The Cricketers’ Golfing Society has set on foot an inter-county tournament on the lines of the County Cricket Championship. The membership of the society is confined to members of first and second class county cricket teams and to University Blues, and it will furnish the teams for the golf tournament.
Teams representing the Stock Exchange and the Dramatic Profession in London engaged in a competition on the links of the Burnham Beeches Club, the former winning by 8¾ against 5½ points.
The Earl of Dudley has decided to give a Challenge Cup for competition each year among members of the two clubs which play on the links at Dollymount and Portmarnock. This cup is intended as a souvenir of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland of Lord Dudley.
THE WINTER EXHIBITION AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.
The thirty-seventh Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy opened on New Year’s Day, consisting this year of a very excellent and representative collection of works by the old masters and deceased masters of the British School. The exhibition is particularly strong in paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, and Turner; and among more recent painters represented are admirable examples of Millais and Burne-Jones. Sporting and animal subjects are not very numerous on the walls. Attention may be drawn to J. F. Herring’s “Return from Deer-stalking” (No. 40); to Sir Edwin Landseer’s “The Catspaw” (No. 50), which, it will be remembered, furnished the late Sir John Tenniel with a text for one of his cleverest Punch cartoons; and to Ralph Caldecott’s animated “Hunting Scenes” (Nos. 240 and 243); “Rabbiting near Cromer” (No. 51), by James Stark, deserves notice, and so does James Ward’s spirited picture of “The Hetman Platoff on the charger which he afterwards gave to Hugh, Earl Percy” (No. 67). The charger, a grey Arab, is a singularly fine piece of work, though it may be objected that no horse, even an Arab, possesses eyes so large as those in the head of this otherwise perfectly drawn animal. The Arabs or Barbs in J. F. Lewis’s “Study of Horses” (No. 246) are well worth close examination as masterpieces of equine anatomy.
PELOTA AT THE WINTER CLUB.
Those who have organised the new club at Olympia have left no stone unturned to provide for the increasing demand for all kinds of games during the winter months. There is something very novel in seeing football played under cover upon the huge grass carpet, provided, we understand, at a cost of some five thousand pounds, and covering the entire floor of the building. There are four or five squash racquet courts, twice as many billiard tables, a rifle range, and sufficient space for several games at croquet. But the attraction which will probably draw many visitors to Olympia is the game of Pelota, the national game of Spain, now played for the first time in England by six pelotari, drawn from the professional champions from the Basque country. The game is played on a cement court eighty yards long, by fifty broad, with a front wall, but no side or back walls, though in Spain we believe that some of the best courts have back walls. It is of the same nature as racquets, only the ball—a rubber-cored ball of the size between a base-ball and a fives-ball—is slung by the players against the front wall after being caught in a sickle-shaped basket-work scoop, resembling more than anything else the semi-circular mud-guards held over the wheels of carriages to prevent the soiling of ladies’ dresses. This scoop or chirista is about two feet long, and the dexterity with which the players catch the ball in it, whether it comes straight to them or they have to take it back-handed or on the half volley, is little short of marvellous; the pace of the ball from the back-handed swing is simply terrific, and when it is remembered that the line above which the ball must strike the front wall is of much the same height as that in an ordinary racquet court, it can easily be realised that the server and the front players, who are constantly under fire from the slingers at the back, require a skill which can only be acquired by life-long habit not merely to take their part in the game, but to avoid being seriously injured.
FANCY DRESS BALLS AT COVENT GARDEN.
The fortnightly masquerades at the Royal Opera House are more popular than ever with light-hearted Londoners. Now that the autumn season of opera is over, the whole of the large house is available for the accommodation of the merry throng of dancers who flock to Covent Garden on alternate Fridays, and the additional space afforded by the stage and its surrounding area is beautified by scenery from the near East. The competition for the prizes for the best and most original dresses is apparently more keen than ever, and the march past of competitors is certainly one of the sights of London.