The Boil and Aim-slant Game of Golf.

Speaking of sport, let us touch lightly on the form of nagriculture known as Golf. It is said that every man has his vice. Some dabble in dog-fights, some gamble with the lambs, some favour burglary and other forms of cribbage—and come commit Golf. Speaking wildly (as golfers often do) golf is a form of psycho-paralysis rather than a game. Good men and true have left their hearth and home more or less permanently simply because the niblick has nibbled at their vitals, or the “iron” has entered their souls. Naturally the game originated in Scotland, but why it is hard to say. At first it was played with hard-boiled eagle's gizzards, which the grizzled highlanders knocked from crag to crag to test their spiritualism. A clansman who got home in one was considered a disgrace to Scotland, but if he holed out on the Boony Banks of Loch Loman, or took the plunge in the Firth of Froth, he was presented with an illuminated haggis or a bust in whisky and oatmeal. But nowadays the game is perpetrated with little white balls, which are so constructed that they defy the laws of gravity and decorum. The victim who fails to connect with the sphere of his endeavours usually addresses the ball with approbrium or venom. Much has been written of golf, but only half the truth has been told. Much is said at golf, but little would bear repeating. Suffice it to say that from this form of petty larceny rose that wise-crack, “Big oaths from little ache-corns grow.” Golf is known as The Boil and Aim-Slant Game, or something similar, and as one who has pitted his cunning against the natural laws, I heartily second the commotion.

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