BOWLING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2492, 4 May 1909, Page 2

BOWLING.

(Bv “Toucher.”)

Another week has passed and the bowling season draws nearer to its close. The week contained nothing but weather —cold, dismal, wet, wintryweather. The greens have had nothing on them but little heaps of earth erected by the vigorous worms, the jacks have been cosily put away in the box,. while the bowls have kept one another company in the lockers of the pavilion. Thus has the week passed by on the bowing greens, and expectation ot goodness for the coming week from Old ISOI is at present filling the heart of the howling enthusiast. May realisation follow expectation. As a sequence of the broken weather, the Match Committee of the Turangamti Club have, I understand, resolved not to proceed with the Douglas Challenge Feathers this season. The suggestion is to close the club’s season on May 24th, and to use every endeavor "to get all uncompleted competitions finished by that date.; At present three matches to be played will decided the Bennett Cup, the final of the Colts’ Singles is unplayed, while the Handicap Singles is in its second round. These matches are to be got off or forfeited within the next three weeks.

The final match of the Tasmania-New South Wales rubber was .decided on North Sydney green a fortnight ago. Frontithe start the visitors were out-play- . ed, and at the termination of the first 5 / lieads the home players had a lead of 9 points. During the next half-hour the play was more even, the second period concluding with the same difference. Owing to the capital play of Mr Thurston iii No. 4 rink against Mr Strong, 9 points [was still the majority in favor of New South Wales at the end of the 15Qi head. Additional interest was given to the contest during the next halfhour, as the visitors, puning themsel- • ves together, got within seven of their opponents, but it was a last effort, for the final five heads saw them add only 14 points, while New South Wales placed an additional 34 to their credit. The full scores were: New South Wales, 108 ; Tasmania 81. The final game for the coveted champion of champions’ prize of the Victorian Bowling Association took place on the Hawthorn green on a recent afternoon between Messrs J. H. Sheedy and H. Burton-. Sheedy had previously won a goodly number of honors of the Victorian bowling world, and he capped a splendid record by succeeding again in real championship fashion. The totals were: Sheedy, 31; Burton, 14, The single-handed championship of Queensland has been won by T. Bouchard, who defeated Mackay 31 to 2D. Says “Backwood” in the Sydney “Referee” : Mr Heather’s team of Victorian lady bowlers figured on several Sydney greens during last week, and went down the coast to Woonona, where they enjoyed as good a time as anywhere else Apparently the length of greens’ trouble Is not quite settled yet. The Melbourne “Leader” says: “The annual matches between "the Victorian Bowling Association and the country Associations were set down for play on Saturday. The North-Western and Goulburn Valley Associations met on the Carlton and Victoria greens, but Ballarat refused to play. The cause of their declining to take part .in the games was owing to a disagreement over the maximum length of green. A conference was. held-in Sydney last Easter, and it was then agreed between the States and New Zealand to fix the : length at a maximum of 120 feet for all inter-State matches and contests between New Zealand and the Commonwealth. Victoria dissented. It would not appear that the Ballarat Association, which has no voice in the management of inter-State bowling, is desirous of assisting to force the hand of Victoria. Naturally the ruling body declined to be dictated to by any subsidiary Association such as Ballarat, and the engagement was declared off It was clearly set out at the Sydney conference that the 120 feet maximum was only to affect inter-State matches, so that the action of Ballarat is causing some amusement among the bowlers associated with other provincial Associations and metropolitans. _ Hie BallaratAssociation has no more right to dictate to the premier Association of the State than the Croajingolong Association, it there be such a body as to the length of the greens. - , „ , After the Victoria-North Sydney match a fortnight ago, Mr A. -J. Whitehouse, the lion, secretary of the-New Smith Wales Bowling Association, was presented by the Victorian bowlers with ■ a silver tea set, in appreciation of his services to the game of howls: A telegram, dated Hobart, is as follows ; —“Williams, of Launceston, has won the single bowling championship, heating A. Crisp, of Hobart, by 25 to 20, after a splendid game. This is Williams’ sixth year of champion ship. Williams* is a great bowler m Tasmania. • , A London correspondent, writing on February ■ 26th, says:—“The, bowlmakers here, who have the official recognition of the English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh Associations, have been informed by the secretary of the firstnamed that their testing apparatus will be inspected —a course which lias hitherto' never been resorted to, though the Scottish Association, whose laws o-overn tlio game, has been in existence 17 years. A leading bowl-maker in- - terv'iewed upon the matter, said : VVe have never ‘ received any- . complaints from Australia. We give a strengthened bias to our number three to all woods sent to the colonies, and cannot under- - stand anv howls running comparatively ! straight,' as some appear to have done, especially on the really beautifully keen and well-kept greens m Australia and New Zealand.” . It is of mterest to note that when .the late Mr John M ood and Mr Charles Wood came to England ■ in 1899, the first-named declared, on returning home, that some, of the bow s < he had come across here were_ veritable boomerangs,’ while the late -I l ' • Ctukfon, when here with the team rn 1901, displayed that interest over bow I- • testing which appears to have/t length stirred the English Bowling Association 1U “BowLs°is 'one of the oldest and most popular of our English pastimes, the origin of which can be traced back to the 12fcli century. So .says a st.in - dard work. How proud bowlers' should, be to .know that t William Fitsstephon, in his “Survey of London, ; during the last quarter - oFthe twelfth century, states that m the suminei - holidays youths took other pastimes m ]actii iapidum vn throwing of stones. This might be ta ken as referring to throwing: stones by ; slings or other artificial means, were , it not that the next pastime mentioned i ; s “slingine- of missiles to he delivered 1 X ~;.rtaiii mark (amentabs missi- • I K; Ultra metim espldiendis.”) Fits-

Stephen, on t-lie authority of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” was both an accurate observer and a careful writer, and lie clearly alludes to two distinct exercises.. In early daj-s stone spheres are known to have been used for bowling, and the like thing' and name were in vogue for the next two centuries; in fact,-'till 1408. There is little doubt, therefore, that Fitzstephen here refers to bowls. It has been a matter of speculation whether and Fitzstephen may help to decide the question. He states that the citizens went outside the city walls into tlio suburbs to witness these Barnes, but the alleys were within tlie walls and in the midst of the populaThese alleys—(bowlers, do not blush l), -—were alwavs held up as scenes of vice and debauchery, and the “games alike dishonorable, useless, and unprofitable.. But then there was a reason for this depreciation. The King was concerned lest the practice of archery, so much more important to the military spirit of the kingdom, should suffer, and the same reason prompted, t-lie of Parliament. By 12 Richard 11., c. p 6 (1388), servants, artificers, and laborers were forbidden— amongst other games—to play at gettre de peer, or “casting the stone, as the practice of archery is becoming lax. In the eighteenth century, greens began to increase rapidly, until eventually no gentleman’s mansion was considered complete without one. Says a-u liter, \ the present era of violent athletic exercises, the principal votaries are rnidd.eaged and elderly persons, to whom it affords a pleasant and not too vehement exercise during summer evenings. The earliest delineation extant of t-lie aame shows two players with a ball each, but no jack or mark to at' It is presumed from tins that the fi s cast his bowl to constitute a mark fox the secon'd to play at and knock from its position. We- do things better now ! I met, once upon a time, a bowler who was quite surprised when told something on the lines of the “I knew bowls was a pretty old game, he said, “because I remember when 1 was a kiddv hearing a song called lom Bowlin".” He had never read of that admirable naval character (Lieutenant Tom Bowling) in Smollett s. Ro.denck Random,” and thought Didbin.’s in memoriam song was something m praise of bowls! But if he didn’t know much about, literature, lie could bowl like a good ’un, so that his compensation vas great.