208 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



the ground, for a dexterous shove at the ball inay sometimes be 

 quite as effective in serving the purpose of your side at a critical 

 moment as a swinging blow, the opportunity for which may, 

 indeed, very rarely occur. If the ball receives a good hit, and 

 flies forward to the goal, a general rush is made in pursuit, one 

 side aiming to follow up the advantage, and the other to over- 

 take the ball first and restore the balance of the game. 



It will be apparent that in a rush and struggle of this de- 

 scription a fall or a hard knock is exceedingly likely to occur, 

 and that Hockey is therefore not a game suited to weakly or 

 timid players. But there are rules by which it is sought to 

 avoid, even in the heat of the conflict, any chance of more than 

 a comparatively slight injury to the players, and to confine that 

 result purely to the effects of accident. It is forbidden, in the 

 first place, to raise the head of the stick higher than the 

 shoulder, under the penalty of a blow on the shins from the 

 hockey-stick of one of the opposite side ; and thus a check is 

 given to the reckless and promiscuous flourishing about of the 

 player's stick, to the imminent hazard both of his friends and 

 opponents. Moreover, any player proved wilfully to have struck 

 another is at once excluded from the play. Besides these rules, 

 the following are generally accepted : 



1. A player must not cross to the side of his opponents before 

 a rush or scrimmage has commenced. 



2. The ball must be fairly struck through the goal, and not 

 thrown or kicked. 



3. It is forbidden to kick or throw the ball during the general 

 game, but the ball may be stopped by any part of the person of 

 a player who may intervene between it and the goal. 



4. If the ball be struck beyond, but not through the goal, 

 and if it be passed through the goal otherwise than by a fair 

 hit, the youngest player of the side owning that goal shall 

 return it by a gentle throw towards the centre of the ground. 



These, with the two rules given before, comprise all that it 

 is necessary to observe in playing the game of Hoekey, except 

 the general rules of good temper and forbearance, which are 

 required in all games alike. 



The Scottish form of the game, known as Shinty, calls for no 

 special remark, more than that the goals are called " hails," and 

 that the game itself may owe its name either to the frequent 

 danger to the player's shins, or to the shindy which charaeterises 

 the culminating struggle. " Hurley," the Irish variation of the 

 game, also differs but little from that here described ; but in 

 Ireland the game has been, perhaps, a more general favourite, 

 and played occasionally on a larger scale, than in either of the 

 sister kingdoms. Wo borrow from Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's 

 " Ireland " an amusing anecdote in illustration of this fact. 

 "About half a century ago," we are told, "there was a great 

 match played in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, between the Munster 

 men and the men of Leinster. It was got up by the then lord- 

 lieutenant and other sporting noblemen, and was attended by 

 all the nobility and gentry belonging to the vice-regal court, and 

 the beauty and fashion of the Irish capital and its vicinity. 

 The victory was contended for a long time with varied success ; 

 and at last it was decided in favour of the Munster men, by 

 one of that party running with the ball on the point of his 

 hurley and striking it through the open window of the vice- 

 regal carriage, and by that manosuvre baffling the vigilance of 

 the Leinster goalmen, and driving it in triumph through the 

 goal." 



There is no record of matches on quite so extensive a scale 

 having been played in the sister kingdoms ; but we learn on the 

 authority just quoted that, in the last generation, several good 

 matches at hurley were played on Kennington Common between 

 the Irish residents of St. Giles's and those of the eastern por- 

 tions of the metropolis, the affair being got up by some of the 

 sporting noblemen of the day. Besides Kennington Common, 

 several of the other open spaces around London were once noted 

 as favourite spots for the exhibition in perfection of the game of 

 hockey, and especially, in the last century, the extensive fields 

 which then lay at the back of the British Musetm. The amuse- 

 ment is not so frequently seen now, having yielded somewhat 

 before the rival attractions of football and cricket, but it is a 

 favourite still in many parts of the country. 



