The Vicissitudes of Pastime
In contrast with the ever-increasing speeding-up of life one may note Punch's tribute in 1889 to the charms of caravanning; its inevitable slowness being compensated by freedom from hotel bandits and extortionate lodging-house keepers.
Rifle-shooting is a serious pursuit rather than a pastime or sport, but may claim a word of notice in this survey. The National Rifle Association came of age in 1881, and Punch celebrated the event in a cartoon in which he toasts a handsome young rifleman in a Jeroboam of Perrier-Jouet, 1859, and in verses congratulating the comrades of the rifle on their long survival and triumph over official snubbing.
Lastly I may note that in the Jubilee number of Punch in 1891 the popular or rather fashionable recreations in the 'sixties, 'seventies, 'eighties and 'nineties are shown in four illustrations of croquet, roller-skating, lawn tennis and golf. Of these roller-skating has temporarily disappeared. In the 'seventies "Rinkomania" was a short-lived but acute malady. It led to a good many accidents and much speculation, mostly disastrous. Much money was made and more lost by the financiers who embarked on rink-building. At the end of 1875 Punch notes a report that the Albert Hall was to be converted into a Grand Skating Rink. At the moment the rumour was by no means incredible; and the scenes of social and political revelry enacted in that building of recent years must have often disturbed the manes of its eponymous hero.
Lawn tennis and golf have become democratic, international and spectacular pastimes; while croquet continues to hold its own in a select, scientific and secluded circle of votaries.
[FASHION IN DRESS]
Men's dress had already ceased to be decorative long before the 'seventies were in their mid career. There had been spasmodic attempts to introduce a note of colour and picturesqueness into male attire, and a fresh effort was made by the apostles of the æsthetic movement, but the average man of fashion took no heed of these eccentricities. His aim was to be unobtrusively well dressed, though in the domain of pastime one may note an increasing addiction to highly coloured hose and the multiplication of club colours and ribbons.