LILY WATSON. (_To be continued._) THE NEW GAME OF CROQUET, WITH A FEW HINTS TO BEGINNERS, BY ONE OF THEM. [Illustration: FIG. 1.—GOOD FORM.] Your editor, always with an eye to his readers’ pleasure and profit, asked me to make a few drawings illustrative of the new way of playing croquet, a game that has recently been revived with astonishing success all over the country; and also to write a short description of the game with a few general hints that may be of help to those taking up croquet for the first time. I am old enough to remember the introduction of the game, as played in the old way with wide hoops, light mallets, and light balls. Croquet became the rage, and for a few years monopolised the attention of lovers of outdoor recreation; then lawn tennis came in, and croquet was allowed to well-nigh drop out of existence. As played now it is certainly a far better game, and though more difficult is correspondingly the more interesting. It might be called lawn billiards, and with practice and some natural aptitude a player can become as certain of his strokes as in billiards, provided, of course, the lawn be a good one. [Illustration: FIG. 2.—BAD FORM.] The chief differences in the new game as compared with the old are bigger and heavier mallets, heavier balls, narrower hoops placed much further apart, and therefore more difficult to negotiate, no croqueting with the foot, _i.e._, your own ball has to be placed against the ball you have hit, and the player strikes his own ball according to the distance and direction he wishes his own and the other ball to go, instead of keeping his foot on his own ball while he hits it. Those who have played the old game will realise what a difference this “loose” instead of tight croqueting makes to the play. Another important point in taking croquet is that if your own or the other ball is driven off the boundary line, the player loses the remainder of his turn. This law was introduced to prevent a player from running completely away from his opponent, which was likely to happen when a good player was well set.