There are few' games which Icud themselves more readily to curious handicaps than Tennis, and the expert, equipped with much knowledge of the game, can concede the tyro odds which seem extra-vacant, or play him under conditions which seem impossible. Indeed, whenever these sort of matches are anged one is generally right in backing the man who is giving the handicap, writes a correspondent to the "Morning Post."
Records can be found of a multitude of such matches scattered over the pages of Tennis history during the last 200 yea and many of them are interesting. They divide themselves into two classes—the first consisting of matches played with the racquet, but with some extraordinary condition at tached; and the second of matches in which one player uses some other implement than a racquet.
Among examples of the former one of the earliest recorded cases is also one of the most remarkable. This was when the great French player Masson, about the year 1770, undertook to play a beginner on the condition that he jumped in and out of a barrel between every stroke. About the same tit the leading French amateur, M. Desjobert, conceived the quaint idea of putting weights into his shoes as a method of training for hard matches.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.