FORGOTTEN POPULAR CRAZES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 233, 8 December 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

FORGOTTEN POPULAR CRAZES.

The great war brought premature death on many crazes which had been in the hey-day of their power. ''Ragtime,'' of course, was in the process of dissolution already; but the tango tea and kindred d'ssipations wore still in full swing, and would probably have continued to reign for some time under ordinary conditions. So, too, with all the freak developments of art and literature, which were (prior to August 1914) reaching a pitch of extravagance calculated to'make ordinary folk wonder whether that time predicted by the pessimist was approaching when everyone would be more or lass insane. The war sounded the knell of Cubism, Futurism, and Post-Impressionism with their kindred horrors! Quite apart from such unusual circumstances as those, which knocked the latest crazes on the head, it is strange to reflect on the queer fashions in thought, art, current speech, and manners, which have from time to time completely held the public fancy, only to be as completely neglected and forgotten when some new things attracted that capricious and unacountable tyrant. A survey of a few of tho things regarding which it might with truth have been said "everybody's doing it" at some time during the past half-century or so will provide quite i surprising array of queer recollection*.

PARLOUR GAMES. Take, for example, the province of games, and more particularly of "parlour games." "What has become of all the "Pigs in Clover" which were to be found probably in nine out of ten British homes some twenty-five years ago? "Pigs in Clover "was really very, very like "The Road to Berlin" or "Silver Bullet" puzzle of the later days; indeed, it can hardly ever be said to have really died out, since some variation of it is generally to be found on the market, entitled "The Spider and the Fly," or any other name you care to give it. .Somewhere about the same time "Tiddleywinks" made its appearance, and is still going strong in a way. though its career as a popular craze was vary brief. Then there was "Pit," "Lotto," and a-score of others, whose very names are forgotten. The curious thing about these game crazes is that the qualification for popularity is not necessarily for the super-excellence of the game. Hundreds of really excellent popular games am brought out every year which fall practically flat, nor can any amount of " boosting" and advertising set a erase agoing. The rage for a thing "jest grows," like Tonsy. To a still earlier time than the blameless pastimes just mentioned belongs 'i game called "spelicans" or "spillikins", which was played with little pieces of ivory and a sort of crochet hook, the. process being to remove the said little ivories one by one without disturbing tht rest. Forgotten games of cards are countless, such as "Beggar m; Neighbour" (Diekens"s lovers will remember how Pip called "knaves" "Jacks" in "Great Expectations"). besique, ecvirte, and a number of queersounding diversions of Georgian days, such as lansquenet, ombre, and so on.

THE SPELLING BEE. Passing on to a vairrety of games which l>clong to the category of proper games requiring skill and practice, who does not remember the period when "ping-pong" reigned supreme? Pingpong, in spits of 'its idiotic-sounding name, ,wuis an excellent pastime for winter evenings, and it almost seemed at one time like to take its place as a. permanent addition to he catalogue of indoor amusemons —only to go out suddenly and unaccountably as such crazes generally do. Nor has am tiling over succeeded in filling its place, though "Diabolo" made a short-lived effort to do so. Of all extraordinary crazes, surely the "spelling bee" mania of inbont 40 years since was one of the. oddest. These peculiar orgies sometimes assumed large proportions, hundreds of people being present at them, some as participators in the contest, some as lookers on only. The form the diversion took was really a kind of spelling examination, long words -c----lected from the dictionary l>eing given out for the competitors to wrestle with, and only those who have over had experience of trying to spell an imperfectly heard word without any context at all can guess at the agonies of the enthusiastic spellers! The ''spelling bee" was no doubt a more austere version of the "missing word" competitions alluded to by Mr. Arnold Bennot in a recent novel. This again made way in its turn for the "limerick" craze of hateful memory, also utilised by an author in the mucli-discu>-sed pby "An Englishman's Home." Jig-saw puzzles were a queer little craze. which still hold their ground to a certain extent, and seem to have taken the place of time-hon-oured "patience'' with some solitary folk and invalids.

POSES AND WHIMS Fashion's whimsies, of course, would far exceed the scope of a Uriel article 1 like te present, with the succession of curious temporary obsessions such a* Dundreary whiskers, "Imperials," and other tonsoriul decoratlions on the side of the sterner sex, and a host of like crazes on the part of womankind. A notable example of the latter was the "Alexandra"' limp, adopted hy maiiv persons, whose zeal for being in the mode was greater thin their sense, at a time when Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, walked lame as n result of an accident. "Poses'' have :a!ways been a favouiite form of cia/.e. notable among such being the famous aesthetic ]>ose so admirably oar'catured by W. S. Gilbert in "Patience," whose ]>rincipal charaeter " Himthorno," was n payable skit upon the leader of the "giooiiery-yal-i»ry" school which rceeiv, d ils nV.it !i----blow in consequence (t f Ihe celebrate!

si indal of the nineties. The "nut' 1 ol the time immediately preceding the war was an excellent specimen of the lengths to which a pes- can be carried, though lie was n allv onl\ a revival el i)m> earlier " Piccadilly .lohnny" of the st !<re-ileor. Then there are the sums v,' •!] have be m for a (•. w months : ;i everyone's mouths nng. hummed, played, whistled anywhero and everywhere, in their Lorn to vanish sudd 'lily at the bidding of some new favourite. A record of the son us which hive been rally "the rage'' during, say, the past

ltiailf-ccntury, would make quite an edifying rechauffe for some modern Hamlet's gravedgger to moralise upon. "Wh.uv did you get that hat?" "Jl you want to know the time, ask a policeman!" "Oh, Mr. Porter!"' "Ob. Dorothy, Dorothy Dean!" are among recent, or fairly recent, song "hits" which probably made thousands of pounds lor somebody while they lasted. By tire way, it is curious that no one has unearthed " Dorothy Dean" since aviation became a fait accompli, with its refrain of—

Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy Dean, Ah, Dorothy, where have you been? Oh, why have you flown to regions mv known Away with tho man in the flyingmachine ?

To an earlier time, again, "Champagne Charlie" and "Captain Cuff," and earlier still, "The Daughter" and " Yillikins and His Dinah" were being whistk'd by every London errand boy. So long ago as 1836 it is recorded that everybody was singing the refrain of "Jump, Jim Crow," probably the first "nigger minstrel" song which took on in England.

Wheel about, turn about, Do jes' so; An' ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.

"Christy Minstrels" had a vogue in London which lasted for many years, but now the sentimental plantation choruses and catchy ditties of the famous Moore and Burgass minstrels are rapidly becoming a. fading memory. Here, then, are a few, and only a few, of the popular crazes which hav* come and gone and had their day, and left behind only a. hazy nfomory in the minds of a few people who care to store the hack cupboards of their brains with such lumber of recollection —valuable only because it helps, as perhaps few other things can in quite the same way, to bring IxK-k an actual picture of scenes, people, and things irretrievably numbered with the past. Only .1 foolish game, a trivial song, perhaps, unearthed in some long undisturbed lumber-room; yet how it recalls the laughter, the voices, heard in tin hour of merriment long forgotten, summoning up, it may lie, before it is laid aside agaiin in its dusty repose, the tribute of a sentimental tear.

" BITTER MEMORIES. Secretary of the V.T.C. (to recruit) --"You're married, of course?" Recruit —"Yus, guv'nor." Secretary— " Where were- you married ?"

Rftcruit —"Well, to tell you the truth, it weren't in. a church, it were in one of them off-license places!"— "The Passing Show.''