El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-01-14
0UOITS.
A Game That Never Had a Boom-lts
Ancient Record.

A Game That Never Had a Boom-lts
Ancient Record.
Ouoits is q fine game that ought
surely to be favorite in Ell PasO. It
has many things to recommend it not
the least of which is that, like golf, it
affords delightful opportunity for out
door social intercourse among men and
women.
There are some games which have
never had their boom, and quOits is
one Of them. Still, as nothing happens
but the unexpected, it may be that the
time is nearly ripe for quotts to be
taken out of it's undeserved Obscurity,
to be exalted to the status of q national
game, to have weekly papers named
after it, and to have columns in the
sporting press devoted to the doings of
it's champions. Stranger things have
happened. Who, for instance, would
have said when, at tt" end of the six
ties, q few energetic epOrtsmen went
webbing about on bOue-shaking bicy-
Giles, which it 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 population would
One cannot imagine that quoits will
attain such popularity as the bicy-
Gle, but the unprejudiced person can
see no reason why it should not become
as favorite psstime as golf. which
very few years ago was almost unheard
of south of the Tweed.
Quoits is q very fine game, especial
ly In the winter time. 1t is splendid
exercise, and trains the eye and the
In hnv in h0f fcagu
other sports can do, for the very
essence of 1t is accuracy of aim At q
mark placed below the level of the
hand. It has been objected that thro.
ing 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 80 pleases, and such q
change would make q variation in the
method of handicapping the men of
unequal skill.
Quoits strengthens the arms and
but it is n OF q pastime which
primarily demands siren 9Th. A great
advantage of the game is that it can be
played in any small space, and that the
ground need not be particularly level.
Any rough field or waste bit of ground
is good enough for quoits pitch, and
Physical Culture, to satisfy the de-
mands of the most exigent. For crick-
ct you need carefully prepared wick
ct, for lawn tennis and croquet q piece
of turf like q billiard table, and for
golf the best part of county all to
yourself, but for quoits you only need
a few yards of rough ground, and you
have as good q place for throwing as
any one can possible require.
I'll o1 ~rsk
more than they do, but the taking up
of a game is usually matter of fancy,
and perhaps two things stand in the
way of quoits. First, there is an idea
that it is q ''rustic" sport, and can on
ly be played by the rough country lads;
and, second, there is the legend that
the game is derived from the clas-
steal discus throwing, sus-
picion which it must be confessed is
game. No treatise on quoits
can begin without the timehonored
pedigree Of the QUOT from the discus.
Strut. who lived at the end of the last
century, 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 artisan did not, in
the words of the immortal Irishman,
take hole and put some iron around
it. The discus was more like fiat
tened Dutch cheese, and was q solid
Moreover, it was not held in
the same manner as q quot, but was
bowled underhand. in which. indeed, it
alone differs from putting the weight.
That quoits is now played chiefly in
the country is the fault of those who
do not play it and bring it into fashion.
1t is DO doubt q very ancient English
game. and it's beginnings are lost 10 the
mist of the ages. Hakluyt mentions it
in his book of "Voyages," SO it was
we'll known In Queen Elizabeth's time,
when it probably was one of the favor
lite sports of Merris England. 10 some
parts of the country the rustics used to
employ hOrseshoes for want of proper
~ made quoits, and there are districts
in which the QUOT Is s'shoe'' even to
this day.
This gives US the clew to the mos
probable origin of the sport, and
hints that the first game of quoits was
started by throwing old horseshoes at
the hob or mark, and from this
gradually grew up the practice of hav-
Ing quoits specially made for throwing.
So much for the discus legend. AS for
the word ''quoits" itself, it's etymology
is more than doubtful, and it gives US
no clew whatever to the origin of the
gams.
Shakespeare, who mentions every
thing except tobacco, of course has
reference to the sport, and, as Hakluyt
was contem porary of his, it may be
held to show that the spacious times of
Great Elizabeth were the palmy period
Of quoits. 1t is true that he does not
speak of the sport in very reputable
connection. for the only mention of it
occurs in the scene in which
Prince henry, Fslstaff, Poins and the
'est were in the Boar's Head Ia