Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — Picnics and Croquet. [ARTICLE]

Picnics and Croquet.

There is a pastoral recreation that usually comes into vogue about this time of the year which is knowi' to the vernacular by tne euphonious name of the picnic. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to state that it ordinarily breaks out somewhat earlier in the season, for sporadic cases are known to occur as early as the begins ning of May. The May parties, as some call them, are, however, the mildest type of the malady, which, in the course of time, rapidly assumes a more violent form, until the anniversary of onr NationaMndependence, when it rages with the fury of a malignant epidemic. The youth of the land are always its first victims, whether on account of that unenviable affection for them which is said to exist in Olympian circles and is presumed to be satisfactorily attested by theirdyingvoung; or because of an unfortunate predisposition for diseases that belong peculiarly to the period of adolescence, and among which croup and chicken-pox, as well as picnics, occupy a bad eminence, we shall not undertake to say. But the adult population eventually succumbs to its dreadful ravages and becomes quite as seriously infected by its wild and fatal delirium as the children of smaller growth. The real enjoyment ol the picnic, which is held out in the woods wherever the foliage is thick enough to intercept some of the rays of the solstitial sun, and is at the same time not so thick as to obstruct the growth of the verdure—a condition of things not ieadily found, by-the-way—be-gins with carrying heavy buskots of provender, over fences and across lots, to the destined spot. This performance is really more enjoyable to the unladened portion of the company than it is to the bipedal beasts of burden, who toil and under their weary loads, with red faces and limp collars, provoking an amount of hilarity that is not altogether delightful to themselves, and making ghastly efforts to appear quite as jolly as the rest. At the picnic-ground the time is chiefly occupied by a sober and dignified sport that commonly goes by the name of croquet, or orthodox billiards, which is never permitted to become so exciting as to heat the blood, and is not intricate enough to rack the brain, although, as played by the feminine picnickers, it wonld seem to require the exercise of extraordinary skill aud ingenuity. Indeed, the spectacle of a woman vigorously plying, at one and the same time, a fan, a parasol, a handkerchief and a mallet, while be towingno inconsiderable portion of her versatile mind upon the proper adjustment of her skirts, the maintenance of an unru y hat in a state of just equilibrium on the jop oi her head, and the direction of an animated conversation upon every imaginable topic from the origin of species to the latest and sweetest thing in bonnets, fills one with emotions of awe and wonder that entirely transcend those excited by the feats of Chinese jugglers, whose manual dexterityenables them to keep numerous balls, knives and other articles in the air as long as they please to do so. To expect the fair ones who assume these varied and multitudinous responsibilities to acquit themselves of all with distinguished success would be grossly unreasonable. The plain fact is. some one or more of them is sure to be slighted, and the game, being the least important, most generally receives very perfunctory consideration. For this reason, perhaps, it has been sagely remarked by those best acquainted with the game of croquet, that if, is in point of fact but another form of the more ancient and widely-known game of coquette that has been going on between the sexes since the world began, and this notion they consider verified to some extent by the striking resemblance between the names as they are spelled. Were this hypothesis correct, it is obviously the proper game for the young and marriageable, and when played by others becomes a sad travesty of its original purpose—a sort of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. — Indianapolis Journal.