Walking on stilts.—Among the Swiss, and in several districts in the South of France, walking on stilts is not only an amusing, but a useful practice, as by means of these crane-like legs men and women transform themselves into the order of “Waders,” emulating the long-legged storks and herons, and can cross over marshes and flooded grounds without wetting their feet. Stilts are easily made, being nothing but a pair of poles, with a wooden step at the sides for the feet to stand on. The poles are kept in their proper place by the hands. A little practice will soon render a youth “easy on his stilts,” and they may be made an amusing and healthy exercise.
HOCKEY.
In all the general principles, hockey bears a great resemblance to foot-ball, the game consisting in driving a ball through a goal. The ball, however, is of much smaller dimensions, even where a ball, and not a bung, is used; and it is impelled, not by the foot, but by certain sticks, or clubs, called hockeys, or hookeys, because the end with which the ball is struck is more or less hooked.
The shape and dimensions of the hockey-stick are entirely arbitrary, being left to the peculiar taste of the owners. Some like their hockeys to be sharply hooked, while others prefer them merely bent over at the end. Some players like a very thick, heavy stick, which can be put down in front of the ball in order to neutralize the blows of the opposite side, while others can play best with a slight and springy weapon, that can be used with one hand, and is employed to tap the ball away just as an opponent is about to strike, and to coax it, as it were, towards the goal through the mass of adverse sticks.
The four sticks shown in the [engraving] are very good samples of the forms best adapted for use. Fig. 1 is much in favour with some players, and is therefore given; but for our own part we never could play to our satisfaction with it, the large and deep curve deceiving the eye and causing the player to let the ball pass through the hook, besides running the risk of entanglement in the opponent’s stick.