Where the fathers cease from pinging and the mothers pong no more.
In 1902 the Table Tennis Gazette issued its first number, and Punch speculates on the contents:—
Here you may learn if it is true
That Tosher's got his Ping-Pong Blue.
The epidemic abated in 1903, and in "The Lost Golfer" Punch has some excellent chaff (after Browning) of the "parlour hero," his mind temporarily unhinged by a "piffulent game." The verses begin "Just for a celluloid pilule he left us," and end with the anticipation that the "lost golfer" will yet return to his old haunts:—
Back for the Medal Day, back for our foursomes,
Back from the tables' diminishing throng;
Back from the infantile ceaseless half-volley,
Back from the lunatic lure of Ping-Pong.
Ping-pong departed, to be revived in 1920, but another and equally devastating craze ran its course in 1907, when "Diabolo"—the old "Devil-on-two-sticks"—was the ruling passion of the hour. It was honoured with a cartoon showing John Redmond playing the "Divil of a Game," the reel being "Leadership," and numerous illustrations are devoted to the progress of the mania. Punch affected to have discovered a new disease, "Diabolo Neck," which he compares and contrasts with "the Cheek of the Devil," and records the observation of an ill-tempered old gentleman, as he watched some performers "diabolizing" in Kensington Gardens: "A month or so ago that sort of thing was only being done in our Asylums."