CLERGYMEN AMONO "TWO-UPS."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1413, 13 April 1912, Page 14

CLERGYMEN AMONO "TWO-UPS."

It is not often that the patrons of the two-up game are able to boast of a visit of three clergymen attired in their ministerial apparel to their assembly (says the Sydney "Daily Telegraph"), but a local band of devotees of this amusement, numbering between 50 and CO men and boys, were honoured in this way on a recent Sunday at their usual meeting at Hurstville, when the Church of England Men's Society, under the leadership of Revs. S. D. Yarrington, Dixon, Hudson, and 11. Arnold, decided to lward them in their den, or rather at their -well-known rendezvous at the foot of Maher Street, which is under ten minutes' walk from Hurstville Station, to hold a service, and to carry out the divine injunction to go into the highways and tho byways. Knowing the shy and retiring disposition affected by two-up players, owing, no doubt, to their sensitive natures, it was decided to send an advance party, consisting of two of the C.E.M.S., ahead, so as to endeavour to reassure them in tho ovent of them stampeding, while the main bodv, numbering about a score, strolled quietly along. In order to secure themselves from tho public gaze, some of the more energetic members of the' two-up association had erected a kreen of ti-tree bushes, which added to the. picturesqueness as well as privacy of the scene. Tho usual scramble to obtain possession of tho kip and double-headed pennies ensued. The missioners endeavoured meanwhile to reassure them that, they were not members of the police force, by pointing out how easy it would have been to have surrounded them, if the intention hod been to arrest tbem. On the service getting under weigh, and attracted by the spirited singing, gradually they emerged from their temporary hiding-places, behind rocks, stumps, bushes, etc., and listened to the messages which the various speakers had for them, and no doubt many of them as a result of this surpriso visit and tho earnest pleadings may bo induced to turn over a new leaf.