PING PONG.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 53

PING PONG.

It is stated that ping-pong has increased the fees of Dunediu's chief oculist by JB4-00 a year.

Has the ping-pong craze already seen its day? (asks a Home paper). There are many signs in England that a reaction has commenced. Since ping-pong became democratic the "upper ten" have tabooed it, and the return of the cycling season has done a good deal towards its decadence. "By next winter," says one of the largest dealers in Bir- , mingham, "I expect ping-pong to take just an ordinary place among indoor games. . While we were selling 18 dozen sets a day I for a week before Christmas, we are now selling only one. Ping-pong (says the New York Sun) is game of pvcjmy paraphernalia, to which, however, a giant may enjoyably set his hand, though not necessarily with success. Although a game of ball and bat, at ping-pong the greatest sluggers at either baseball jr cricket may easily bite the dust at the feet of the schoolroom. "Form" must be acquired by practice, but the Sun can 'aelp educate its votaries by presenting the correct inflection of the present tense of the indicative mood of the verb to "ping-pong" : 1 I pong; We grovel on the floor; Thou pongest ; Ye. tear your trousers ; He pongs. They break the furniture. The rage for ping-pong ravages in the most extraordinary manner, and threatens to outdo even the bicycle mania of a few years back (writes "The Tatler." London), Ping-pong accessories are appearing in every kind of fchop, while the variations in the pattern of bats are assuming the multiplicity of the shapes of bicycles in the days of the craze. Soon it may be expected that the grocer will add a corner in ping-pong to their windows and the bootmaker will sell bats and balls as well as boots. The most remarkable sign, however, is the appearance of notices in the windows of the smaller hotels and larger publichouses to the erfect that the billiard rooms can be hired for ping-pong in the afternoon. Soon, no doubt, someone will agitate for public ratesupported pavilions for ping-pong in the parks, so that the unemployed may enjoy their favourite game without restriction, and the School Board will add ping-pong tables and sets to their pianos and other expensive unnecessaries.

There is a factory at Brantham, near Mi&tley, Essex, where work goes on day and night at a headlong pace under conditions of secrecy that might well excite curiosity to the highest pitch. The factory is the xylonite works, where the balls used in pingpong and table tennis are made. The works at Brantham practically make all the balls used in the game of the hour — at any rate, as far as England is concerned — and some idea may be formed of the extent of the trade that has suddenly been created by the fact that six tons of balls are turned out every week. It is computed that it takes nearly 300 ping-pong balls to weigh a pound, so that the number required tc iorin the weekly output is no less than 4.032,000. Another way of expressing the quantity required to meet the demand is that if the balls made in one week were strung together they would stretch almost from London to Brighton and back. The manufaetoiy has :omf 3= a boon to Brantham, where an army of workers is employed at good rate* of i >a y-

Mi Justice Dfmiiiton, a= president of the Compensation Court nuclei the Land for Settlements Act, 1900," has fixed Friday, June 20, for the first sitting of the court at the Supreme Courthouse, Hokitika, in connection with the resumption or compulaory taking of Du'drioh's estate, containing about 5000 acres, in the Knkatuhi Vallcv. near Hokitika, foi close settlement. Dr Findlay. of Wellington, appoars for the Crown, and Mi T. W. Btare, Hojcitika, for the owner