the police to remove all brothels in Bombay, apparently no action has been taken. In Colombo, on the other hand, where the police were invested with similar powers, these were exercised to the full, with the result that the brothels have disappeared. Where, in spite of the means to do so, brothels have not been abolished, it would be interesting to inquire into the real reasons for the inertia. These houses are very sound commercial propositions, especially in the East; and it is not unlikely that when those who have a financial interest in them have any political influence, that influence will be used to ensure that the industry is not unduly handicapped. It is mere nonsense to argue that, so far as Bombay is concerned, the Prostitution Act was passed in advance of public opinion, and that therefore the police do not choose to carry out its provisions. The Act was passed in response to a public agitation in 1921, when it was discovered that in the city of 1,250,000 inhabitants there were 885 brothels, with 5164 inmates known to the police. Apart from these it was estimated that there were also at least 25,000 non-brothel prostitutes. The resulting Act of 1923 was most certainly not in advance of public opinion, however hard it may have threatened to strike at certain vested private interests. It is the same in every other part of the Empire. Where the necessary power is given the brothel should be rigorously suppressed. It is a public nuisance, a snare and a delusion.

But even after its abolition the problem still remains. The public prostitute merely plies for hire in a more private manner, and, if anything, becomes more than ever a disseminator of venereal infection. My personal experience in Baku was that after the abolition of the licensed brothel by the Bolsheviks the incidence of venereal disease increased. There were in that case other factors causing this, but the point which I wish to emphasise is that, however great may be the social improvement from abolition of brothels, it makes no corresponding decrease in the amount of venereal disease. The danger that I foresee is that many social reformers are apt to think that when they have put the shutters up on the house of prostitution they have to a great extent solved the problem. They have, of course, done nothing of the kind. All that has been accomplished is the removal of a very undesirable industry from public notice, the liberation of many women from the toils of the brothel-keeper, thereby placing them upon the streets to solicit clients, and the dealing of a severe blow to the pockets of those who have money invested in maisons de tolérance. But nothing of sanitary advantage has been gained, and that is really what is of immediate practical importance, and what ought to be the urgent concern of the Colonial and India Offices. So much discussion of the woman's part in this dreadful business may give rise to the thought that I have forgotten the blame

which the man deserves. That is not so. The woman is discussed as a type, and it is no function of mine in a relation of fact to apportion the blame.

There is only one way to Imperial sanitary salvation so far as venereal disease is concerned. The main assault must be delivered against the male position at its most vulnerable point. This is undoubtedly within twenty-four hours of the man exposing himself to infection, and that means every time, without exception, he indulges in extra-marital connexion. Within that period infection can absolutely be prevented. Secondly, the public must be so educated that they will apply for treatment immediately the first symptom of venereal disease appears, and then persevere with treatment till cure is completed. My personal opinion is that this can only be fully effective in the presence of compulsory confidential notification and treatment. Finally, the scheme must be in the hands of proved experts who have exhibited the true public health spirit, and shown high ability of an administrative and organising character.

These are the mainsprings of success. To bring them into operation all that is required is the selection of the correct personnel. From the sanitary standpoint the brothel and the prostitute can be completely neglected. The latter is entirely insusceptible to any political treatment. All human experience has shown that when sanitary improvement is expected from repressive police measures directed against her, such hopes do not materialise. All efforts of that nature are largely a waste of time and energy, which things can only be profitably expended when they are directed into really practical channels.

E. T. BURKE

1927

TENNIS: INDOORS AND OUTDOORS

A GOOD deal of attention has been drawn lately to the naming of Tennis and Lawn Tennis, and the discussion has ranged over various phases in the history of ball games. More than one advocate has upheld the claim that lawn tennis should be called Tennis on the pretext that a game of a kind was played in the open air long before it was played in a closed court, and some rather astonishing guesses have been made about the conditions of such a game.

The derivation of the word ' tennis,' as we spell it now-it is written in some fifteen different ways in English literature between 1400 and 1800—remains a matter of conjecture. Several plausible suggestions have been given, but no one seems much more likely than another. Of the antiquity of the word and of the game there is no question. Chaucer mentions tennis, and also the racket. Exactly how the game was played in its various forms in earlier days is a difficult problem, but certain things stand out clearly. First, an outdoor game was played before a court game; and secondly, outdoor games and court games existed together from the middle of the fourteenth century. Thirdly, tennis, as its devotees in England call it to-day (jeu de paume in France, court tennis in America, and royal tennis in Australia), has been played in practically the same way as it is now for over 400 years. Of the conditions of the outdoor games our knowledge is imperfect, but it is a very strong probability that in most cases they were played on the chase system, and not on the one bound' system, and I do not believe that anything even remotely resembling lawn tennis was known until the middle of last century at earliest.

The method of scoring of tennis by fifteens is very old: the reason of it inscrutable. Antonio Scaino, to whose Trattato della Palla (1555) every historian of ball games is everlastingly indebted, speaks of this scoring as a commonplace in his time, and the author of the Jeu Royal de la Paume (1632) says: 'The first difficulty is to know why we should count, as we have counted from time immemorial, 15, 30, 45 and then game.' His successors are still as much in the dark as he was, though many ingenious

suggestions as to the origin have been made. The use of 40 instead of 45 is comparatively modern, and deuce is à deux anglicised.

Handball was played in the middle ages in the parks or fossés of the chateaux in Italy and France, in spaces specially prepared for it. In the fourteenth century it became popular in towns, and for want of more space it was confined within walls. From this time onward two distinct families of ball games existed-the court game and the outdoor game-and there were no doubt variations of each.

Courts at first were probably mostly uncovered; but I cannot find any reason why it should be asserted, as it has been by Ernest Law, the well-known historian of Hampton Court Palace, that the court there was the first to be roofed. There were royal courts in France long before Henry VIII. of England came to the throne, and some of these particularly one, which we are told occupied two whole storeys of a palace-might have been covered.

The full name of the court game in France is 'jeu de courte paume' and of the outdoor game' jeu de longue paume.' Whether our word' court' was taken from the French is a disputed point.

The present existence of the jeu de longue paume is not known by many French people, and by less English. Even Baron Emil D'Erlanger, who has much lore in the history of ball games in France, wrote in a recent letter as if longue paume were practically extinct. Fortunately this is not the case. The game can be seen in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on any Sunday afternoon in the summer, and in the north-east of France, particularly in the department of the Oise, it is very much alive. There is a federation for the game, championships, and even classification of players. A few years ago I bought some longue paume rackets from M. Gabart, a racket manufacturer, close by the Rue du Temple, for my collection at Queen's Club. Shortly afterwards I received a letter from an official of the federation saying that he was glad we were going to play longue paume, and asking about the possibilities of matches against us.

In England the game of field tennis, as we hear of it from various writers, is, so far as I have been able to discover, now extinct. I believe, for reasons that will be given later, that it was similar to, if not identical with, longue paume. Neither game can be said to have much resemblance to lawn tennis as we know it now, beyond that it is played with a racket and a ball. If my surmise with regard to longue paume and field tennis being practically the same thing is correct, then tennis out of doors in England in the old days was played without a net; for no net is used at longue paume, but the sides are divided by a line

drawn on the ground. The net at tennis was evolved from a rope stretched across the court. In the seventeenth century we learn from the rules of the game then existing that it was fixed at a height where a player from one end wall could just see the foot of the other end wall. The sagging of the rope no doubt led to that delightfully interesting feature of modern tennis, the net being higher at the ends than in the centre.

From the rope the transition to the net was through a fringe, but the date of the introduction of this, or of the change from fringe to net, is hard to trace. In the frontispiece of Le Jeu Royal de la Paume, published by Hulpeau at Paris in 1632, the fringe is clearly shown, but there is an illustration of a German court before this with a long net.

In 1767, in De Garsault's L'Art de Paumier Raquettier, the illustration of the 'Jeu de Dedans' shows the court from the dedans end. Most of the features, the net included, are precisely similar to those of our own day. There is no hole shown at the net in which to place the ball basket, which apparently was placed on the floor itself near the net. One of the few existing courts where there is no hole for the ball basket is that at Woburn Abbey.

In both the outdoor and indoor games the time of the introduction of the racket, and the time when it superseded the hand as a striking implement, has been a matter of great discussion. Mr. Julian Marshall took much trouble to find evidence that implements akin to rackets had existed from very remote times.

Mr. Clarence Pell, the American rackets champion, who tried some of the basque ball games last summer, tells me that the Basques claim to have records of ' pala '—a game played with a long wooden bat-as far back as the tenth century. Mr. Marshall also discusses the various suggested derivations of the word 'raquette' in French, ' racchetta' in Italian,' raqueta' in Spanish, and 'racket'in English.

Some hold that it comes from a diminutive form of the Latin netis,' a net. Others derive it from the Dutch 'racken,' to stretch. Littré in his Dictionary said that it is very old in the French language under the form of 'ruchette' or rasquette,' which means the palm of the hand, and he thought that it might be traced back to the Arabic through the low Latin, ' racha.'

So far as tennis is concerned, tradition has it that the Italians used first a glove, then a double glove, and then had the idea of stringing the glove. The next step was a frame and a diminutive handle.

In addition to primitive rackets of the species we know now, the game was played with implements made of wood or of parch