The Washington herald., 1914-09-20

endeayors to justify Brookes for his ear
stopping Incident, but concludes with: Il
confess i would have preferred that he
had not done IT." He furnished a rea-
son for the behavior of the gallery thus:
Since the incident l have gone out to
a baseball game and l have heard the
continual roofing that goes on. 1 am
entirely surprised after that at the
quietness Of the crowd at the tennis;
l entirely understand that they were
moderate indeed. But that does not alter
the fact that TO Brookes it was an ex-
perience quite unusual. l dare say if
he had heard a ball game he would have
been soothed by the quiet OF the crowd
at tennis. But he had not"
Foot Fault AppIauded.
Mr.. Kidson's views in other parts of
his article are decidedly more partisan
than the gallery was at any stage. He
claims that a foot fault given against
Wilding was applauded. This is absO-
lutely absurd. as the foot faults were
rarely called loudly enough TO be heard
by many in the stands. and even the
uninitiated would not applaud a faulty
service. His accusation Of partisan ap-
plause is not a true bill as the enclosure
rang with applause for the brilliant shots
of Brookes and Wilding who were cheer
ed just as heartily as Mclaughlin or
Williams on every occasion when their
play called for applause. and this ap-
plause, by the way, seemed in no way
offensive to Mr.. Brookes.
The crowd really behaved wonderfully
well, better in fact than could be eX-
pected under the conditions as explained.
The Observation-Disclosures match of the
first day was somewhat marred as the
pendulum of advantage swung back and
forth through that wonderful first set
by the encouraging shout several times
sent to Mac" when he seemed to be
slipping: Go to it, Mac, old boy" And
again when Mac" sent a sizzling service
ace or perfect passing shot streaking
through Brookes' court: Alta boy,
Mac" That's shootin' 'em, Reds" A
storm Of Kisses drowned each of these
well-meant calls, and every one turned
angrily to try and locate the offender.
He was discovered perched in the upper
branches Of a tree just outside the en-
closure. The lure of an international
match had drawn him from his favorite
knothole in the fence at the Polo
Grounds to his more dangerous venue in
the tree top, from where, risking life
and limb, he became so interested in a
game that he perhaps had never seen
before that he couldn't refrain from
shouting his encouragement 10 the Amer
ican champion. His exuberance cost him
his view Of the match, however, though
being deprived Of the encouraging\ re
marks OF his admirer in the tree did not
seem TO discourage Mac" who stripped
Brookes Of his title OF worlds champion
by sequence set victory. (
But to return to the thought expressed
in the opening paragraph-eliminating the
few hundreds of curiosity seekers and
several hundreds more OF so-called sport
ing men who are interested in virtually
all branches of competitive sport and
especially in none-the large bulk OF
those 1900 spectators at Forest Hills
were tennis men-real tennis men-men
who are deeply interested in only one
sport-TENNIS. 1t is their hobby.
a Cosmopolitan Crowd.
Mr.. Kidson. Mr.. Brookes and the sew
eral other Australians who criticised the
behavior OF what they chose to call the
American gallery seem to have overlook
ed the very important fact that the
match was being played In the most
cosmopolitan city in the world. and con-
sequentIy, while OF course the Americans
predominated. a very large PORTION OF the
gallery witnessing the tennis matches
in New York were foreigners. The "cail
Of the wild" from the tree top outside
Of the enclosure was the only Ehoat to