The record-union., 1898-12-09
QUOITS.
"A Game That Never Had a Boom
It's Ancient Record.

There are some games which have
never had their boom, and quoits is
one of them. Still, as nothing hap
pens but the unexpected, it may be
that the time is nearly ripe for quoits
to be taken out of it's undeserved OBJ
scurity, to be exalted to the status of
a national game, to have weekly pa
pers named after it, and to have col
umns in the sporting press devoted to
the doings of it's champions. Stranger
things have happened Who, for in
stance, would have said, when, at the
end of the COS, a few energetic sports
men went wobbHng about on bone
shaking bicycles, which it would have
been far easier to push than to ride,
that at the end of the century con-
siderably more than a hundred thou
sand bicycles would be manufactured
annually in Great Britain alone, and
that the vast majority of the popula-
tion would adopt this means of loco
motion? One cannot imagine that
quoits will ever attain such popularity
as the bicycle, but the unprejudiced
person can see no reason why it should
not become as favorite a pastime as
golf, which very few years ago was
almost unheard of south of the Tweed
Quoits is a very fine game, especially
in the winter time. 1t is splendid eX-
ercise, and trains the eye and the hand
to act together in way that few 9TH
er sports can do, for 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
quoits 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 unequal
skill. Quoits strengthens the arms
and shoulders, but it is not a pastima
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 par
ticularly level Any rough field or
waste bit of ground is good enough
for quoits pitch, and no rolling or
cutting is required to satisfy the de-
mands of the most exigent. For cricket
you need carefully prepared wicket,
TOT laWH leHIiS ana crOQuet piece OF
turf like a billiard-table. and for golf
the best part of a country all to your
self, but for quoits you only need a few
yards of rough ground, and you have
as good place for throwing as any
one can possibly 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 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, a suspicion
which it must be confessed is enough
to throw a slur on any well-regulated
game. No treatise on quoits can be-
gin without the time e-honored pedigree
of the QUOT from the discus. Strut,
who lived at the end of the last CEN
tury, Of course. dealt with it, and,
equally of course, he dragged in the
discus even if he did not invent the
descent of quoits from the sports Of
ancient Greece. The thing, of course,
is absurd To make discus, the arti-
san did not, in the words of the i'm