MALLET AND BALL,

Taranaki Daily News, 16 February 1926, Page 5

MALLET AND BALL,

CROQUET CHAMPIONSHIP. NORTH ISLAND TOURNAMENT. PLAY COMMENCES TO-DAY, The click of croquet mallets and balls will be heard on the croquet lawns of New Plymouth in earnest to-day, when the annual North Island croquet tournament will be commenced. The tournament is divided into and handicap divisions, and epeh of these is subdivided into competitions for doubles and singles. The ■ tournament is to start at nine o’clock, when the competitors are to bo at the New Plymouth Croquet Club’s lawns to witness the official opening ceremony and then receive their allocations to lawns.

The entries for the tournament are of a high order, both numerically and in I the calibre of the players. Competitors I are taking part from Wellington, | Hawke’s Bay, and from as far north as | Wbangarei, to mention but three of the districts represented. Included in the visitors are Mrs. Tiffin, of Hawke's Bay, the present holder of the North Island open championship, who has come to ..New Plymouth lo defend her title. Mesdames McDowell (Wellington) and Wat- ; kins (Hawke's Bay), and Mr. Stratton (Hawke’s Bay), past holders of the championship. Other prominent players whose names figure in the list of entries are Mesdames McKenzie and Wilkinson (Wellington); Mrs. Pitcaithly (Hawke’s Bay), Colonel Hume (Nelson), and Mr. H. Laurie,- an English player at present touring the Dominion. With players such as these, not to mention some of the leading Taranaki competitors, the standard of play is expected to be veryhigh. To-day--a start is to be made withy the handicap events, the doubles being the first competition to be commenced.

This will be followed by the handicap singles, the championships then-follow-ing. The opening, ceremony is to be performed by Mr. Murray, vice-president of the New Zealand Croquet Council, in the absence of the president, Mr. R. Caughley. Mrs. D. K. Morrison is secretary and manager of the tournament. While croquet is a comparatively modern game as far as the English speaking races are concerned, historians have been able to trace its evolution back to at least the 13th century. It is believed by some writers that the modern game is a direct descendant from the paille-maille which was played in Languedoc about that time. Under the name of 1c jeu de la crosse, or la crosserie, a similar game was at the same period immensely popular in Normandy, and especially' at but the object appears to have been to send the ball as far as possible by driving it with the mallet. «

Pall Mall, a fashionable game in England at the time of the Stuarts, was played with a ball and a mallet and with two hoops and a peg, the game being won by the player who ran through.the hoop or hoops and touched the peg under certain conditions in the fewest strokes. Croquet certainly has some resemblance to paille-maille played with more hoops and. more balls'. It is said that the game was brought to Ireland from the south of France, and was first played on Lord Lonsdale’s lawn in 1852 under the auspices of the eldest daughter of Sir Edmund Maenaghten. It came to England in 1856, or perhaps a fe.w years earlier, and soon became popular. Headquarters of croquet are now at the Roehampton Club, where the all Britain championships are fought out annually