Winter sports in Switzerland make their _début_ in _Punch_ in 1895 in an article on tobogganing dated "_Canton des Grisons_." Mention is made of curling, "bandy" and figure-skating, but nothing is said of ski-ing, which though practised as a sport in Norway from 1860, did not reach Switzerland till the end of the century. Another foreign importation, this time from Japan, was ju-jitsu, to the value of which _Punch_ pays a dubious tribute in 1899 in a burlesque interview with a burglar on whom a householder had ineffectually tried the new art of self-defence. In the same mood are the farcical suggestions for dealing with various awkward situations in 1905, and the overthrow of a butler by a page-boy, to the petrifaction of the servants' hall. There was a recrudescence of roller-skating in 1909 which _Punch_ deals with in pictures, prose and verse. The inexpert and self-protective lover sings, after Ben Jonson:-- Rink with me only with thine eyes, And do not clutch my frame; Clasp yonder expert's hand instead, And I'll not press my claim. [Sidenote: _The Tyranny of Ping-pong_] There are many allusions to "Rinkomania," but not nearly so many as to Ping-Pong, which attained the proportions of a pestilence in 1901, 1902 and 1903. _Punch_ began by calling it a "ghastly game," but kept in close touch with its progress until the tyranny was overpast. He gives us pictures of ping-pong in the kitchen; of people searching beneath the table and in corners for missing balls; a sketch of a ping-pong tournament, with local champions and devotees of all ages and callings. In his "Cry of the Children" the younger generation lift up their voices in protest:-- We shall never know what peace is till we land upon that shore Where the fathers cease from pinging and the mothers pong no more. In 1902 the _Table Tennis Gazette_ issued its first number, and _Punch_ speculates on the contents:-- Here you may learn if it is true That Tosher's got his Ping-Pong Blue. The epidemic abated in 1903, and in "The Lost Golfer" _Punch_ has some excellent chaff (after Browning) of the "parlour hero," his mind temporarily unhinged by a "piffulent game." The verses begin "Just for a celluloid pilule he left us," and end with the anticipation that the "lost golfer" will yet return to his old haunts:-- Back for the Medal Day, back for our foursomes, Back from the tables' diminishing throng; Back from the infantile ceaseless half-volley, Back from the lunatic lure of Ping-Pong.