astonished if they could see Taylor or Sayers hole out with the balls in practically the same positions. Such players ask for the stimie to be abolished, not because the interests of the game demand it, but because they are incompetent. The same argument was held in the case of the spot stroke at billiards, but there was this enormous difference—in billiards the spot stroke became so easy to all first-class players that it paid to neglect all the rest of the game. It made the game dull to watch, and even monotonous to the players themselves. The incompetents raised the question in both instances, but the facts and circumstances were quite different.
Reduced to a simple statement it comes to this, that an agitation is started to abolish a very beautiful stroke in the interests generally of a class of players who ought not to be encouraged, those who are eternally playing for a score which is no sort of interest to anybody but themselves. The individual cases of hardship are really very few in number, and when weighed in the balance with the beauty of the lofted stroke over a ball, do not of themselves justify the conclusion that
