GAMES AND THEIR ETIQUETTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3102, 27 August 1913, Page 79

GAMES AND THEIR ETIQUETTE.

(Copyright.) There are many rules of many games honoured as often in the breach as in the observance; contrariwise, as Lewis Carroll made Tweedledom remark, there are numerous observances which we shall never find noted in any book of mere rules. The luckless wight, fortified by an adept knowledge of how the game is played, will find speedily that he is breaking some unwritten law at almost every turn. He may as well imagine that he would be allowed to bowl with a 7oz ball or bat with a weapon 9in wide as that he wonld be permitted to b/eak with impunity any rule of etiquette. And etiquette does not run, in the least, on the same lines in different games. It is an understood thing at cricket that a substitute will be permitted to field by consent of the opposing captain, but woe betide the skipper who omits to ask for that consent! Contrariwise, again, a substitute at football is almost never admitted, and the mere asking for leave would probably be regarded as a breach. Similarly to ask your opponents to hurry up before the end of the usual 10 minutes’ interval between innings would be a deadly insult. The rules provide the time, and your opponents are entitled to full time. N either must you attempt to cut down the necessary wastage of time. ,An illustration will perhaps best explain our meaning. Convention or etiquette demands that the fielders shall cross over at the end of the over at a walking pace; heavy were the fulmiuations against a certain sporting skipper who, at the finishing stage of a match close on time, directed his men to cross over at the run, so as to endeavour to get a definite result — and this although the effect probably would be and was that his side lost. It wasn’t done ” was the verdict; and therefore it followed that it mustn’t be done! The clearest of all these rules of etiquette is perhaps that one directed at “potting” your opponent’s ball at billiards. The rules of the game clearly permit it, but convention steps in, and, since it places your opponent at a disadvantage when his innings comes, it bans it. CARD CONVENTIONS. Of course, some of these unwritten observances are directed to your partner’s or opponent’s game as well as to that vague thing we call “ good play.” The bridge notion that generally you should not declare a black suit on an original call is an example of one of these. From one point of view it is intended to give your fiartner a chance of declaring out of his land, and making a good thing of it for both of you., Possibly this was its origin, but it has come to be regarded now merely as a matter of play good or bad. If you offend the rule you will get black looks from your partner on the ground that you have played badly. Ordinary conventions, as they are called —understandings as they might be labelled more correctly,—between card-players stand on a different footing. They are merely matters of combination, but no doubt other points of etiquette in card games will occur to the mind quite readily. No interest would be aroused by discussing the vexed question of dress—it resolves itself, after all, into a pure matter of good taste —and, indeed, there are rules enough to consider without venturing into such disturbed ground. GOLF ETIQUETTE.

Gulf, as befits a game v/here numerous parties play over the same ground in a cycle, has a large number of points of eticpictte. When may you “go through” a game, as the phrase is? Who has the right to start? These are only two points among many about which you must know. You stroll down to the links or course, and find a number of players waiting. Every now and then somebody starts. What is regulating it? If you observe closely you will find that no one commences a fresh round until the preceding players have holed out the first hole, and have left the putting green—in golf parlance, until they have “left the green.” Meantime your opponent and you have prepared to tee your balls, but convention directs that only one of you tees at a time. Which one? To this the answer is that at the first tee the player with the lower handicap starts first, or, as it is named, “ has the honour.” Other tees are directed according to who has won the last preceding hole. While your opponent is addressing (or aiming at) his ball you must stand behind the tee. A breach of any one of these conventions at the first tec will mark you as a neophyte. CONVENTION AND UTILITY. Suppose your round to be well started, but you find a three-ball match (i.e., a game* with three in front of you. It will naturally delay you.

Etiquette, now hardened into rule, decides that you may go through or pass them. The same rule obtains if your opponent and you have caddies, and a two-ball game in front of you is being conducted without that assistance. Two-ball games pass four, and four three; so that the three-ball game is the outcast of the links. Generally you must follow other games at a distance of two strokes, and after the first tea (the rule for which we have already explained), you may take your drive after the people in front nave played their second shot. A_ person playing round alone "has no rights of any kind that we have discovered. Finally, you may play the round at least on any crowded course, and not attempt to cut in front of people by cutting out some holes, and going, say, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth. Your duty, if you do not wish for any reason to complete the round, is to pull up stumps (to use a cricket metaphor) where you are and walk “ home.” A little consideration will show how necessary all these conventions are and how founded on the great doctrine of utility. CHIVALRY AND TENNIS. Some etiquette at other games is not so easy to explain. The common feeling at lawn tennis that you should say “sorry” to your opponents when by pitching a ball just over the net you have secured the stroke, and maybe the game, is ditfi cult to account for. Such a stroke is clearly “in” the game. The old-fashioned idea that a man must serve more slowly to a lady was founded on some quaint notion of chivalry; but now that some ladies have for some years past taken to serving over arm and most of them to sending low, cutting, but express, services of their own, this convention is gradually being dropped. And were we to search for the true convention of mixed lawn tennis to-day, we think we should find it in the acceptance of the basis that at lawn tennis men and women are merely players. Not that in the highest realms of the tennis world the best woman is the equal of the best man player, but only that, for the purposes of the mixed oopble, all the players shall be treated as if they were equal. GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP. - Of coarse, good sportsmanship is always present in British games, and a person who offended against our ideas of what is being a sportsman would certainly offt'ixl a convention, if not a rule, pf etiquette. At a recent tennis tournament a doubt arose as to whether a particular stroke was “out”; the striking side thought against themselves that it was, while the service side thought otherwise —the umpire being in doubt ordered a fresh service. As good sportsmen, the striking side did not attempt to play the ball; but no Pne even thought they would. Our sense of fairness would have rebelled—the etiquette of tire game, in short, steuped in. Similarly a rowing crew will always wait for an opposing crew which meets with any mishap. You inquire if there is any etiquette about it? Etiquette, after all, is merely general opinion so firmly held that everyone observes it despite rules pr regulations to the contrary, or in their absence. You can test the rowing point by remembering the case of a foreign crew at a recent big regatta. Their rivals were fouled, and the foreigners, in the absence of any idea of any etiquette, went ahead and won the heat. By rule they were entitled to do it; but all opinion, verbal and written, was against them. It is only fair to call to mind their penance of the next day. Having learnt the etiquette, in the next' heat they deliberately slowed down at a convenient distance from the winning-post, so giving the race to the rival boat.

Etiquette in all states of life is almost an uncharted sea; certainly it is so in the province of games. The best advice to those who fear to offend is to leave undone that thing about the permissibility of doing which you have the least doubt. Beyond that good sense and good sportsmanship will take you through.