Year: 1879

Washington Letter to Detroit Free Press


asked a gentleman on whom evi-
IDENTIFY all the sweets of this world had
palled, to tell me what lawn tennis was,
when the cynic replied: "It is an in
vention of the evil one to bring inno-
cent men completely under the spell of
fair women's grace and beauty


The good sense which commends the
out door games of archery and lawn
tennis is making them immensely popu-
lar. The young ladies and the attaches
of the English Legation have played
lawn tennis some time at Sir Edward
Thornton's, and others having hand
grounds give garden parties, where the
game has been introduced. Every one
IS inquiring of his neighbor how to play
lawn tennis and no one can tell him, for
it is a recent importation, and there
seems to be no Hoyle to explain it in
books.


Lawn tennis is the original game of
tennis, arranged so as to be played out
doors instead of court erected for that
purpose. Tennis is very ancient game.
Caxton mentions tenyse in 1882, and
Richard H., by an act of Parliament,
designated the sports of his subjects ac-
cording to their station, reserving tennis
for kings and mobiles, and making it an
offense against the kings majesty for
the commonalty to play at that pastime.
Tennis is universally admitted to
hold the first rank among games
of manual skill, and it has
always been esteemed by the
higher classes of England to be man.
ly, scientific amusement. 1t possesses
the excellencies and beauty of all the
other games of manual skill, while it is
equally free from their imperfections.
1t demands the perseverance and adroit-
ness necessary for cricket, the precision
and judgment of billiards, and is to the
body what chess is to the mind. The
qualities required to place a man in the
first rank as player, are all manly and
noble-strength, courage, force and PHI
ancy of the wrist, quickness of the eye,
selt-possession, perseverance, even tenn
per and good Judgment. The game
which comes in competition with tennis
most is cricket, and it is open to many
objections. 1t can only be played a
small part of the year, and match can
not be made readily owing to the num-
ber required to form it, and the great
length of time it engages the play ers.
Tennis, on the contrary, can be played
at all times and seasons. Two players
are sufficient for a match, though it may
embrace three or four players, and it
can oe ended at any given time. Ten
mis- courts are part of the establish
ments of English gentlemen, and in
London and provincial towns as we'll as
in France, where it has assumed the
dignity of national game. Tennis
courts are regular places of amusement
and recreation.


A court of the best is is 96x3i feet. A
stout net hangs exactly across the mid
die, one yard in height in the center, a
foot or more higher at the ends; hang
ing in a slope or festoon it must be OF
very strong material to resist the force
of the ball which is driven by a racket.
The players stand each side of this net
to receive and return the bali, the game
requiring it to be sent over the net. A
tennis ball weighs about q ounces and
is made of strips of cloth wound closely
and smoothly and covered with coarse,
white kerseymere. The racket is feet
inches in length, the bow made of
ash, the continuation forming the han
dies The middle piece is lime-tree
wood and is bent oval and pierced with
holes through waich are drawn the cat
gut which is very tight so as to propei
the ball with great force. AloHg the
court is a gallery; one side is called
service and the other hazard, asd differ
ent stations and points that count il
touched by the ball. All this is repeated
in lawn tennis, as near as is possible
without galleries or stations definitely
placed. A garden party of this kind,
with ladies in becoming toilets, and
their escorts in morning suits, is very
! charming sight.