The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-06-01
The Game Of Polo.


The New York Sun gives the follow
ing account of the new game of polo,
which has recently been imported to
this country from England by some
fashionable New York bloods: --A-s
Retiring into the tents, the players
soon emerged, led by Mr.. Bennett, and
dressed in exceedingly picturesque
style. They wore tight-fitting red or
blue wooden shirts, gray pantaloons,
leather leggings, easy shoes, and jaunty
red or blue caps. Mr.. Benefits cos
tune was rather more elaborate than
the others. His leggings and shoes were
of very fine yellow leather, and fitted
his graceful ankles like gloves. In his
belt he wore white silk handkerchief,
like knights token, and his embroid
cred blue and white cap was jauntily
tipped over one ear, his iron-gray hair
curling like plume on the other side.
When he sprang lightly into the saddle
of his slender gray mustang, and, wav-
ing his bamboo mallet, darted at the
little wooden ball that lay concealed
somewhere in the grass, every body
exclaimed admiringly that he was
SPLENDID rider.
The players ranged themselves on
their ponies on the opposite sides of the
ground, and ia front of the stakes be-
tween which the ball must be driven to
win the game. The ball, about three
inches in diameter, was thrown into the
center of the field; the signal was Civ
en-, and the riders dug their spurs into
their horses TANKS, posing the mallets
like lances, and rushed together, meet
ing in the center. Mr.. Bennett, dash
ing ahead, and half rising in his STIR
rus, made swooping blow, but missed
the ball, and only carried away tuft
of grass. Then some one on the other
side sent the ball spinning toward the
goal; but, turning like lightning, the
fleet mustangs overlook it, and gen
eral melee ensued, the trained horses
rushing around and between one an
other with amazing agility, while the
Gathering of hoofs and mallets sounded
like the rafting of hail on a roof. The
spectators entirely lost sight of the ball
at times in the throng of men and
horses, and then it would be shot out of
their midst by an expert blow and sent
to another side of the field, with the
whole troop in fleet and noisy pursuit.
Sometimes the players themselves
were at a loss to find it in the grass, and
then one would catch sight of it, and,
| squirting toward it, make a swoop with
his mallet, sometimes hitting the ball,
but quite as often provoking laughter
by missing it and nearly unseating him.
| -, = n ar ho
ceedingly picturesque as the sleek po-
MES bore their quantity dressed riders,
who at a distance looked like wild In
dams, or Spanish bull-fghters, in their
brilliant red and blue shirts and caps,
and swinging their long mallets round
and round, now mingling in whirling,
battling throng, now sweeping in two
lines, like trained battalions, and then
suddenly scattering in all directions
over the field.
The spectators laughed and clapped
their hands with all the enthusiasm of
the witnesses of a horse race. The ball
was frequently driven beyond the boun-
diaries without passing either goal, and
then foul was declared and it was
pitched back into the field at a signal,
and sometimes the mallet of daring
rider met it almost before it touched the
ground.
Sir Bache Cunard soon showed him
self the most skillful player. Dressed
in a sober gray suit, with his sleeves
rolled up to the elbows, he hung on the
outskirts of the battle, and whenever
the ball was projected from underneath
the feet of the horses he pOunced upon
it like falcon, and almost never mis-
sing blow, he sent it spinning toward
his opponents goal amid the plaudits of
the spectators.
Once in the game the opposing cap
tains, Bennett and Cunard, in their ca
ger rush for the ball, came into COLI
sion, but their agile ponies grazed one
another's sides without hurt, while their
riders raised mallets claShed together
like broadswordS over their heads,
amid the shouts and laughter of the
lockers on. sect out of the light"
was the battle cry as the riders swooped
down upon the ball.
Once or twice the ball was broken by
the fierce blows of the mallets, or the
trampling feet of the horses, and then a
new ball had to be pitched into the
field. Oftener a rider would break his
mallet, and then he would be hors de
combat until he could dash away to
one of the tents and procure a new one.
After twenty-five minutes of very lively
playing Mr.. Benefits side won the
first game. The second game began
almost Immediately, and in a very few
minutes Cunard's men had driven the
ball through the goal. The third game
was considerably longer, but after some
very brilliant play Mr.. Benefits side
again won.
The fourth game was brief. Cunard
sent the ball with two or three well-di-
rected blows to the edge of the goal,
and one of his men struck it over the
line. The fifth game was the most
brilliant exhibition of skill. Cunard by
one magnificent stroke, sent the ball
spinning from the center of the field to
the side of his opponents stakes, and
following it like a whirlwind he out
stripped every body and completed the
victory by putting the VAIL through. In
the sixth game Mr.. Douglass, during a
fierce battle near the goal, ran down
one of the stakes, fortunately without
hurting his pony, but he scattered the
throng of spectators, and made some
of the ladies, who were safely seated on
the drags, cry out in alarm. The game
was won by Cunard's party.
- I'll Va TruSf Va -