Badminton Harks Back 2,000 Years: Re-introduced by Indian Army Officers Us ug Plates AFORE the records of the beginnings of badminton in Shanghai become too obscure or before all the initial players and the pioneers of the game locally depart, it might be both interesting and useful to put on recor its progress in this city.
A few details of the actual origin of the game might not be amiss. Some have it that it originated in the East and has been played in some form or other for the past 2,000 years but as far as one can see the game as we now know it came into being around 1870 in Poona, India. A popular version states that we have to thank a party of Indian Army officers for its modern re-introduction. It appears that at the close of a Mess Dinner where champagne had flowed freely the members, finding themselves with plenty of time and champagne corks on their hands stuck goose feathers in the latter and whiled away the former by batting the impromptu shuttles across the table with plates.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.