exercise that finds innumerable votaries. Rowing is probably practised
in the older States with as much zest as in Great Britain, and the
fresh-water facilities are perhaps better. Except as a means to an
end, however, this mechanical form of sport has never appealed to me.
The more nearly a man can approximate to a triple-expansion engine the
better oarsman he is; no machine can be imagined that could play
cricket, golf, or tennis.

The recent development of golf--perhaps the finest of all games--both
in England and America might give rise to a whole series of
reflections on the curious vicissitudes of games and the mysterious
reasons of their development. Golf has been played universally in
Scotland for hundreds of years, right under the noses of Englishmen;
yet it is just about thirty years ago that (except Blackheath) the
first golf-club was established south of the Tweed, and the present
craze for it is of the most recent origin (1885 or so). Yet of the
eight hundred golf-clubs of the United Kingdom about four hundred are
in England. The Scots of Canada have played golf for many years, but
the practice of the game in the United States may be dated from the
establishment of the St. Andrew's Club at Yonkers in 1888. Since then
the game has been taken up with considerable enthusiasm at many
centres, and it is estimated that there are now at least forty
thousand American golfers. There is, perhaps, no game that requires
more patience to acquire satisfactorily than golf, and the preliminary
steps cannot be gobbled. It is therefore doubtful whether the game
will ever become extensively popular in a country with so much nervous
electricity in the air. I heartily wish that this half-prophecy may
prove utterly mistaken, for no better relief to overcharged nerves and
wearied brains has ever been devised than a well-matched "twosome" or
the more social "foursome;" and the fact that golf gently exercises