RINKING AT HOME.

Evening Star, Issue 4287, 22 November 1876, Page 3

RINKING AT HOME.

The London correspondent of the ' Press' advises linkers in the Colonies not to over do it. Take warning by us here at Home. London in particular, and the country in general, is over rinked. Many a rink which a few short months ago resounded to bands of music, the skirr of the wheels, the laughter and buzz of happy social intercourse, is now a howling wilderness of desolation, and an owner of rink shares now looks nearly as blue as a Turkish bondholder. Many reasons are adduced to account for the sudden decay of a fashion which but a short time ago sent the whole country wildly careering on wheels. Some say that dislocation and compound fracture were not found conducive to health and spirits ; others, that the mothers complained that the incidental exigences of the pastime, such as the male boot suddenly obtruding itself into the female pocket, or a wild struggle on the asphalte, did not biing the men to the point as they (the mothers) had been led to believe would be the case, and consequently look upon rinks as delusions and srares. There is no doubt about it, the men have been shamefully supine and backward. I myself saw a young lady at Brighton day after day, week after week, drag a young man about the r.sphalte, fall upon him, sit upon, stamp upon him, and yet that frigid young man has the cool impudence to walk about single and unengaged. The above reasons may certainly have had something to say to the decline, and I may almost add fall, of the i inking empire j but the main cause is that we have overdone the thing. At first large fortunes were made by skating rinks with Monte-Christo-like rapidity, and every one wanted to do likewise. The consequence is we have now nearly as many rinks as linkers.