Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-09-08
Lawn.Tennis.

skll1ul q game, Tor everybody to aspire
to its honors and delights. But lawn
tennis is within the reach of almost any
man, and of any woman under forty. A
distinguished statesman could be
named, the leader of a great party, and,
pace Mr.. Chamberlain, an indefatigable
toiler, who not unfrequently is carried
by his boys down to the lawn-tennis
ground, where he acquits himself with
zeal, if not with dexterity. There are
many Woodworking professional men
who, if pursued to their suburban re-
treats, would be found exhibiting as
much eagerness to send a deadly "ser-
vice. as If they were still school-boys.
and had nothing else to think of but the
triumphs of muscles and sinews. No
clergyman need fear to be seen handling
a racquet; and if the dream of some re-
formers is to become a reality, and Sun
day afternoon is ever to see revived the
antique glories of the village green.
surely it is by lawn-tennis that the
tempting goal will be reached. As vet
the game has not permeated all classes
OF the community; nor will its lasting
character be assured until this IS
achieved. What has conferred contin-
uous vitality upon cricket and football
is that they are "understanded of the
people," It may be said that, in CON-
parison with the number of persons who
a play at n time in one court, lawn
tennis is an expensive game, and that
this must operate as a barrier to it's
adoption by the people at large. But
this is an obstacle of anything but an
insuperable character. 1t would be
easy enough to reduce the cost, and in
country districts there is rarely any diff
ficulty in raising subscriptions for the
support of clubs whose object is the pro-
motion Of sports. A game that is the
game of only one class, or at most of
only one section of the community, can
never excite the enthusiasm or acquire
the national dignity enjoyed by one
where, by a touch of nature, prince,
peer and peasant are made kin. Lawn
tennis is exactly calculated to be a game
of the latter sort. It is for old and
young, for men and women, for the
strong and the weak; it expands the
lungs, strengthens the muscles, i'm
proves the condition, and takes off
weight" as surely as a Turkish bath.
and more wholesomely. Such a game
ought to be national in the best sense
of the word.
There is a genial, social aspect about
lawn-tennis that has. no doubt, largely
ministered to the growth of its popular
ity. 1t possesses no mysteries like the
ancient and classic game whose name
it has borrowed, and whose champions
look down upon the intruder as rather
a sorry sort of parvenu. A person who
can not be made to understand that the
advance at a bound from ..fifteen" to
''thirty'' is a perfectly natural numeri-
cal progression, that thirty as a matter
of course leaps at once to forty, and that
''deuce" is the parent of .svantaee."
must be singularly Grass. Moreover,
may be watched with de-
light and interest, even by those whose
intellects are below-or above-master-
ing such elementary propositions as
these. The skill OF the player may be
appreciated by people who have not a
conception what is the score; and the
n%eatness with which a ball is "placed,"
or the rapidity with which it is ..vol.
need not be missed because the
spectator is utterly at sea as to which
side of the net is getting the best of it.
Standard.