Arizona weekly citizen., 1888-01-07
CROQUET AS A SCIENCE.
A GAME FOR EXPERTS AND NOT FOR
 CHILDREN AND PARSONS ONLY.

CHILDREN AND PARSONS ONLY.
 Tho Modern croquet Ground Made of
 Dirt Rolled Hard and Levsl-Hits Hard
 to Make-Few Ladies Attempt scisn-
 tiic Play.
 Even as set up on ordinary lawns. with arches six inches wide, croQuet is a game that requires an amount of headwork fully as great as Is needed to play a good game of billiards. A man who is a very ordinary shot can win from one who hits with great accuracy if his headwork Is de. cidedly superior. Of course, am talking now about the four ball game; the game with one ball apiece is to the other whas euchre is to whist
 If these things are true of the game as ordinarily laid out, they are multiplied in force many times when the ground is . perfectly level sanded dirt floor, when the arches are only One-fOurth of an inch wider than the balls, and when both play CTS are skillful enough to hit an exposed ball iron. end to end of the ground and to hide their adversary's ban behind a wicket with great accuracy.
 The modern croquet ground Is made of dirt rolled as hard as need be and made as level as billiard table. It is surrounded by slightly raised border, so that balls do not go out of bounds. To prevent rUu- ias the surface is sanded slightly. The wickets are set firmly in Q block of wood planted ten inches deep in the ground, and are of thick enough wire to resist 6 heavy blow. The balls are of hard rubber, 8 l4 inches in diameter. The wickets are 3 l-2 inches inside measurement The mallets may be of any pattern or size that suits the fancy of the player, but the most style is one with a head ten inches long, having hard rubber ends se- cured by q steel band, and with a handle about fourteen inchet long and rough sned so as tO secure the grip. The best of them screw into the head and are per tectly round. The ground Is laid out with two stakes of iron less than an inch In diameter, two wickets at each end and two on each side, fin line with the second arch from the stake and with a double middle wicket set cro1wise. This middle wicket consists of two arches like the rest, Joined over the top and about fifteen inches apart The ball must be s0nt through both of these at q single shot. The only way to do this, with fair pros Dect of success, is to take a roquet from ball short distance from the arch and get in the jaws of the first of she pair of vickets and at the next blow go through them both.
 HARD TO ACCOMPLISH.
 To get in position in any other way is sext to impossible, because if the center h. hu.n Tasa al NF inch tO one side of line drawn directly through the center of both wickets you .annOt go through without a carrom, and in crOqust, are mighty uncertain things for most people to try. Professor Charles JacObus, of New Brunswick, can make the shot I have described at the center wicket, and he introduced it with great success in last years national tour lament at Norwich. It Is now called ifter him-the JacObus shot A year or .wO before that, while he was living at he introduced another carrOm, which has since been called the "Mstawan -wist." His Rdyersary's ball was in the cage" as the double center wicket is 'alled. His own was on the other side of .he corner wicket, almost in the jaws of |, and directly wired from the ball in the age and from the other balls. Mfr. Ja- .u1us struck the further wire of the cor Ter wicket, carrOmed from it, going trough the arch, and hit the ball resting with such apparent security in the cage. 't is not often, however, that games are yon by such sensational shots. It is steady, accurate play and good manage uent that tell in the long run
 ] hal often wished for n standard of between persons who play a .l0d ordinary game like myself and the 'rzI experts. made the comparison the ,.ar: day, and it came out just as l ex- lcctcd In nine out of ten games the man sho is called splendid player" by liS very ordinary competitors would make about two arches playing with Mir. Jacobus, or Dr. Reed, or Mir. BOtsfOrd, or my other of the cracks, !" and the chances Ire that he would not get hold of the balls u all during the game. With a weeks lractice, and after becoming used to the round and the narrow arches, he might 70 better, and bother the expert seriously, put he would not bC likely to win 8 single yame the first year.
 OUGHT TO BE ABLE
 Furthermore, no man has any business 10 try tO play on such ground who can not hit a ball almost infallibly at a dozen )r fifteen feet, and who cannot, after get ing a ball to play on, make the circuit of he arches on an ordinary ground once out Jf three or four times at least. He ought also to be able to make the different sorts Df roquets-to send the driven ball long distance while his own only moves 0 few lcet, to send the two along together, and To send his own further than the driven nnu. It Is very handy, too, on occasion, To be able to make a jump shot that Is. to jump over a ball you arc dead on and hit another one beyond and in line with it.
 According to the rules in force in the National association, . ball is in play as soon as ft is placed at the starting point ready for the first tap. It is usual among The experts not to attempt the first wicket ,ri the first shOt-the consequences of failure would be too serious-but to knock .,Dv-a to the far corner, where the follow .ng player Is not likely to get hold of him The great thing, of course, Is to get hold ,f the balls, send your antagonists next ball behind a wicket, and keep your own balls well together, making wickets when you can, and never allowing him to get shot except from behind a wire.
 When the game is played in this way, It may be finished in ten or fifteen min utes. but if the players get hold of the balls alternately, and make errors once in a while, as all merely human beings will, the game may last for seven hours. as one of the games at the tOurna- tneut did last August.
 As yet but very few ladies attempt rcientifc eroquet, but there is no reason why they should not. The short handled mallets necessitate rather ungraceful positions, but ladies need not use short handled mAllets if they prefer grace to accuracy. But this kind of crOquet Is not an exhibition" game, adapted to the display of graceful attitudes and pretty dresses, and meant only to bring people together in pleasant social relations No one can play it who does not love the game for its own sake, and whose thoughts are not directed, for the time, wholly to the business in hand.-W. A. PlAtt in New York Mail and Express.
 
 The warm bath in many cases of sleep '-ssuess has been found a valuable EeaS-