The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-01-11
QUOITS AND THEIR ORIGIN,
Game Which Has Many RccOmmen-
datiOnS to Favor.
From PHYSICAL CuII1Ire


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 uneX-
pected, it may be that the time is neaT.y
ripe for quoits 20 be taken out of its unde-
served obscurity, to be exalted to the
status of a national game, to have weekly
papers named after it and to have col
umns in the sporting press devoted to the
doings of its champions. Stranger things
have happened. One cannot imagine that
quoits will ever attain such popularity as
the bicycle, but the unparalleled person
can see no reason why it should not be-
come as favorite a pastime as golf, which
very few years ago was almost unheard
of south of the Tweed.
Quoits Is very fine game, especially in
the winter time. 1t is splendid exercise,
and trains the eye and the hand to act
together in a way that few other sports
can do, for the very essence of it is ac-
curacy of aim at a mark placed below the
level of the hand. 1t has been objected
that throwing quoits makes the player
lop-sided, but after all that is easily RENE
died, for there is nothing to prevent the
player throwing the quot with his left
hand # he so pleases, and such a change
would make a variation in the game and
Gaping the men of unequal skill
Quoits strengthens the arms and sboul-
ders, but 1t is not a pastime which pri-
marily demands strength. A great ad-
vantage of the game is that ii can be
played in any small space, and that the
ground need not be particularly level. ANY
rough field or waste of ground is good
enough for quoits pitch, and no rolling or
cutting is required to satisfy the demands
ID.
a carefully prepared wicket, for lawn ten
mis- and croquet a piece of turf like a bill
lard table and for golf the best part of
country all 10 yourself, but for quoits you
only need few yards of rough ground,
and you have as good a 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 matter of fancy, and perhaps
two things stand in the way of quoits.
First, there is an idea that ii 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, a suspicion
which Ii must be confessed is enough to
throw a slur on any wel-regulated game
No treastise on quoits can begin without
the tine-honored pedigree of the quot
from the discuss. 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 des-
cent of quoits from the sports of ancient
Greece. The thing, Of course is absurd. To
make a discus the artisan did not, in the
words of the immortal Irishman, take a
hole and put some iron around 1t. The
discus was more like a flattened Dutch
cheese, and was a solid missile. Moreover
ID was not held in the same manner as a
quot. but was BOWED underhand, in
which, indeed, it alone differs from put
ting the weight. That quoits is now play
ed chiefly in the country is the fault of
those who do not play it and bring IL into
fashion.
IT is no doubt a very ancient English
game and its beginnings are lost in the
mist of ages. Hakluyt mentions it in his
book of Voyages" so it was well known
in Queen Elizabeths time, when it proba-
bly, was one of the favorIte sports of mer-
RE England In some parts of the country
the rustics used to employ horseshoes for
want of properly made quoits, and there
are districts in which the quot is called a
"shoe" even to this day. This gives us the
clew to the most probable origin of the
sport, and hints that the first game of
quots was started by throwing old horse
shoes at the hob or mark, and from this
gradually grew up the practice of having
quoits specially made for throwing. So
much for the discus legend AS for the
word quot itself, its etymology is more
than doubtful, and 1t gives US no cleW
whatever to the origin of the game