I may get some introductions if I hit 'em on the shins.
Winter sports in Switzerland make their début in Punch in 1895 in an article on tobogganing dated "Canton des Grisons." Mention is made of curling, "bandy" and figure-skating, but nothing is said of ski-ing, which though practised as a sport in Norway from 1860, did not reach Switzerland till the end of the century. Another foreign importation, this time from Japan, was ju-jitsu, to the value of which Punch pays a dubious tribute in 1899 in a burlesque interview with a burglar on whom a householder had ineffectually tried the new art of self-defence. In the same mood are the farcical suggestions for dealing with various awkward situations in 1905, and the overthrow of a butler by a page-boy, to the petrifaction of the servants' hall. There was a recrudescence of roller-skating in 1909 which Punch deals with in pictures, prose and verse. The inexpert and self-protective lover sings, after Ben Jonson:—
Rink with me only with thine eyes,
And do not clutch my frame;
Clasp yonder expert's hand instead,
And I'll not press my claim.
The Tyranny of Ping-pong
There are many allusions to "Rinkomania," but not nearly so many as to Ping-Pong, which attained the proportions of a pestilence in 1901, 1902 and 1903. Punch began by calling it a "ghastly game," but kept in close touch with its progress until the tyranny was overpast. He gives us pictures of ping-pong in the kitchen; of people searching beneath the table and in corners for missing balls; a sketch of a ping-pong tournament, with local champions and devotees of all ages and callings.
In his "Cry of the Children" the younger generation lift up their voices in protest:—
We shall never know what peace is till we land upon that shore