YE ANCIENT GAME OF BOWLES.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 March 1922, Page 11

YE ANCIENT GAME OF BOWLES.

(Specially written for the News.) John Bright, speaking of billiards, declared that it would .be the finest of all •English games if it were played in the. open. Opinion may differ on the subject, but it is probably not too much to eay that bowling is billiards on the green, and its rapid growth ir. public favor is due not only to revived interest in out-of-door games of every kind, but to the essential qualities of the game itself. An English writer says: “Its principal votaries are middle-aged and elderly persons to whom it affords a pleasant and not too vehement exercise during summer evenings.” That may be true some time ago, though it is scarcely true now. Some of the most enthusiastic followers of “ye ancient game” are on the sunny side of forty, and, judging by local observation, we should say that the players whose heads are “silver mounted” have found the secret of perpetual youth. Certainly they are amongst the most sprightly and skittish patrons of the royal sport. - Thei popular pastime can be traced back to the twelfth century. Fitzstephen, jn his “Survey of London,” written in the last quarter of that period, states that in the summer holidays youths took exercise, amongst other pastimes, jn “jactii lapidum,” or stone-throwing. The reference is plainly to bowling, for in the earlier days of the game it was played with stone spheres. It is a matter of speculation whether bowling was first practised in the open air on turf, or in covered alleys. Fitzstephen states that citizens went outside the city walls into the suburbs to witness the game, but the alleys were within the city boundaries, and in the midst of the population. In the time of Edward TH. “the throwing of stones” is described as “one of the games alike dishonorable and useless and unprofitable.” The reason for this depreciation is clear. The King was fearful lest the practice of archery, so much more important to the military spirit of the kingdom, would suffer by the growing popularity of the rival game. For the same reason Parliament passed laws to suppress bowling, and enacted fines and punishment with imprisonment. Owing to the impossibility of following the game except in summer, and the absorption of land for building purposes, public alleys flourished. and in Henry VTII.’s time further legislation was passed and heavier penalties were imposed. Artificers and servants might play bowls during Christmas time in their masters’ houses and presence, but no one could at any time “play at any bowle or bowles in open place out of his orchard or garden,” whilst a. license might be granted to anyone with £lOO per annum to play privately in his own domain, but not to keep any common or open place of play.” “But,” says the historian, “the evil still continued and remained irrepressible.” Stephen Gosson, in his “School of Abuse,” 1579, says: “Common bowling alleys are privy moths that eat into the credit of many*idle citizens, where games at home are not able to weigh down their losses abroad, whose shops are so far from maintaining their play that their wives and children cry out for bread and go to bed supperloss often in the year.” The law continued to be Violated with impunity until the beginning of the eighteenth century. From this time, bowling alleys were

rigorously suppressed, while bowling greens increased very rapidly. No country gentleman’s mansion was considered complete without a bowling green. Stow mentions that amongst the additions made to Whitehall by Henry VIII., bowling alleys were included. Charles I. was an ’ enthusiast in the game, and during his confinement at Holmly, in Northamptonshire, he frequently went over to Harrowden and Earl Spencer’s at Althorpe. both of whom possessed unrivalled greens. He is said to have been engaged in a game when he was seized by Cornet Joyce. After the ineffectual suppression of bowling alleys, long or “Dutch rubbers were practised for a time. The game consisted of bowling at nine pins, placed on a square frame thirty yards distant, but it never found much favor in England. The first regular bowling club was founded in Glasgow at the beginning of the nineteenth century. What further evolutions may be in store it is impossible to forecast. One thing seems clear: the game of bowls has come to stay, and deserves to stay, for as a game of skill, played under the. most healthful conditions, amid pleasant sur- 1 roundings, free of the vice of gambling and favorable to the cultivation of the spirit of good fellowship, bowling stands par excellence.