most people. Men who smoke, and most men do, ought to remember that there is a time for all things, even for smoking, and that it is decidedly untimely in working hours, .be they those of bank manager or message boy. Among commercial men the habit, as we have said, is most unbusinesslike, and makes those- indulging in it look as if they mixed their business and their pleasure, which is good for neither. Among those who are arbitrarily called "working men," —as if we were not all working men in this colony— the appearance may not count for so much, but the habit leads to a waste of time which in the Aggregate must be enormous, and in some cases, such as that of the butcher we have mentioned, it is disgustingly dirty. Surely the morning and the evening, with a weekly half-holiday, and all day Sunday, if he likes, gives any man sufficient time in which to smoke. Certainly if he avails himself of all his leisure he will smoke more than is good for him.