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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Edwin Eevick 



A PHENOMENA^ SERVICE STROKE 



A former United States national tennis 

 champion in action. 



esteem in Ireland. There, when all other 

 sports were prohibited for archery's sake, 

 "onely the great footballe" was exempt. 

 Women joined with the men in playing it 



on Shrove Tuesdays. So many partici- 

 pated that few knew the whereabouts of 

 the ball. An expedient, which not so long 

 ago aroused a furore in the American 

 sporting world, was adopted by a player, 

 who shook out the shavings with which 

 the balls of those days were stuffed and 

 carried it under his shirt to the goal. 



Abandoned as a general pastime be- 

 cause of its roughness, it was retained in 

 colleges until, within the past half cen- 

 tury, it sprang into renewed popularity 

 in greatly modified form. 



The British carried football into Jeru- 

 salem when they recovered the sacred 

 city. Missionaries have taught it to 

 heathen tribes. 



The reason why it has become a hand- 

 maiden of civilization and is so popular 

 among college men of America was sum- 

 marized by Howard S. Bliss, writing 

 about the Syrian Protestant college at 

 Beirut, of which he was president, in an 

 article for the National Geographic 

 Magazine : 



"You will find the son of a prince play- 

 ing football under the captaincy of a peas- 

 ant or the son of a cook. We believe in 

 football there and we have 17 or 18 dif- 

 ferent football teams in college. The 

 game develops the ability to receive a 

 hard blow without showing the white 

 feather or drawing a dagger. This 

 means that when the men get out of col- 

 lege they will stand upon their feet as 

 men." 



THE ANCESTRY OE TENNIS 



Likewise one must go back to the 

 Greeks and Romans for the origin of ten- 

 nis, which descended to England by way 

 of France. In the twelfth century a game 

 with ball and plaited gut bat was played 

 on horseback. Then came "La boude," in 

 which the horses were abandoned. This 

 was a "royal game," at least from the time 

 that Louis X died after excessive playing 

 had induced chills. Chaucer wrote : "But 

 canstow playen racket to and fro," while 

 the church found it necessary to prohibit 

 priests on the continent from spending 

 too much time upon it. 



Margot was the Molla Bjurstedt of the 

 twelfth century, famed especially for her 

 back handstroke. Henry VIII of Eng- 

 land was a youthful devotee, while Louis 





