GOLF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 241, 1 March 1913, Page 7

GOLF.

Golf has become a municipal institution in Scotland's Perth, where the local authorities have acquired links for the use of the citizens. Curiously enough, it was in this city that the first law was enacted forbidding the playing of "golfe. futeball or other sik unprofitable sporto-." That was in 1424, and the author of the anti-golf law was James L, who had been assured that the citizens of Perth were wasting their time and their substance in the pursuit of little balls about the countryside. James himself used to play the game on the North Inch with "much satisfaction."' and probably his subjects chose to follow his example rather than his advice. When James went south in later years, lie took his golf clubs with him. and introduced the sport to the English people. He even condescended to make a little money out of the entertainment which he had provided for the southerners, it being on record that he sold letters patent to one William Berwick at Salisbury for the making of golf balls for a period of twenty-one years. Apparently the craving of the Perth people for golf lias not grown less since the days when James issued his prohibition.