CROQUET, (apparently a varinat of Fr. crochet, hook). No other open-air game played to-day has had such strange thmtuations of fortune as croquet. It was a favorite game at the courts of kings two hundred years ago. yet by the end of the eighteenth century it had sunk into oblivion, and, except in a remote 'for Lion of Ireland, had been forgotten and unprac ticed. Front that country it was rctransported across the Channel to England some time pre vious to 1860, and then the playing of the game became again so popular for twenty years ets to assume the proportions of a national game. It had its national association. and in every hamlet the click of the croquet-hall was to be heard. It traveled over the Atlantic, where it was almost as popular. and by 1882 it demanded a national convention to settle a uniform code of American rules. Yet in both countries by 1894 it had been so entirely supplanted by lawn tennis that the English national association went out of existence. and in America only a few of its votaries remained. About 1900 it again came into vogue in England. while in America. under the name of rogue (q.v.). it has become a highly scientific and enthusiastically followed game.
It is played either on a court of grass or closely packed earth, on which a number of arches (from six to ten) have been placed up right in a defined order. Each player has a mallet and a ball. Two can play the game, but it is a better game when played by the maximum number allowed (eight), divided into pairs of partners, each playing alternately. The object is to get the ball through every arch or hoop in due order, and to keep opponents from doing so, by interference within the rules, The English and American methods varied from the firmt—in England the championship round was through six hoops arranged in a pre scribed form; in America it was through ten hoops, arranged in entirely different order. In
England the championship court was rectangu lar, in America the corners of a court 36 X 72 feet were cut off. Then, too, the size of the balls and the width of the hoops varied; in England the hoops were at first 15 to 18 inches wide at the base: gradually they were reduced to inches, and ultimately to leaving 46 of an inch margin on either side of the ball. Even this small margin was reduced in America. In many other resiwets the American game has been made more difficult.
The few who have restored croquet to popu larity. and made it a highly scientific game, with shorter and better mallets, specially prepared courts with rubber cushions, and more difficult hoops, played the eighteenth annual champion ship of the National Croquet Association. under the old name of croquet, in 1399, after which they adopted the new name rogue, to mark the dis tinction between the two games. They made Norwich, Conn., their headquarters. Enthusi asts place the game above billiards in scientific possibilities: and, without the full admission of that claim, it may be allowed that it is the near est outdoor game to billiards in all its essentials.
The rules of the two games, technical terms. and diagrams, will be found in Croquet and Roque, in Spalding's Athletic Library, New York. See also The Complete Croquet Player (London, 1374 and 1896) : Lillie, The Book of Croquet (London, 1372).