The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-24
--aaHH aaaHaH
 QUOTES.
A Game That Never Had a Boom-Its
 DannrT

Ancient Record.
 There are some games which have never had their boom, and quoits is | one of them. Still, as nothing happens but the unexpected, 1t may be that the time is nearly ripe for quoits to be tax en out of it's undeserved obscurity, to be | exalted to the status of national game, to have weekly papers named after it. and to have columns in the 1 sporting press devoted to the doings of it's champions. Stranger things have | happened. Who, for instance would have said, when, at the end of the six ties, a few energetic sportsmen went | wobbling about on bone-shaking bicy- cles, which 1t would have been far cas- fer to push than to ride, that at the end of the century considerably more than l hundred thousand bicycles would be manufactured annually in Great Brit ain alone, and that the vast majority of the poulation would adopt this means of locomotion? One cannot im- agine that quoits will ever attain such | popularity as the bicycle, but the un- prejudiced person can see no season why it should not become as favorite | c piStlLiC eio XVII, WAAiSii ." WI ASf' years ago was almost unheard of south | of the Tweed.
 Quoits is a very fine game, especially in the winter time. It is splendid exer- else, and trains the eye and the hand to act together in way that few other sports can do, for the very essence of its accuracy of aim at mark placed below the level of the hand, It 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 1 quoit with his left hand if he so pleas | es, and such change would make a variation in the game and also afford an excellent method of handicapping the men of unequal skill. Quoits l strengthens the arms and shoulders, but 1t is not pastime which primarily demands strength. A great advantage | of the game is that 1t can be played in l any small space and that the ground 1 need not be particularly level. Any rough field or waste bit of ground Is good enough for quoits pitch, and no rolling or cutting is required to satis- fy the demands of the most exgent. | I pared wicket, for lawn tennis and eros quet piece of turf like billiard ta- ble, and for golf the best part of a country all to yourself, but for quoits you only need q 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 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 1t must be confessed is enough to throw a slur on any well-regulated game. No treatise on quoits can begin without the time-honored pedigree of the quoit from the discus. Strut, 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 did not
 invent the descent of quoits from tic
 sports of ancient Greece. The thing, of !
 artisan did not, in the words of the i'm
 mortal Irishman, take hole and put
 some iron around it. The discus was
 more like a flattened Dutch cheese
 and was a solid missile. Moreover, il
 was not held in the same manner as a
 quoit, but was bowled underhand, ir
 which, indeed, it alone differs from
 putting the weight. That quoits is now
 played chiefly in the country is tn.
 fault of those who do not play it ant
 bring it into fashion.
 It is no doubt a very ancient Eng
 glish game, and it's beginnings are lost in the midst of ages. Hakluyt mention
 it in his book of Voyages, so it was wei
 known in Queen Elizabeths time, wher
 it probably was one of the favoritt
 sports of Merrie England. In some part
 of the country the rustics used to em
 ploy horseshoes for want of properly
 made cuoits, and there are districts 1T which the quoit is called a shoe ever , to this day This gives us the clew tt the most probable origin of the sport
 and hints that the first game of auoits was started by throwing old horse
 shoes at the hob or mark, and iron this gradually grew up the practice O
 having quoits specially made for throw ing. So much for the discus legend. A. for the word quoit itself, it's etymology - is more than doubtful, and it gives u
 no clew whatever to the origin of tn, game.
 Shakespeare, who mentions every thing except tobacco, of course, has ; reference to the sport, and, as Haklup was a contemporary of his, it may b' : held to show that the spacious time!
 of Great Elizabeth were the palmy pc riod of quoits. It is true that he doe , not speak of the sport in very reputa ble connection, for the only mention c , it occurs in the scenes in which Princ
 Henry, Falstaff, Poins and the res