James Alexander Manson

“ In English practice the leader is entitled to a second throw if he fail to roll a legal jack at his first attempt; should he fail again, the right to throw passes to his opponent, but not the right of playing first. On Scottish greens the leader has only a single throw. A legal jack should not be interfered with except by the course of play. Should the jack be driven towards the side boundary, it is legitimate for a player to cause his bowl to draw outside of the dividing string, provided that when it has ceased running it shall have come to rest entirely within his own space. ”

“ The weakest player in the four is invariably played in the second place (the “soft second”) . Most frequently he will be required either to protect a good bowl or to rectify a possible error of the leader. His official duty is to mark the game on the scoring card when the leader announces the result. He keeps a record of the play of both sides. The third player, who does any measuring that may be necessary to determine which bowl or bowls may be nearest the jack, holds almost as responsible a position as the captain, whose place, in fact, he takes whenever the skip is temporarily absent. ”

“ On crown-greens it is customary to use a small biased wooden jack to give the bowler some clue to the run of the green. The bowler delivers his bowl with one foot on a mat or footer, made of india-rubber or cocoa-nut fibre, the size of which is also prescribed by rule as 24 by 16 in., though, with a view to protecting the green, Australasian clubs employ a much larger size, and require the bowler to keep both feet on the mat in the act of delivery. ”

“ Every bowl must have a certain amount of bias, which was formerly obtained by loading one side with lead, but is now imparted by the turner making one side more convex than the other, the bulge showing the side of the bias. No bowl must have less than No. 3 bias—that is, it should draw about 6 ft. to a 30 yd. jack on a first-rate green: it follows that on an inferior green the bowler, though using the same bowl, would have to allow for a narrower draw. ”

“ The Queen’s Park and Titwood clubs in Glasgow have each three greens, and as they can quite comfortably play six rinks on each, it is not uncommon to see 144 players making their game simultaneously. An undersized lawn is really a poor pitch, because it involves playing from corner to corner instead of up and down—the orthodox direction. For the scientific construction of a green, the whole ground must be excavated to a depth of 18 in. ”

“ Surrounding the green is a space called a ditch, which is nearly but not quite on a level with the green and slopes gently away from it, the side next the turf being lined with boarding, the ditch itself bottomed with wooden spars resting on the foundation. Beyond the ditch are banks generally laid with turf. A green is divided into spaces usually from 18 to 21 ft. in width, commonly styled “rinks”—a word which also designates each set of players—and these are numbered in sequence on a plate fixed in the bank at each end opposite the centre of the space. ”

“ In 1848 and 1849, however, when many clubs had come into existence in the west and south of Scotland (the Willowbank, dating from 1816, is the oldest club in Glasgow) , meetings were held in Glasgow for the purpose of promoting a national association. This was regarded, by many, as impracticable, but a decision of final importance was reached when a consultative committee was appointed to draft a uniform code of laws to govern the game. ”

“ At its close the green must be carefully examined, weeds uprooted, worn patches re-turfed, and the whole laid under a winter blanket of silver-sand.
On Scottish greens the game of points is frequently played, but it is rarely seen on English greens. Its main object is to perfect the proficiency of players in certain departments of bowls proper. There are four sections in the game, namely, drawing, guarding, trailing and driving. In drawing (fig. 1) , the object is to draw as near as possible to the jack, the player’s bowl passing outside of two other bowls placed 5 ft. ”

“ The score having been counted, the leader then places the mat, usually within a yard of the spot where the jack lay at the conclusion of the head, and throws the jack in the opposite direction for a fresh end. On small greens play, for obvious reasons, generally takes place from each ditch. The players play in couples—the first on both sides, then the second and so on. The leader having played his first bowl, the opposing leader will play his first and so on. ”

“ Samuel Pepys repeatedly mentions finding great people “at bowles.” But in time the excesses attending the game rendered it unfashionable, and after the Revolution it became practically a pothouse recreation, nearly all the greens, like the alleys, having been constructed in the grounds and gardens attached to taverns. ”

“ In trailing (fig. 3) , two bowls are laid on the turf 3 ft. apart, and straight lines are chalked from bowl to bowl across their back and front faces, and a jack is then deposited equidistant from each bowl and immediately before the front line. A semicircle is then drawn behind the bowls with a radius of 9 ft. from the jack. Three points are given to the bowl that trails the jack over both lines into the semicircle and goes over them itself. If a bowl trail the jack over both lines, but only itself cross the first ”

“ The discredit attaching to bowling alleys, first established in London in 1455, probably encouraged subsequent repressive legislation, for many of the alleys were connected with taverns frequented by the dissolute and gamesters. ”