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About The Rockdale banner. (Conyers, Ga.) 1888-1900 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1899)
HE FACED GREAT DANGER. Ill, Hot IfBOwInn It. Hf E»c»pci an ex-naval official to the w; iter, fineer on a cruiser bonnd 2s' rfolk to South American ports. ov! - ; mp ,„«ffin g one day, when a crank i-m < • and the next instant tl, 'SSXXmUSiZ ^VirftfiViinff around in a ni 1 > ] i >' ^y ■ engine room—and there v, . .en of considerable rank the r, t! n. as . it happened—made a da !i m • J'(k. ■taLandahutoffllvUtoam. Meanwhile I quietly t-- . : vc tKngines < •. . stopped, ami i. n l the delav caused by makin g ’ ■arv •*BTdnt repairs occur to i formed untTl any act of an the chief engineer inf. :m.d me that I was a confounded f 1. you know your place undw d cir cumstances* sir?’ he «i. and when I myToper answered that I thong':.’ ILL position he , rnimmw sir-vour duty was to i.’ aa soon as possible to tin . k V. m that piece of steel whimw mm cm i, ing about it was one tlwn< i.....th, Band that a single soul v.<m:; 1 turtantaneous «>oking. In . i. tint thing had carried away tl, nations your life would Lao ,1 1 right then ’ “‘Well, I took the chance, I an Bwered. " ‘Yes, sir, yon did, biu , t know it, therefore it i 1 ' ur .•’! 1 > your credit,’was the rhi.fY an-wer, end it was bo absolutely L li.ut I couldn’t for the life of me 1 uuiyre ply.’’—Detroit Free Press. THE POWER OF WILL. tu Wanted to Live l our i*ny», nnfl iisSuceefl,,!. it wonld be vain to atb :npt to dc •cribe the sympathy f-r tl,‘ poor and Buffering which William . c.iuld throw into his voice, r-ays i d Id-, m pher. One of the storm- >.-d to toll is of peculiar intern i>: only f..r its revelation of human kh, in. but n a proof of the power of the will in pro longing life. An old pension r patient of Stokes in the Meath 1. pi ■ d. llis life. was daspaired f was hourly expected. One nmrninv. having many patients c . i r '1 believing that the p. 11 -i : m 11 - scions and past hi Ip. 1 h. - bsp- 1 hie bed without M y r . 1 ,-i-M rnt was greatly distn-e.l end .. u “Don’t Le pass me by. you must keep alive fori r “We will keep . !,, - ur- v.e can. my poor fellow.” an 1 s, “but why for f, d v j ' .nr , “Because,” vae th.- . P .ion will be due then ml Iv.-miho money for my wif, me:,: ! t give me anythin : i n.... . i • : ’ if I sleep 1 shall di °n tlw> thir«l day, amazement of st,.!: . ! I^ent "as *ill ... ■ P - morning of the and conscious, ml „ ward Stokes saw him h : 1 ■ hand the certificate v, nature. As tho do-tei o . . ■ dying man ga ■. ; Sign, sign! ; The doctor quickly • . .. man sank back • -dm • . few minute-. breast and said. TL I on iny soul,” and qui!. I Where He Kci»ii «fr When illicit distillin was Of mimon in the highlands, there w Id man who went about the t y whisky pots. The gauger met him and, Burmising that he had 1 il dc :i£ ra¬ pairs at no great distance, veil what he would take to inform ! er) where ho repaired th * 1 ; -: whisky pot. "Och.” aaid the old man, “she’ll shust tak’ hanf a croon “Done!” retorted tin ‘ ‘Here is your money, but bo car ul to toil me correctly.” "Och, shell no’ tell 1 a lee.” Getting tho money, the ol< man quietly remarked: “I shust mended tho last whi ot where the hole was.” L ■. ion bpare Moments. IngenloQi. “My wife is tin* most ing;: an who ever lived,” said K : "I believe you,” returned pper po litely. “But you don’t know why you be¬ lieve me,” intimated Kipper. “To tell the truth. I don’t." replied Nipper, looking bored. “Well, I’ll tell you. We've toon married 12 years and lived in t«10 SSI) 118 house all the time, and tlii.- > 1 *nine ehe found a new place iu to hide my slippers.’’—London S Alt! Xo tVonder Uutmin la lKimraut! Russia. with her pcpulati; ‘ ’ ■*’’* 000,000, has only 743 howm 'apers, but little more than half the number imb lished in the state 1 which is 1,430. Of 689 printed in Rus>i«n. 44 in German. 9 in Frt left. 5 in Ar menian and 2 in Hebrew, newspaper appears in the The earliest known 1 n A pianoforte was principal in a play 16, 1767. The m was given thus: “Miss Buel T v aong from ‘Judith. ’ ace new instrument called n About 1,500 tons of i wire are yearly manufa iv Bin into pins. FIRST TO GROW ORANGE8. Jesuit* Introduced Them Into the AwSiSrara commands a good price in the market. a hr; been first grown by the members of t •• -cb.-iy on their grounds, which . ;.1 • hut of Che c.ty in -v " On _ t .i, \M^ch constitutes the I ‘ ' r ; -r <A‘ the first district, down to «..ojjiT!>o 2 i .street. parishes the chief •!”" centers of the are oran; culture of Louisiana, the fruit a l -- ow -.. ll in the parishes of Or- 1 , ns Jefferson, St. James, St. John B :4i t. Si. diaries, Assumption, St. V ,rv T.-r Lafourche, Vennil i. a, Cameron, 1-Ha and Sabine. The orange tfe< ra about the f i ar, all hough it is not reck - have reached its full growth its twelfth or fifteenth year. T:, <,range culture in Louisiana is p, ..... .. t’m- rae-t profitable industry of to,, state under favorable conditions, a full • ,-Avn tree producing from 3,000 the fruit on the tree n . !!■• ,, ir.sig for *!0 a thousand, . tv, larg-st orchards in , , t . as many as 3,000,000 , ... ., r market value gives a k ic m • tic; owners of the t • - atiyely a v,ry small acre . . is <U voted to the growth ,r . , possibly not more than m i m ve.t ness, delicacy and juiciness of ?c J .,iana orange, the best of v ; . - warded in the markets out ; : ■■ , L-un.-inna as sujimortoeventhe e:; ■ of Cuba, to which island the r, i i,.; nous, render ihe lily prized in the north and v.. -c of the United States, so much H, id::; the supply is not by any means 1 to the demand.—New Orleans Picayune. TAYLOURS AND SMYTHS. | ~— - . . _ . i»»nufacture t of leather m the ,jn . ' 1 ' ! ntl ' —ntury seems to have been n-«I-y -ant. showing that leather jerkins ^ave ; 11,1 10 skynners, T " ere co 40 “ n, barkers, ? on1 / WOT “’ 6 Bad- ^ ff r8 ’ ’ cordewener^ 167 souters, ! i lUI * & ove ™; The . 1( ‘ ,! ;: r Si?S!SS'«et«no«a^ ls . « f ™f e name denotln « In ; ..i, in. t ttades aretaylour and y:, 1 ; """ ; ta lours number 4 1 , of ' ■. f ^ ^ j!,X “ Xtwo X ... b , r „ Wr/o Lm There ' ' ‘ ’ . 1 " l “ loe wKesmytne, t tta • . , ! d ave fferonrs (shoemg ’ 1 ••; and ix . marshalls (farriers). 1 { :ht wrought both m wood : ' i aXlledTyfrXatin 1 J y 1 .V •; e i: leneh nvre) one of . the ; . " ^ J Jl ; ‘... !Xade . ' . U h stSfal’izS Hke . ‘ ... . mna; ] the the meatarkJ^or gicat arks or ‘ , ' V X 11 1 . , 1 tuo gl ^uryghtsfgla ’ . / ; • ‘ ^ rf'rhmvhXGl'.^ L isffrl , Uv r ’.f !; , r .. v t ) 8 n nesting '' V \_2 th-irown ."pX, ^ bread . ; ; : . nee Lai .^afths uchere while 1 .’ o l ” • ' 10 9 , •*“ M *»-* - *"*'** The Tijnn. net ion to this prince of ths ’aeilic w s on this wise: My brother nd I were trolling for yollowtail off tha ■ kind “f Santa Catalina. Suddenly out of miner sea a flying fish—tha bird of ocean—flashed t our bows and then, not a dozen istant, tho waters parted arid a inn, iu its resplendent livery of *1 silver, swooped with indescrib rength and rapidity upon dicta) its catching it, mirabile in In a fraction of a second ths >330. Tlio ocean, recording plash of tho leviathan, rippled ap* arid our questions pattered like upon the somewhat hard under¬ ling of our boatman, a son of Al ‘5>» ill said, his white teeth in , c. utra.-t to a lean, bronzed fa<H >, m .• iiurs, that is a tuna, a 200 t-r, at least!”—Pall Mall Gazette. Smoko Otto With Me. “Do you smoke?” asked tho middle aged man. "You didn’t two month! ago. You oughtn’t to smoke, my boy; you're too young and not strong look¬ ing. ’ Then the elderly adviser started to light a cigar. “Have a cigarT” h« , a : d abseatmindedly, as lie scratched a match. Tho young man took the cigai and bit off the end. J his conscience—“very mild, and won t hurt yon anv."—Now York Commer* j j Advertiser, Capacity of St. Paul's, vs many as 30,000 people have been ac mmodai od in St with Paul's c thedral, t Ivon temporary gal . erected. On festivals onto 6 . K> and 7.000 people find At an ordinary service abom *>( tile will make the cathedral Fno Point* of View. ” said the poor man for bread. ’ ’ g so ws.' ’ replied the rich man ■w much you have to to . Now. mine are crying tax Ivy is. ”—Brooklyn Life. A. TRAPPED BURGLAR rH6 w “ - It coat the Burglar Four Years’ Time. , ^ aetetireawte ® ’ bustne^ . always , on a man in my is the lookout for traps and most of ein We> But men go to a lot of trouble ■»*«-; and expense to lay traps, and sometimes they y get up something that is new and effective . T I suppose that any man go ' mg into a dwelling house would be sure to look over the bureaus and dressing tables m the sleeping rooms. It was this.we 1 known professional habit no donbt that had suggested the idea of a c«une across once, which a man had had built with a view to fatchmg anybody that might stand in ron. o the bureau m his room. ‘ 1 that thl9 man mU9t haV ® been visited before and been very much writated by it, because he never could have gone to all the trouble and ex pense he did just for mere protection there was clearly some feeling n it. t ^ as a handsome room, promising loc - mg from its richness, and when I turned my light on the bmeau, where I \\e t, natural y enough to begin, I was not disappointed There was a glitter of glass and silver m the bullw ye, a as I swept the light along rt struck a pocketbook that didn t g itor mu , l” 1 * that looked fat anl ci o L, ... a “ d a watehthat did shine, and, take it altogether, it made me think that here was the home of a m;an t.m d t have to work nights to make both ends ^ n*et And so I set my lamp down on ?»e end of the bureau-,t made me lau « h ‘ actualiy, to think that there was so much good stuff there that I had to shove something one side to make room f? r i1: »nd put my bag down on a chair Sf* , ^ cleaWD * the I d j° just '* put m, the silver .. hairbrushes . , , , in the bag and had turned around to the bureau again to pick up thepocket- 1,00,1 “ d watt* when 1 heaid, or it aeemed as though I felt, a little click, and just the faintest touch of a jamng or yielding under my feet, and the next 1Datant ’ a tim . e J efore 1 conld SEZ ot the floor under my feet about thiee anl dowTl'SS ? 34 01ltfr0m Under me ’ and down I went. m^hands sho was an fro^^y -KodTed man nd Sen^S were TonSVThe lamn bureai^ befrff aSd then on the the comer ot tno bureau ana my bag on the chair-and I wasn t go mg to give it up yet, if I was going down a trap. The trapdoor was hung the the human bureau, °andtlaS^Uo and I laughed to rallfTs mjsell as I put up my hands and tlmught how Sent^J.f^he mlhaulmvSfun Jlong S° to Srnlvft ^Lnensft deemed bureau hS hke ^l wZl hid offnS' nil the expense this man man had beem letn to to to to Si«t thismeSs tocSe fSaT S? iust and I already imagined myseff climbing out rat as 1 thmw up my Z muchXS tvXf theflL■ half of ariSiini ° my length Sw £m SL v^ that^ tiStlv v rS Sg ° that to mS snr« of “And I a-ot it all “f ritrht ^ond but in about a I became conscioua Z ! nf tho alf fact wicJJrHWt that it wasn’t stopping me at t all, r I was carrel » « 2*3, *'; o S'x» SX hi ir»t,X b Uin‘S^"'.‘ ta /ir £ P d t. L »^ 2 as hard as I could, but if I had bad iron fingers and steel muscles I couldn t have heid on after the trap had swung down straight. I went down like a ton of and tho next minute 1 found my self sliding through a smooth boaid tunnel not mnch bigger n enough to let me slide comfortably, and the next ininnte I d been shot into a box or room about seven feet square throiigh an ® th f *J. a P in thG tGp of that cl0Std flush after I T came through. Row, there was a situation for you. Me m a square box of hard pine, ap patently in the cellar of the house, no opo “ mg ln „!* anywhere and “y bag w-ith all nay tools in it up there on the therewith +i ' 1U1 >1 nothing, ie t m nr °n not a blessed “ K | toing n to work with. But while there s life rt r ope, an, ut er s 1 i 1 thonght of such a thing as giving up if T«» L/ ,/r. * f 11 ‘ f +w- l! -> niiiintosi K‘f ! before there was a slide im pushed back n up near the top on one side and a man looked m. It was tne boss of the shanty. And in five minutes the police were there, and then I found they had a door in this box big enough to get a man out of. “I have seen other traps as elaborate, but none more costly. He bad to cut his carpet, to begin with, around the traps in this room. Of course that didn’t and the time contrivance, whatever it was, that was attached to the main trap that let me stand on it for a min ute or two before it dropped, and then Bie shoot and the box and the whole business couldn't have cost a cent leas thau $ 400 or $500. It cost me four years'time.”—New York Sun. The Honeymoon. An early Anglo-Saxon custom, strict¬ ly followed by newly married couples, was that of drinking diluted honey for 80 days after marriage. From this eas tom comes the word honeymoon or hon eyinonth. Persons who don't know enongh co come in out of the wet a-e not likely to be the salt of the earth for any length of time.—Detroit Journal ABSORBED IN WHIST. A ZZrSzf£rZ Bndbnrv, Yt., two tsa-s wme was played at firm 0 f Dater, Thompson & Co. It was something like 5 or 10 cents a corner; go yoQ Bee it iva 3 easy for i. ffi-'.a to lose as uracil as §1.90 in an afternoon. Play ^ tBe Sudbury dinner lmnr. . y- + * rj-n/i ine+pd nr*til t^xtime. j n the «ame that nothing short of an Brokers earthquake could have disturbed them. in New York could do nothing to *at.e the tb mte i-iforest e . J*® ®“? e Hannibal “d t PtS- fh t - f historic Ha - a ^ son * interest of tl B oston Douhh gling V stock short throu S Schaick * md ■ at 1 a ‘ikd ouwto to 3 _ ^ a telegram ^ brob '" advising ' him of the L ‘ ~ h-u in^.'.nousth’for p e w ‘re-i „j stopped itVnd ir-t tong.^ for tom hbu to to leddrt^id^ Lv it aside. - - _ ^ £4 he ea?e L "‘, ’’third "summons j „ Later in ftcafteno,m .. „p ( oon bl ‘ J “ came - fo n rt U Then Doubleday arose 3J and lemar.cd^ g ^ntlemen, favgood 1 have ^ »cfl> $L « 60 5 I r mi «mst 1 st say,K^th^S afternoon or New York ” The imxt-morn- 8 . brokers ‘ informed him that he couMIsett:lefor * $ 100 0Q , 000 Q00 .At At the thetame time * 1 J^ve . settled e tle 4 for * |3,i 2 j 000 000, a, at the tlm time t me of ot .he second for $e 0 000 the ttad tor » ’ge ttich of the fatidhury game <if » - threatenin g flurry.-I N'ew n. y York Yo rk Pi-es« Pies,. SCOTC H SIM qimpi PLIG, ICITY . Y. The M«»on, the Buddlns Arehiteet a „ d « c«n»cicnee stricken Lad. The Scotch are fond of telling stories illngtrate tho peclll j ar simplicity f their lLS^avea country people. This at than from ° m J relates that an Sa ho n es t Shouse mason once oTstone. had a contract to He came n f r01n the fast......At inside to lay the stone, working very noon his young son SS brought him his dinner, 4 as he handed th basket to his father. With honest pride in his eye, the mason looked over to tho X on%’’he asS hoo d’ye think I’m g Xeh5 getting on famous feyther ’’ answered lock, looking at the solid ^ vrhicli there was no break TheXson fooked around. It was true. He had provided the house with nodoor at all, and he was on the inside, He looked kindly and very admiringly ‘‘Mom Jock, ye’ve a grand held on je!” ho exclaimed. “Ye’ll be an archi tect yet, as sure as yer feyther’s a ma Another story shows how unsuccess ^1 as a thief the rustic Scot may bo. Two young plowmen went into a g« den at njght to steal gooseberries. The Pushes surrounded a plot of potatoes, and as one of the lads groped about he got a handful of potato plums, which ke quickly put into his mouth. Then he gasped to his comrade -»•. g.ir ilgQI" Youth’- C omp.niou. Tobacco m England, 1843. When j Wfl3 a ladi £ul iv half the pop nlation of both sexeg> rich as well as poor tbe banker cqnal i y with the work . man> WO1 . 0 sn nfftakers. Mv first gchwoh , lastei . ahvays carried his snuff looa0 }n hig waist0oat pocketi and iu . luimerahle were hia dips into it with ^ fi * g and a thumb in the course of thg while the big ganffered frill which protruded from the bosom of his shirt was always thickly f sprinkled with * . fc nged to noti< e that ho never gecmed to relish one of his huge pinches gQ mach afj immediately a f ter having administered n sound castigation to gomo recaldtrant pTipil . On tho other hand, there was little or no ope n air smoking, except in the case laboring TO en going to or from their work. In this respect lucifer matches have S02n ething to answer for; but for them the practice of outdoor smoking would never have grown to its present cnormotlg rtion3 . _ Chambers’ - An Unexpected Call. “You are just going out, I see”— “Yes, an important engagement. What was it yon wanted?” “It was about that little debt I owo you. ’ ’ “Ah, yes! Take a seat.” “I was going to ask you for a little d ".“o.Axc« r» already late.” “I ssy. I was going to ask you for a little delay when I met a fellow who paid up. what ha owed me, and — “Why on earth don't you: \ l down? Will you take a glass of wine?”—Paris Figaro. Xo Faith In Anything. “Aunt Josephine is a thorough skep¬ tic.’* “She is?” “Yes; she puts mucilage on the back of every postage stamp she uses.”— Chicago Record. Elephants" Teeth. Elephants have only eight teeth—two above and two below on each side. A ll elephants “baby teeth fail out when animal is about 14 years old, and a new set grows. A SONG. The full of the tide and the gray of th e sea, f£&S3S3%r~ is better item '-his, my dear, if R -.-.- 1 st l **■»■ find it not here, .*»-*«■—» Land^Siicshine.” JUS __ i A , CUR , D taim : AIN pipe r iRE. , * G * A firesin . a skyscraper . may he thuL mg, but for dramatic episodes and un-. expected complicatiens a fire m a gma boarding school surplus it. The board ^ school fire is usually what is known among insurance men as a -curtain fire, a curtain fire in a girls’ school is :e exciting ai more casual tn an ordinary blaze any where else. One evening last week two girls, who occupy a microscopic hall bedroom in a swell up town school, took the globes off the gas fixtares'for hair curling pur poses and Ieft tlieE1 o£f , because it was easier to do that than to put them on again. Then the girk raised the window atoho in order to cool the room and 'dutifully sat down to write home ters. The inevitable happened, and when girl number one poised her pen in the air and glanced around the room in ,-ivch of inspiration die saw the ^ . q ^ Waze Slie screamed . G irl number two looked around and echoed tbo scream. Then, with promptitude and discretion, both girls fainted. The screams had attracted the attention of the oi her ^ girls, who rushed to the scene aal vario us and mm.iry stunts, according ^ to their several dispositions, a few aad the reat shout for the oho man on the premises.' WheQ he ar?ived> tilin g 3 looked rather hopeless. Curtains and woodwork were fiBcly _ The Uoor was Uttered with prostrate forms, and when three gi , ls have fainted on the floor of a hall V ..room there isn't much space in the room for promenading. The man picked Ms wav across the prostrate forms and " red ail the girls who were not in a (h ad faint to-leave the room, but they didn’t go ® until he lost his temper and ke ith a foroe which isn’t common in 1 lea. Then they fled in but, nnl-.cMlv. there was an ene my tho rear. A vigorous and practi cal woman from Texas had been inspir ed to go after some water. Returning in mad haste with a large pitcherful of water borne trinmi. hantly aloft, she collided with the retreating forces at the <door. The pitcher struck the leader of the retreat squarely in the face and knocked out two of her front teeth, whereupon the iniured girl made the fainting trio a quartet and the water carrier dropped her pitcher and went into violent hv.teri. . IrwteH.i, ::s boarding sorrowT school teachers know to mu is contagious, and tlio one case touched off the crowd, By th, time teachers arrived upon the scene thefim was out. but the survivors v,vr - in n l;:;d way. It was necessary to put nino-t^ntbs of the school to bed and order wholesale doses of bromide. Even now tho girls imiot that they haven’t recovered from the shock sufficiently to c,> Ivrtl study in and tho victims of the n Ter ;L !• ■ axe ! .th under the - ft r tin man. L ;lvo np ni>i place the next day and corn:. -.1 to tho cose that he was going to look for a job in a lunatic asylum, where his boarding school experience v.ould be of value to him.-New York Sun. w"*?**--«• ^ neat ;md attractive. The type is clear, . !U,d tllQ covers might even he called “artistic” in the catholic sense of the term. The interior kinds are indiffer ently printed “on gray paper with blunt type.” and there are many degrees of excellence between the two extremes. All ixcept ono have illustrations rang lr0I!1 the rndcst of woodcuts to tho smudgiest of “process plates. Of COOT55f) the artlst sele cts tile most sensa ' fional incidents tor his 1 pencil to adorn. The stabbing of the heroine’s father by th » V!llaiu dl ^ msed as tbe hero - th< ’ kidnaping of the heroine , by Black Tom and his gang ot gypsies at the in stigation of her jea us rival, the horse W:li i. :li 3 c 1 ti:v - :da Ly the hero in “faultless . dress—these and evening their like naturally present themselves as tnoioughtv sniti-me and congenial subjects.-Blackwood’s Magazine. Malic,ons , “^ rf - renee - “ T T ; ,„ 1 get even wnh that printer/’ g: un toe editor or tne Plnnkville Bugle, “if it takes me the rest of my life. “What printer?” asked his friend, “That tramp I took on while my wife wns visiting . . her mother. , I got a $10 . write-up 01 r of old Hiker, who is lay -b for llil V. ‘i-imrsaip, amt I said that d;:;> , ills i^tle would suit s ( ii a: li! a- Lis, father, and that villain fis L'Ll - it that the veung ’un would ‘be’ a mg a mark, etc.”—In A l selcss Wls’ j. “Oh. ” r.ici! ; l the noetic lady, “had I the in “Don’t!" U€T husband.' “Don’t wish f :i bird. If t had oilier woman would probably be wearing them on her hat Leter eavon is over.”—Wash instci A well known professor says that over a large an: a of centos! Russia the inam-tic ne Ate a. vs n t point derth cr f- -nth. It is in one r art deflected to Th- w. ,-r. and at another part to the e.r-* and at one place it points due east and west. Tto eg s of a bluebottle fl# if placed j u tke w jn Latch in two or three hours. THE GAME OE QUOITS. CAN BE PLAYED ANY PLACE AND SPLENDID 13 EXERCISE. It l« & Very Ancient EnslisU Pas time, and Its Beginnings Are Lost In tilt* Mist of Ages—Fine Trainins For tile Eye and Arm. There a™ some games which have ceve r had thdr boom. „„a ,o„i te of them* Still, as nothing hannenta ?heti°! k + the unexpected, it may be that Re time ■ i • r °\ " nae f e f vea obscurity, to he exalt ea . to tue maais ot a national game, to have weekly papers named a.ter it and to have columns in the sporting press devoted to the doings of its champions. Stranger things have happened. Who, for instance, would have said when at the end of the sixties a few energetic sportsmen went wobbling about on bone shaking bicycles which it would have been far easier to push than to that at the end of the century consider ably more than 100,000 bicycles would be manufactured annually in Great Britain alone and that a great part of the population wonld adopt this means of locomotion? One cannot im agine that quoits wil! ever attain such popularity as the bicycle, but the un¬ prejudiced person can see no reason why it should n.ot become as favorite a pastime as golf, which a very few years ago was almost unheard of south of the Tweed. Quoits is a. very fine game, especially m the winter time. It is splendid exer ciso and trains the eye and the hand to act together in a way that few other sports can do, for the very essence of it is accuracy of aim at a mark placed be lew the level of the hand. It has been objected that throwing quoits makes the player lopsided, but, after all, that is easily remedied, for there is nothing to prevent the player throwing the quoit with his left hand if he so pleases, and such a change wonld make a varia tion in the game and also afford an ex¬ ceJlent method of handicapping the men of unequal skill. Quoits strengthens the arms and shoulders, hut it is not a pas time which primarily demands strength, A great advantage of the game is that it can be played in any small space and that the ground need not be particular Jy level. Any rough field or waste hit of ground is good enough for a quoits pitch, and no rolling or cutting isre qnired to satisfy the demands of the most exigent. For cricket yon. need a carefully prepared wicket, for lawn tennis and croquet a piece of turf like a billiard table and for golf the best part of a country all to yourself, but for quoits yon only need a few yards of rough ground, and you have as good a place for throwing as any one can pos sibly require. People certainly might play quoits more than they do, but the taking up of a game is usually a matter of fancy, and perhaps two things stand in the way of quoits. First, there is an idea that it is a “rustic” sport and can only he played by the rough country lads, and, second, there is the legend that the game is derived from the classical discus throwing, a suspicion which it must.be confessed is enough to throw a slur on any well regulated game, No treatise on quoits can begin with out the time honored pedigree of the quoit from the discus. Strutt, who lived at the end of the last century, of course dealt with it, and equally of course he draped m tho discus even if he did no invent the descent of quoits from the sports of ancient Greece. The thing, of course, is absurd. To make a discus, the artisan did not, in the words of the immortal Irishman, take a hole and put “ «» »»»«»* * was bowled underhand, in which indeed it alone differs from putting the weight. That quoits is now played c i lie fly in the country is the fault of those who do not play it and bring it into fashion, It is no doubt a very ancient English game an d its beginnings are lost in the , mist of ages. Hakluyt mentions it in his book of “Voyages,” so it was well kn0 wn in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when it probably was one of the favonte sportg of Merrie England. In some parts 0 f the country tho rustics nsaft to employ horseshoes fgr want of properly made quoits, and there are district, in which the quoit is caUed a “shoe” even to this day. This gives us the clew to the most probable origin of the sport a nd hints that the first game of quoits was started by throwing old horseshoes at the hob or mark, and from this grafi ually grew up the practice of having quoits specially made for throwing. So much for tho discus legend. As for the W ord “quoit” itself, its etymology is more than doubtful, and it gives us the no clew whatever to the origin of game. Shakespeare, who mentions every thing except tobacco, of coarse has a referel ice to the sport, and as Hakluyt was a contemporary of his it maybe show that the spacious times of Q. rea t Elizabeth were the palmy period of quo its. It is true that he does sot gpeak o£ the sport in very reputable it connection, for the only mention of occurs in the scene in which Prince Henry, Falstaff, Poins and the rest were in the Boar's Head tavern, m Eastchepe. Falstaff, in giving a char¬ acter sketch of the young prince, the 00 - serves that he plays quoits well, but context very clearly shows that m Queen Elizabeth’s time at any rate quoit playing was looked’down upon as the idle man’s recreation, much as skit¬ tles is with ns That fat Jack Falstaff. disrepn table old fellow as he was, , neant to imply no good of the prmce bT his reference to quoits Is very en d ' nt This is the only reference to qnoits in Shakespeare, and it is a libel, tko ugh the sting is taken out of » to the fact that it is pnt into the moot a of Falstaff.—Physical Culture.
