India's victory for the third success sive time in the final of the Olympic Hockey' tournament gave the British Empire one of its most satisfactory {triumphs at Berlin. Indian supremacy fin hockey is in many" wa) markable sporting development for the game itself is not Indian and it only within the last twenty-dye years that it has become an all~ India sport, Crsinaly hockey found is way to India through the British Jomcer of the Indian Army. He found a most useful game for encouraging regimental esprit de corps. The Punjab Native Army Tournament—it still keeps the old style although the term JeNative Army" has long been replaced by "Indian Army" in all other con= {Cetions—was established many years 10 to develop the.game and the an= ual contests fought out at Jhelum have produced robust and by no means unskilful play. Dhyan Chand who, with R. J. Allen of Bengal, has played for India at Amsterdam, Los Angeles and Berlin and therefore has Indian Army 'The popularity of the game the Indian Army led to its adoption by Indian schools and colleges, but station sides and particularly police and railway teams. took it up with enthusiasm, In the Punjab the North-Western' Railway authori-les at headquarters in Lahore managed 10 combine zeal for hockey with oilway eficieney and the North-Western Railway team—composed of Europeans and Anglo-Indians—just before the War swept the board and Jsowed the seed of the idea of form-fog an Allsndia eleven. Subsequent-teams acquired a skill and speed which put them on good terms with 'Army and Police teams. They even managed to wrest the laurels from the North-Western Railway when Janno domin impaired the strength of that original combination, Shonghollanders will be interested know' that a prominent part in the [development of hockey in the Punjab was played by Mr. W. G. Clarke the Present President of the Shanghai Hockey Association. Playing on fas grounds—whether grass or dried mud (pat)—Indian players introduced into the game a speed and brilliance of stick-work which somehow or other European teams have not yet been able to achieve. Moreover hockey is Played in India all the year round 30 that there is ample opportunity for Practice In "all conditions," In proof of the rapidity with which the fame has spread over India it may be mentioned that, whereas the wining team at Los Angeles, four years 'g0, had seven Punjab players, the present team has only" two—Gur-Charon Singh and Mir Jaffer—although Dyan Chand who is it is understood a Dogra might come under that category. Bengal, Bombay, Bhopal, United Provinces, Sind, Manavader and Madras all' are represented among the players who were sent to Berlin,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.