Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1887 — WINTER PASTURES. [ARTICLE]

WINTER PASTURES.

Ice Skater* and Tobogganists Pre--paring for the Current Season. How to Build a Toboggan Slide— The Cost of Construction, Etc. File Game of Racquets The Latest". Popular Indoor Pastime. [SPECIAL CHICAGO CORRESPONDENCE.] Winter is now fairly upon us, and around the shipping and receiving doors of the big-sporting-goods establishments of Chicago are piled great stacks—not of base-ball bats, masks, balls, gloves, and other paraphernalia of the diamond, but of toboggans, bob-sleds, gymnasium apparatus, cases of ice and roller skates, cases of warm and brilliantly hued Canadian wool blankets, for manufacture into toboggan costumSs, piles of snowshoes and crates of racquet bats, and all other appliances necessary to in and out door winter sports. If the weather is favorable throughout' the Northwest this winter, the indicationsaro that winter sports will be more generally indulged in this year than ever before. Among outdoor sports, tobogganing and ice skating will of course take the preference.

The manager of the Chicago house of Spalding & Bros., who probably handle the largest number of toboggans and ice skates of any sporting goods house in the country, remarked to an inquirer the other day that where their house alone sold over 8,500 toboggans last year and material for nearly 3,000 costumes, they expected that the demand this year would be almost double these figures. Inquiries are being received daily as to the cost of toboggans and tobogganoutfits, and the cast of erecting slides From present indications it is safe to say that the coming holidays will find one or more slides in operation in every populous town in the Northwest. It is an easy matter for thirty or forty young people to get together, form a club, and contribute $lO or sl-5 apiece toward the construction of a slide and the purchase of a score of star toboggans. Judging from the manner in which the young people of Chicago have gone into the sport already, they expect to receivetheir full share of fun for the expense incurred. And why not? An excellent artificial slide can be erected for from $250 to $350, and the lumber can always be converted to other uses after the season closes, or can be stored away for construction when another begins. Where natural slides exist, this expense of course need not be incurred. Twenty toboggans will cost SIOO more, and costumes can be purchased, or made at home with such expense as the owner can afford. When this has been done the sport to be enjoyed upon the torch-lighted and ice-sheeted run ways, or by the rays of a full moon when a score or more of rosy-cheeked and brilliantly costumed couples are out for a slide in the crisp, cold air, can only be fully understood when participated in. Of course a . regulation toboggan costume is not really necessary to the enjoyment of this pastime of the Canadians, but when a tobogganist of either sex is properly costumed they can enjoy the sport with, much more zest and satisfaction. As to the work of putting up a slide, the method of construction is very cheap, simple and strong, but care should be taken, that the braces and floor beams and postsare thoroughly well spiked together. Byboarding up around the posts of the lower part of the level part of the platform, a large room will be afforded, at a slight additional cost, which may be kept warm, if desired, and afford a means of shelter or a place for refreshments, as well as to afford! a place for the club to store their articles under lock and key. In ordinarily favorable localities the cost ought not to exceed $250, which is a liberal estimate. Another form of winter sport which Chicagoans have taken hold of in earnest this season is that of racquets, and when ono has participated in a single game they become, as a rule, enthusiastic admirers of it. A month ago Capt. Anson, the big captain of the Chicago ball club, assumed themanagement of the only racquet court there was in the city at that time. It on Michigan avenue, and is easily accessible by club men, Board of Trade men,, and the wealthy young bloods of the city who have become regular frequenters of the court since it opened. Many readers will ask, “What is racquet?”’ for the game has never been very extensively played in this country. It is similar to the old game of hand-ball, only that the ball is smaller and harder than a handball, and is struck with a bat something like a tennis racquet, but longer handledThe game is played in an inclosed court, the regulation court being about thirty-five feet long, twenty feet wide, and twenty-two-feet high; the walls and floors of solid cement, and the whole lighted by a skylight in the ceiling. The rules of handball apply to the game of racquet, and noexercise that a young man or woman can indulge in is more beneficial in every way. Of course it is not necessary to construct a regulation court to enjoy the game. A spacious loft of any kind, with the wallssolidly boarded or plastered and lighted from above, would answer admirably, the only expense necessary jbeing the purchase of the racquets ’and a box of balls, with, perhaps, a flannel or worsted gymnasium shirt and a pair of rubber-soled exercising shoes. These can be found at any sporting goods house. In Chicago the game is rapidly taking the place of many other athletic pastimes. It is great work to get into Anson’s court and throw one’s self into a profuse perspiration through the activework necessitated by the character of the play. Then to strip off, stand under a shower, and afterward have a strong-armed attendant rub one down until your muscles feel firm and vigorous, and your skin is red with the chfiang gives an exilarating and healthful effect net allowed by any other means. Racquet is a great sport— least so say all who have indulged in it.