Late in the seventies of our century the social craze of what was called 'rinkomania' set in. Any available buildings were laid down with floors more or less lubricated, on which the sons and daughters of the various sections of the great middle class, shod with a peculiar adaptation of wheels, slipped about, and called it skating. These resorts were no doubt admirably conducted. Acquaintances made at them were probably blameless. They often perhaps ended in blissful and desirable marriage. But not without a shock to her sense of maternal propriety did the English matron of old-fashioned ideas see, or hear of, her daughter being twirled round in the arms of some youth just introduced, or perhaps without even the preliminary of that easy form. The young woman could cite plausible precedent for the process. The most fond and nervous of mothers suffered her fears to be allayed. No evil, and it may be hoped some good, to mind and body, came perhaps from these experiences. It was, nevertheless, an innovation on the usage of generations to which bygone ancestors and ancestresses would not readily have reconciled themselves. In plain words it signified the revolt of the sons and daughters of the middle class against their exclusion from modes of social enjoyment that to their contemporaries slightly above them in the social scale had long been allowed. They had read of the subscription balls planned by the astute Scot, John Almack, at Willis's Rooms, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. More recently they had seen accounts of subscription dances in what were then aristocratic watering places like Scarborough, or of the more cosmopolitan revels where chaperons were largely dispensed with by their well-born charges at Baden-Baden and Homburg. What claim did the accident of birth constitute to a monopoly of the more stirring and less exclusive forms of pleasure? Thus it came to pass that the pastime which followed the generally patrician Almacks at the interval of a century from being a romp of children became the mildly gymnastic function of youths and maidens of maturer years. The next stage in this progress is marked by the popularity of the lawn-tennis ground. The private gardens of urban or suburban villadom were soon too small for the wielders of the racquet. The common enclosure of the crescent, the square, or the 'Gardens,' was coveted one day by the players. It was possessed the next. After this, the transition to lawn-tennis subscription clubs, with public grounds, and championship matches open to all comers was easy and natural. The parlour of home soon dwindled into an insignificant spot to the overgrown boys and girls engaged in 'All England' tournaments of their own.