A Host of Training Utensils The extent to which success in any game is governed by mere mechanical outfit has always been a moot point with sportsmen. We al] know the fastidious type of golfer who loads up his unprotesting caddie with a dozen different cleeks and brass. ies and swears he would have got home all right if only he hadn't forgotten to bring the 13th. We know the tennis tyro who would have won that last set but for those wretched shoes slipping at the crucial moment, and the cricket enthusiast who got a duck because another fellow went in first with the very bat he had ear-marked to make his century with.
Tae Heara on THE HEarTH.
A visit to any leading sports house, however, discloses the exist. ence of unsuspected novelties, There is a home sculler, with oars, rowlocks, and sliding seat complete, 25 wien: sinciacsndttiemns Cin cool a which should enable any amateur to become a Barry in record time, and do the stretch from Putney to Mortlake every morning without leaving his drawing-room, There is a home putt for a few pence, with which one can practise holing on the carpet without disturbing the beautiful symmetry of the tennis lawn, and "Golfhit" contrive ances which register true and false shots automatically and safeguard against the smashing of windows or neighbours' craniums, There are clubs of every conceivable variety of colour and shape for driving off tee or grass, some with special rubber grips capable of withstanding the fiercest clench of resolution or anger, others with stainle fittings to match the golfer's less vocabulary when he is bunker-
Tae Horta on tae Hears.
For those gentler sportsmen awheel or afoot who only ask to be left in peace to take up their bed and walk or pedal through any and every kind of weather, there are innovations in tents and bivouacs which reduce bulk and weight to a minimum, if not prices. One is a 7-ft. rubber sleeping valise open at one end, which folds up to the size of a small cricket bag, and another a water and rot-proof silkette bivouac, which compacts into two stall parcels each weighing 4} Ibs. Motorists are served by compact cookers and picnic baskets, but they still have to wait for that anti-police-trap, or, better still, a motor-trap for policemen on the cowcatcher principle which will reverse the tables for all time, Whether or not the possession of these contrivances results in greater skill and ease, their effect cannot fail to be beneficial, particularly to the serious-minded' amateur. By their aid he can achieve in the home all those sensational triumph which are so difficult of attainment on court, course, and field, or in the ring. They are evidently based on the old adage that "if you let him alone, he'll play for hours."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.