BOWLS, GAME OF. This is a favorite pastime throughout the British isles. It is played upon n smooth, flat piece of turf, from 40 to 60 ft, square, surrounded by a trench or ditch about half a foot deep. The players arrange themselves in sides, usually of four each, and each man is usually provided with two bowls. The howls are made of lignum-vitte wood, of 6 or 8 in. in diameter, nearly round, and with a bias to one side. A smaller ball, perfectly spherical and white. is placed at one end of the bowling-green; this is termed the jack, and the aim of the players, who stand at the other end of the green, is to send their B. that they may lie as near as possible to the jack. The side whose B. are nearest the jack reckon one point for each bowl so placed. 7, 14, 21, or 31, make game, according to mutual arrangement beforehand. B. are biassed or weighed on one side, that the player may reach the jack by a curved instead of a straight course, an expedient which the nature of the game renders particularly desirable. Indeed, were it not for this. the game would lack half its charms. A bowl is played forehand, when it is so placed in the hand and delivered as to cause it to approach the jack with a curve from the right; and in order to attain this curve, the bowl must be held so that its bias is on the left or in-side. Backhand is the reverse. If a bowl goes into the ditch without
touching the jack, it cannot count in the scoring of that end; but if it . strikes jack, and then rolls into the ditch, it reckons as if on the f,-reen. When the jack carried by a bowl into the ditch, it is usually lifted, and placed on the green as near as possible to its position in the ditch. When the 13. have so accumulated round the jack, thatit is impossible to approach it from either side, without running the risk of touching an adversary's bowl, the last player frequently endeavors to run the jack, by playing straight at it with such force. as to neutralize the bias, and, if fortunate, carry j away the from the neighborhood of his opponent's bowls. A ,g7.-Ip is appointed on each side, whose duty it is to direct each of his men.—For BOWLING at cricket, see CRICKET.
The game of B. was anciently unlawful, and was the subject of prohibitive legisla tion in England in the reign of henry VIII.; but the law then enacted was repealed in 1845 by the 8 and 0 Viet. c. 109, s. 1, so that B. or other similar games of mere skill may be legally indulged in by the people.