Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 3

as strength, and is not a stroke to be practised by the beginner, especially on public tables.
We come then again to golf, and see at once that, with the miserable and cowardly exception of laying the stymie, there is no stroke in this game that fulfils the proper conditions which should govern athletic contests involving the use of spherical objects with or without instruments of percussion.
And yet we read column after column about fierce encounters and desperate struggles between old antagonists, when as a matter of fact there is no struggle, no encounter at all. Against no other ball game but golf, unless perhaps it be roulette, can this accusation be laid. Ask a man what happened last Saturday. "I went out," he says, rather as if he was the British Expeditionary Force, "in 41; but I came home"--he smiles triumphantly; you see the hospital ship, the cheering crowds--"in 39." Whether he beat the other fellow or not he hardly remembers, because there was in fact no particular reason why the other fellow should have been there.
Golf matches ought to be arranged, and for my part I shall arrange them in future, as follows:--
He. Can you play on Saturday at Crump?
I. No, I'm not playing this week.
He. Next week then?
I. Yes, at Blimp.
He. I can't come to Blimp.
I. Well, let's play all the same. Your score this week at Crump against mine next week at Blimp, and we'll have five bob on it.
I'm not quite sure what his retort is, but you take my point. It is manifestly absurd to drag the psychological element into this cold-blooded mathematical pursuit. After all that England has done and come through in the last few years, is a man in baggy knickerbockers, with tufts on the ends of his garters, going to be daunted and foiled just because a man in slightly baggier knickerbockers and with slightly larger tufts on his garters has hit a small white pellet a little further than he has? Hardly, I think.
That is why, when I read long letters in the principal daily papers about the expense of this so-called game, and calculations as to whether it can be played for less than twenty-five shillings a time, I am merely amused. In my opinion, if the relatives of members of golf-clubs cannot afford to support them, these institutions should either be closed or the inmates should be provided with some better game, like basketball. That is what I feel about golf.
All the same, if Enderby really thinks and believes that, because in a nasty cross-wind I happened to be slicing badly and didn't know the course and lost a ball at the twelfth, and he holed twice out of bunkers and certainly baulked me by sniffing on the fifteenth tee, and laid a stymie, mark you, of all places at the seventeenth, that I can't beat him three times out of five in normal conditions and not with that appalling caddy ---- well, I suppose one must do one's best to relieve a fellow-creature of his hallucinations, mustn't one?
EVOE.
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[Illustration: THE BOBLET.
BRITANNIA (counting her change). "WHAT'S THIS?"
OUR MR. CHAMBERLAIN. "THAT, MADAM, IS THE NEW SHILLING. IT HAS MORE ALLOY THAN THE OLD, BUT THE SAME PURCHASING POWER."
BRITANNIA. "PURCHASING WEAKNESS, YOU MEAN."]
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[Illustration: Host (by way of keeping his guest's mind off the state of the course). "ASTONISHING HOW QUICKLY PEOPLE HAVE FORGOTTEN THE WAR."
Guest. "WHAT--WITH THIS MUD, AND YOU AT THE SLOPE?"]
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OUR HEAVY-WAITS.
Our Boxing Correspondent sends us the following gloomy forecast. We have pointed out to him that Mr. COCHRAN has recently made a definite contract for a meeting between DEMPSEY and CARPENTIER. Our Correspondent replies that this does not affect his attitude, and urges us to publish his predictions of further delay. We do so under protest.
Paris, December 22nd, 1920.--M. DESCHAMPS (CARPENTIER'S Manager) denies all knowledge of any agreement with Mr. COCHRAN.
New York, December 24th, 1920.--Mr. C. B. COCHRAN says that DESCHAMPS must be dotty. He (C. B.) is returning by the Mauretania to-morrow.
London, April 17th, 1923.--As Mr. COCHRAN and M. DESCHAMPS have not yet come to an agreement the fight for the World's Heavy-Weight Championship is indefinitely postponed. JOE BECKETT meets Bombardier WELLS to-night at the Circle.
London, April 18th, 1923.--Since the days of JIM CORBETT no more polished exponent of the fistic art has graced the ring than our Bombardier Billy. Thunders of applause greeted his appearance in the "mystic square" last night. He flashed round his ponderous opponent, mesmerising him with the purity of his style, the accuracy of his hitting, the brilliance of his foot-work. He held the vast audience spell-bound. BECKETT won on a knock-out in the second round.
London, August 11th, 1924.--Mr. LOVAT FRASER in a powerful article (written entirely in italics) in