ROLLER SKATING.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXII, Issue 9634, 24 March 1910, Page 6

ROLLER SKATING.

A year ago there were about twenty roller-skating riuks iv Great Britain. To-day there are four hundred, and a year hence this number may quite conceivably have been doubled. This fact speaks volumes for the popularity of this new aud fascinating sport, concerning which au interesting article appeared iv Pearson's Magaziu?. Mr Richmond Hill, the writer, is an expert on the subject. He writes :—

"Nothing like the roller-skating craza has ever been kuown in this country; though the word craze, for ail its convenience, ought not to be applied auy longer to the pastime, for craze suggests luuaoy or a passing fancy, and all in the swim of the movement agree that roller-skating has come to stay. There was skating of old time; so far back as lSli) a roller-skate was registered in the French pateut office. But never was roller-skating conducted under snch efficient management as to-day, or with such trusty skates and splendid floors. Floors' to-day are made of cemont, asphalt, marble and woodpreferably hard maple. Skates are made with ball-bearings, as many as 124 of the little steel balls going to a single pair; they seem to have readied the high-water mark of scientific perfection, conducing vastly to the grace of the skater, and his pleasure. Thirty-five years have passed since the first riuk was opened in Englaud, in the Corn Exchange, at Brighton; a few others havo a long history; but the pastime, as practised to-day, is entirely new. "Roller-skating is essentially different trom ice-skating. The rocking footplate of the roller-skate allows the wheels to describe curves, the wheels running flat on the floor aud so giving a substantial base. Cv rollers there is riot nearly so much strain on the ankles as with ice-skates ;the angles are in play, but on the ice they are kept rigid. Iv faucy aud figure skating on rollers many movements may be accomplished " which are not possible with ice-skates. And the expert iceskater is not; more easy and graceful in his movements tiiau the expert rinker. "As to speed, enough to say that faster times have been made on the modern rollers tb.an ever made on ice. "Not only here, but ail over the world, roller-skating grows iv "popularity—even in far Cathay rinks are now established. In largo cities, where many of the, streets are laid down with asphalt, as in Washington aud Buffalo, aud in Be»iiu, rollerskates are now used for rapid transit in business as well as for pleasure. Iv Washington a league of clerks has been formed, under the leadership of the chief clerk of the Post Office Department, the members of which— men aud girls—have sworn to go roller-skating to aud from their offices —this for the sake of good exercise— and to avoid the stuffy tramcars. The streets are well paved with asphalt, aud it is believed that the new movement will quickly spread, aud that soou many of the fitfeen hundred Government clerks will daily glide to and from their work rapidly aud gracefully along the streets of the capital. "