ABOUT LAWN TENNIS COSTUMES.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1486, 12 January 1882, Page 4

ABOUT LAWN TENNIS COSTUMES.

"I li v\i; been playing lawn tennis with a young lady," (writes Major Walter Wmgfield, the inventor of that splendid game, to The T/icafre), and I have vanquished her. .She is younger and quicker than I am, and as lawn tennis requires these qualifications, not strength or vast cndiuanco ; so a woman can play as well as a man ; this one did. How, then, did I win ? Listen, and I will tell you the secict. I won the game simply because I was dressed for lawn tennis and she was not. Now mhy should this be ? When she goes out riding she puts on a luling habit. When she goes to bathe she puts on a bathing dress. Why, therefore, when *«he plays lawn tennis, does &he not nut on a lawn tennis costume ? Thus I muse, and then, as I lean back in my easy chair, I think what sort of dress she might wear, and a vision of a f.iir form clad in a tunic of white flannel, Mitharoll collar, a ko> chief of cheny silk tied lound her throat, the loose ends showing from under tlie Avhite collar, a skiit of 18 inches long, a cheiiy-colouied band around her Avaibt, and a pair of continuations of white flannel (such as men wear, only looser), floats through my bi.iin. It seems a sensible dicss and a modest dress that would shock no one. Yet I know women are ciitical about each other's drc«s. What will they say to such a staitling innovation as this ? I am nervous even about making the suggestion, and hopeless about it ever being carried out. "Be that as it may, still, if any club will stait such a uniform, the lady members will reach the greatest comfort, and compete with others on the most advantageous terms. •'After such a dress, I have hardly patience to name others, but a Norfolk jacket with a kilt reaching half way down between the knee and the ankle, and with a Tain o' Shanter cap on the head would not be bad ; neither would a xiv.indicre's dreSvS or a Turkish costume, with pyjamas, and a top &kirt down to the knees, be unsuitable. A jersey is a comfortable garment, but 1 don't know how to finish it off belo-v. Will Lady Harberton turn her attention to this matter. She will never have a better chance of intioducing her divided skirt than as a lawn tennis costume. "At this moment I am aroused from my levoiies by the butler, who himself does me the honour to valet me, bringing in my bath and my dress clothes. I ask him to wait a moment, while I roll up all the clothes I have been playing in — a set of flannels, lawn tennis shoes, socks, cap, and belt strapped round —and desire him to kindly take them clown to the weighing machine in the hall and weigh them. In a few minutes he returned with the weight writteu down on a piece of paper. I at once scribbled a note to my late opponent : " 'Dear Miss C. : I have beaten you most unfairly. The clothes I was playing in only weigh five pounds and a quarter. What do yours weigh ? Will you kindly let your maid weigh them— everything you had on — and let me know ? Yours, ' ' 'W.W. The butler begins to think I am not quite sane, but off he goes with the letter ; and when I come down to dinner I am informed that it has been most conscientiously done, and that they weighed ten pounds and three-quarters. I saw the bundle ; it was a big one, but, of course, I was not allowed to investigate its sacred contents. The dress was a tweed tailor's-made costume. It follows that my thirteen stone of flesh, bone, and muscle has only to carry five pounds and a quarter, while her nine j stone is hampered with ten pounds and three-quarters. If to-morrow she were to play the best man in this house, dressed as I have suggested, and if be were handicapped by having a railway rug strapped round his waist, tied in at" his knees,, and pinned up coquettishly behind, I should be prepared to lay-any wager that ;she would win, — From Harper's' Bazaari *

In ,that' stronghold of civil' '/and * religious liberty j Germany, the editor , of a Berlin newspaper has " been> ( fined fifty 'mafksfor.accusing aJPplice Coinmission'er \ for neglecting 'bis dut^'.;; If^this^.-w^s .always doheihef e//the*"iric6me r of. the city , would be 1 so large* itliat taxes "would be;