58 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



to offer a too easy prey to the light-handed. Mrs Tait took another view 

 and said that " no one stole in St Andrews " ; but when the Fair day 

 arrived, and she went for her parasol, she found that the stand had been 

 pillaged. She immediately informed the police and went to the railway 

 station to see if the thief was escaping by train. Returning she found the 

 Professor and General Welsh finishing their round, and at once said, 

 "Guthrie, you were quite right, the umbrellas are all gone." The Professor's 

 eye sparkled as he asked, " What steps have you taken ? " On being told 

 he resumed his game ; but when lunch was finished he pulled back the 

 curtains and disclosed the umbrellas. Mrs Tait found herself in a position 

 of some embarrassment as she had to tell the policeman that the affair had 

 been a hoax ; and this worthy, who afterwards became the well-known 

 and respected Inspector, did not in any way relieve the situation by saying 

 that he had suspected the truth from the first. For many years after the 

 incident, Mrs Tait was in the habit of crossing the road rather than meet 

 her late colleague in the cause of justice. 



With the advancing years the exuberance of the Professor's golf 

 decreased ; the two round limit was never exceeded. In the later eighties 

 he played but little, and after 1892 never a full round; but only the nine 

 outward holes followed by a rapid walk home by way of the new course. 

 This athletic decline on the part of the Professor synchronises with Freddie's 

 advance as a golfer ; it also marks the beginning of the transference of the 

 former's interest to the philosophical side of the game. The Professor's 

 famous experiments were begun in 1887 and reported in Nature, August, 

 1890, September, 1891 ; and his full theory was complete in 1893. He also 

 wrote articles on "The Pace of a Golf Ball," Golf, Dec. 1890; " Hammering 

 and Driving," Golf, Feb. 19, 1892; "Carry," Golf, August 25, 1893; "Carry 

 and Run," Golf, Sept. 1893; "The Initial Pace of a Golf Ball," Golf, 

 July 17, 1894; and he contributed an important summary of his work in 

 a paper to the Badminton Magazine, March, 1896 (reprinted below). 



One of the Professor's most interesting pieces of mathematical work 

 deals with the subject of Rotating Spheres and Projectiles ; but as this has 

 been adequately discussed in another part of this biography, it will be 

 sufficient if we glance at the general results as they appeared to the golfer. 

 Prior to the Professor's investigations we imagined that speed of projection, 

 elevation, and the resistance of the air, were the three things which determined 

 the flight of a golf ball. The Professor indeed seems himself to have begun 



