Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-11-26
MAY YET BECOME A FAD
So Far che Game Of Quoits Has Never Had .
Boom.
But 1t Has Many Advantages and IL
Well Worth the Playins-Clue
to Its Origin.
From Physical Culture

There are some games which have never
| had their boom, and quoits is one of them.
Still. as nothing happens but the unexpect-
ed. 1t may DC that the time Is nearly ripe
| 70: quoits to be taken cut of it's undeserved
obscurity, to be exalted to the status of 4
national game to have weekly papers nam
Ell after 1T and to have columns in the
sporting press devoted to the doings of its
champions. Stranger things have happen
&c. Who, for instance, would have said,
when, at the end OF the sixties, few ener-
getic sportSmen went webbing about on
bone haktng bicycles. which 1t would have
been far easier to push than to ride that
at the end Of the century considerably more
than hundred thousand bicycles would be
manufactured annually in Great Britain
alone, and that the vast majority of the
motion? One cannot imagine that quoits
will ever attain such popularity as the BIZ
cycle, but the unprecedented person can see
no reason why II should not become as ia
yorite pastirne golf, which a very few
years ago was almost unEeard of south of
the Tweed.
Quoits is very fine game, especially in
the winter tire. 1t Is splendid exercise, and
trains the eye and the hand to act together
in way that few other sports can do. foc
the very essence of it is accuracy of aim
at a mark placed below the level of the
hand. 1t has been objected that throwing
qGoits makes the player lopsided. but after
all that Is easily remedied, for there is
nothing to prevent the player throwing the
quot with his left hand If he so pleases.
and such a change would make a variation
In the game and also afford an excellent
| method of handicapping the men of
equal skill. Quoits strengthens the arms
and shoulders, but it is not pastime which
primarily demands strength. A great ad-
vantage of the game is that it can be play
ed in any small space, and that the ground
need not be particularly level. Any rough
= to nf md iS rr<rIa
quoits pitch, and no rolling cutting Is
required to satisfy the demands of the
most eXigent For cricket you need a care
fully prepared wicket, for lawn tennis and
and for golf the best part of country all
to yourself, but for quoits you only need
few Yards of rough ground, and you have
as good A place for throwing as any one
cali possibly require.
People certainly might play quoits mere
than they do, but the taking up of game
is usually 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 be played by the rough
country lads: and, second. there is the
legend that the game is derived from the
Classical discus throwing q suspicion
which it must be confessed is enough to
throw slIr On any well-regulated game
NO treatise ID quoits can begin without the
time-honored pedigree of the quot from the
discus StrItt. who lived at the end of the
last century, of course. dealt with 1t, and
equally. of course, he dragged in the discus
even If he cid not invent the descent of
quoits from the sports of ancient Greece.
The thing. of course, is absurd. To make
a discus he artisan did not, in the words
OF the immortal 1rishman, take a hole and
Put some iror around it. The discus was
more like a 1attened Dutch cheese and
was solid missile. Moreover it was not
held in ne same manner as a quot but
was bowled underhand, in which indeed.
II alone differs from putting the weight
That quo!ts is now played chiefly in the
country is The fault of those. who Go not
play 1t and brirg it into fashion.
1t is no doubt a very ancient English
same, aid its beginnings are lost In the
mist OF ages, Hakluyt mentions it I'm his
book of Voyages" so it was well known
IN Queen Eliza beth's time, when it proD-
ably was one of the favorite sports of
merIle England. In some parts of the coun-
try the rustics used to employ horseshoes
FOR want Of roIerly made ouoits and
there are districts in which the qlIcit is
called a shoe even to this day This gives
US the clue to the most probable origin of
the sport, inG hints that the first game of
qcolts was started by throwing old horse
Shoes at the hob mark, and from this
gradually grew up the practice of having
quo1ts specially made for throwing So
nuch for the discus legend. AS for the
WORD Quot itself, it's etymology is more
than doubtful and 1t gives us no clue
Whatever to the origin of the game