Croquet

Croquet, connected with the idea of hook, though it is doubtful whether this idea has reference to the mallet or to the hoops through which the ball is driven, is a game which was much in vogue a few years ago, but in England, at least, has almost disappeared before the game of lawn-tennis, which is better suited to modern ideas of female physical education. The game is played by two or more persons, generally arranged in equal parties, whose object it is to drive each one a wooden ball from a starting peg through a series of iron hoops of varying position and arrangement to another peg, and then back through some of the same and other hoops to the starting-peg, the first party winning whose balls all strike the starting-peg on the backward journey. The players take their turns in the order of certain coloured rings painted upon the pegs, each ring corresponding in colour with one of the balls. A player on passing through a hoop has a further turn, so, too, upon striking another ball, which he is allowed to further drive away by a blow upon his own ball placed in contact with that which he has struck, hindering it if it be an adversary's, helping it on if it is a friend's. After passing the last hoop on the home journey a player becomes a "rover," and may roam over the ground aiding his friends and damaging the foe, whose object it becomes to drive a rover, if not the last of the side, against the peg and so end his roving life. The decay of croquet is to be regretted, for it combined gentle exercise with an abundance of fresh air, and so provided amusement for many who would find lawn-tennis too violent an exercise, and it also gave opportunity during the interval between turns for many an interesting conversation.