or false. Exercise is of the seen about, to retain one's highest importance, and rash ex Nothing interferes so much with Parliamentary success as too much addiction to social life. By this I don't mean to say that a man should be an ascetic, and out himself adrift from rubbing up against his fellow-beings who don't happen to be professional politicians, for it is a good thing to be Above all, don't acquire a platform reputation, for you will find it a most dangerous possession. You will be continually pestered by Whips and fussy wire - pullers to go on the stump at great expense, anxiety, wear and tear, and little compensating advantage to yourself. Gratitude is not kept largely in stock nowadays, and the arid triumphs of provincial meetings will not console you for leaving your comfortable quarters at home, partaking of heavy teetotal menus in Nonconformist houses, houses vie with one another in their efforts to give you information and to help you along. And surely it is no mean honour to feel that you are really an active citizen of a great empire, and helping to build up and consolidate its position and to make its history. And whilst it is given to some to design the edifice and to others the task of carrying out the architect's plans, we of the rank and file, who may only be the simple hodman patiently bearing the bricks which are placed in position by more prominent craftsmen, may console ourselves with the reflection that without us the work could not be done at all, and like the organ - blower in the famous story, it is our privilege to use the word "6. we "in connection with it. We have now considered how to get into the House, and what to do when you are there, and the next question is, How to get out of it? At first sight nothing would seem more simple. Resign and retire into private life. Not a bit of it. By some strange and unexplained anomaly you are not allowed to do that, but you must go through the hollow farce of accepting an office of profit under the Crown, which is well known to invalidate a seat, a purely bogus qualification or disqualification called the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, a payment of a few shillings which used to be given to the bailiffs appointed to protect the inhabitants of the Chiltern Hills from the depredations of wolves and robbers infesting the adjoining woods, and which applied for by the retiring member renders him incompetent to continue in Parliament. If he prefers some other arrangement he may become a Peer or a bankrupt or a lunatic, or may be expelled for misconduct or unseated for bribery. But although some of these methods may be forced upon you, they are not what we should specially select, and the official plan is swift, sure, and effective. During my first session a most unfortunate thing happened, when my poor friend Middleton, worried out of his senses by the anxieties and exactions of his seat, lost them entirely and was placed in a lunatic asylum, in which, unhappily, he acquired fixity of tenure; and as he could not personally apply for the Chiltern Hundreds, and as there was no other means for enabling him to retire, the great constituency of Glasgow was disfranchised till his regretted death. Legal steps have now been taken to remedy such serious inconvenience. And so our member is now out of the House, and the curtain rings down on the last act of his Parliamentary career. Requiescat in pace! property at a very moderate ransom. Now we may explain as far as we can the nature of the game in which, two hundred and sixty years ago, she had been taking part. In most respects it is surprisingly like golf. I take the account of it from the first volume of 'La Plus Nouvelle Académie Universelle des Jeux' (Amsterdam, 1752). The Dutch editor has lifted his materials from an older book, 'Le Jeu de Mail of Lauthier (Paris 1717). I have seen but one copy of this rare little volume. Mr Quaritch won it from me long ago at a sale by auction, and my friend, the late Mr H. S. C. Everard, afterwards bought it from Mr Quaritch. It is admirably bound in red morocco, in the style of Padeloup. Mr Everard (whose loss to golf and the history of the game, as well as to the friends who admired his wide and curious reading, ancient and modern, and his manly and amiable character, is irreparable) was engaged on a translation of Lauthier's vol ume. He had mastered many difficulties, but his task, like his translation of 'Quintus Smyrnæus,' remains a fragment.1 As for Lauthier himself, the researches of the Marquis d'Eguilles, who retains the friendship for Scotland of his ancestor, the French military attaché to Prince Charles in 1745, have discovered that he held a small place in the Court of Louis XV. Lauthier praises the jeu de mail exactly as enthusiasts now praise golf. "It is the most pleasant and healthy of games; it is not violent; at jeu de mail you can play, talk, and walk in good company, as Madame de Sévigné writes to M. de Grignan that she had just been doing on June 13, 1685. The true golfer, however, does not now talk as he plays: in solemn silence all pursue the migratory ball. Jeu de mail, played in fine weather, "cures or prevents rheumatism," says my author, and is suited to all ages from childhood to old age: mere swiping is not the only object, though the perfect player is he who drives sure and far. As for the attitude, you should imitate the best players, stand easily, neither too near your ball nor too far from it; the knees neither slack nor rigid; the body not erect, yet not too much bowed, and you must drive with a swing, turning the body and head from the waist, "but always keep your eye on the ball." Driving in this way, your club makes a wide circle. "Slow back!" The wrists must be thrown into the stroke; the pose of the body, arms, and legs must not be disturbed, so as to preserve the harmony of action, and the adjustment taken at the first glance in relation to the ball. This seems very good advice for the golfer, who has to resist the constant tendency to alter the adjustment of his body, 1 Mr Everard wrote 'A History of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club' (Blackwood), 1907. VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXVIII. 2 L |