The foursome tournament among London clubs obtained an entry of thirty-two clubs, and is already in a forward state. Most of the clubs play their professional, but several are content with two amateurs, and it is quite on the cards that the tournament may be won by a club of the latter class. Neutral greens are used until the final round, in which the play must take place on the links of the Walton Heath Club.
In the preliminary matches the Oxford University team is giving a good account of itself. At Oxford it beat by 26 to 17 holes a strong team got together by Mr. W. M. Grundy, while it was successful also against a combination of Huntercombe players, which included Mr. Cecil K. Hutchison and Mr. R. E. Foster, the place of play being Huntercombe. The Cambridge University team, which includes Mr. A. G. Barry, the amateur champion, played a match over the Royal Worlington and Newmarket Club course with the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, and were defeated in the singles by seven matches to three, and in the foursomes by three matches to two.
The golfing season in the South of France attracted several of the best players in this country. The annual match play tournament under handicap at Pau was won by Mr. Charles Hutchings, of the Royal Liverpool Club, who carried the heavy handicap of plus four strokes. At Cannes the Gordon-Bennett Challenge Cup was won by Mr. A. J. Stanley, of the Littlestone Club. The Biarritz Club has elected the Earl of Dudley captain for the ensuing year.
“THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE” AT THE COURT THEATRE.
The Vedrenne-Barker management at the Court Theatre has become one of the most interesting institutions in the dramatic world of London, and a very interesting feature of their enterprise is the production of “The Voysey Inheritance,” a play in five acts by Mr. Granville Barker.
Mr. Granville Barker has made a big reputation as an actor, and he seems in a fair way to gaining, it may be, still greater honours as a writer of plays. Certainly “The Voysey Inheritance” is full of merit and promise of greatness for the author. The story deals with the affairs of Mr. Voysey, a fraudulent solicitor, who has for years been living in luxury upon the funds which his confiding clients have entrusted to his hands for investment. His method is simple enough, and consists of paying the annual interest out of the capital and financing himself with the funds so long as they last. His son and partner, Edward Voysey, discovers this, and, being a conscientious solicitor, remonstrates with his father. The speculative and peculative parent, however, explains that this is the traditional method of business in the office of Voysey and Son, and is really the best in the interests of the clients, since it is more comforting for them to draw their interest as regularly as can be managed than to learn the sad news that their capital is gone.
In the second act we see the Voysey family chez eux at Bramleyfield, Chislehurst, ten of them altogether; and in their varied personalities Mr. Barker has given us a remarkably clever study of the later Victorian upper-middle class. The Voyseys may be distantly connected with the Ridgeleys, whom Mr. Pinero has recently introduced to London; but we think they are a very much more interesting family, for whereas one Ridgeley is very like another, each member of the Voysey family is full of individuality.
The third act shows the Voysey family in solemn conclave after the funeral of their father, who has been sent to his last resting-place by a sudden chill. Edward explains the unfortunate financial position of the house of Voysey, and indeed he is in a position deserving of the greatest sympathy as sole surviving partner malgré lui in an old-established and fraudulently flourishing solicitor’s office.
To please his people and to do the best he can for his clients, Edward accepts the Voysey inheritance, and devotes his life to an attempt to put things right.