POLO

the years 1910 and 1911 witnessed a great transformation in english polo. in rgro the handicapping of individual players was introduced and in roir offside was abolished. these changes were to a large extent in consequence of the sensational defeat of england by america in 1909. as regards offside it was realised that the drawback of cur- tailing the liberty of one of the four players in a team by mak- ing him adapt his movements to those of his chief opponent, e., the back on the opposite side, was an unfair one. the position of no. 1 under offside conditions was very unpopular; the youngest and most inexperienced player was, as a rule, chosen for this unenviable position, being often used simply to clear the way for his no. 2 by riding off the back, and being ordered to leave the ball alone, with the result that he very frequently spoilt his ponies and failed to improve his own play. ofiside slowed up the game, and it was realised that the won- derful form shown by the great american team (no. 1 l. waterbury, no. 2 m. waterbury, no. 3 h. whitney, back d. milburn) had been developed by playing the game at a greater pace under no offside conditions. lastly, with the ofiside rule in force, umpiring was extraordinarily difficult. handicapping.—the individual handicapping of players must not only tend toward closer and harder matches, and conse- quently more interesting games, but must also give the stronger side more practice in goal hitting than under offside conditions; and in all tournaments, with the exception of open cups, the stronger teams would be obliged to give a start to weaker combinations instead of playing on the level, as was the case under the ‘‘ recent form list ’? which had been in force since 1903. the “ recent form list ’’ was a list of first-class players and in ordinary tournaments only one or two such players might play in the same team. on the whole, the abolition of political econom y—polo ofiside and the introduction of the system of handicapping improved the game all over the british empire, for india and the dominions followed hurlingham’s lead. matches were closer and combination was not lost. polo ponies.—up to 1914 the height of ponies was hmited to 14-3, official measurers being appointed in england and ireland. the height measurements were unsatisfactory for many reasons. cruelty was practised, big ponics with low withers were passed, smaller ones with high withers failed to get through and much expense was entailed. further, big ponies that failed to pass were promptly sold in the united states, where no measurement rules were in force and in some instances were played in international matches against england. when the war was over measurement of polo ponies was entirely abandoned. owing to the losses of thousands of ponies in the war, the cessation of breeding and the consequent difficulty of finding sufficient 14.3 ponies, it was decided that animals of any height might be played. a craze at first rose for big ponies, but it was soon found that the game deteriorated owing to various causes, the chief of which was that what the big ponies gained in pace they lost in handiness. owing to the scarcity of english ponies, england has become more and more dependent on the argentine supply, the pony from that country having marvellously improved in quality. international polg.—till 1909 it was not really believed that there was any team in the world that could possibly beat the best english players and the great interest taken now in inter- national polo may be said to have then started. international polo matches have turned polo from what it used to be, more or less a private club game, into a great popular spectacle. the zenith of english polo was reached in 1914 when the championship cup, lost in 1909, was brought back to england by lord wimborne’s soldier team (captain leslie chase, h. a. tomkinson, f. w. barrett and v. n. lockett). in 1911 and 1913 attempts were made to recover the cup, which was only lost by the narrowest of margins and in 1914 victory crowned the efforts of the english team. then came the war in which many of the best english players lost their lives and during which the training of the young players in polo, and of the boys in riding, ceased for about five years. when it was re- sumed, the expenses of the game had increased to such an extent that few young civilians could afford to take up the game at all. in england the standard of play had deteriorated, and english teams suffered heavy defeats by america in 1921 at hurlingham and in 1924 in america. in 1922 an excellent argentine team visited england, and in 1925 the jodhpur team came from india. both of these teams succeeded in winning the championship cup, the former going on to america to annex the u.s.a. championship. in 1923 the british army team was defeated by the american army in the united states, and in 1925 was again defeated by the american army in england. during 1926 perhaps the most hopeful sign for the future of the game in england was the great interest taken by the general public and the tremendous keenness of the players themselves. this is undoubtedly due to the international matches, the visits to england of argentine, jodhpur and u.s.a. army teams and to the fact that the public has been able to witness good matches at hurlingham, rugby, minekead, cirencester and elsewhere. bibliography.—t. drybrough, polo (1906); gen. de lisle, rae in india (1907); col. e, d. miller, afodern polo on eae w. forbes, as to polo (1923). (e. d. m, . united states —polo as played in the united states is a highly scientific, hard-working, oul-to-win game. english polo in com- parison is slow because so much play is concentrated on the principal fields, in consequence of this the turf and top dressing are badly cut and therefore slow; whereas in the united states there are many exceedingly fast fields on which important matches are played. on these fast fields the slow-field player is con- fused. within half an hour’s motor ride of the meadow brook club, near new york city, are ten or twelve fast fields, two of poly technics—poor law > which are conserved to keep them in perfect condition; in the corresponding fields around london two and sometimes three matches are played at each day’s gathering. then, in england, of recent years high-goal men play much with lower-goal men, while in the united states high-goal men play with their handi- cap peers to a much greater extent, thus continually holding themselves to their highest point of excellence. there is a difference also in method employed in the game. the seat in the saddle is deemed in america as important as the stance at golf; american players hit standing in the stirrups, hit from the heel to the shoulder, whereas englishmen mainly hit from a seat in the saddle. in the united states novices and even schoolboys are encouraged to take up the game; in a number of places polo is played through the winter by these youngsters under the enthu- siastic supervision of crack players from important clubs, who willingly give time and experience to train properly the next generation in this great outdoor game. wet) polytechnics: see technical education. pomare, sir maui, maori statesman, was born at pahou, taranaki, new zealand, his father being chief of the atiawa tribe and his mother a chieftainess of the ngalitoa tribe. he was educated at a private school at christchurch and the te aute college, hawkes bay, and studied medicine at a medical college in chicago, gaining a doctor’s degree. he was appointed chief health officer to the maoris, was knighted in 1922 and in the following year became minister for health. he was also appointed minister for the cook and other islands and minister representing the maori race. pontoppidan, henrik (1857- }, danish author (see 22.69), completed lykke per in 1904. in 1912~—6 appeared his trilogy de dodes rige, dealing with the first decade of the 20th century. in 1917 he received the nobel prize for literature, together with k. gjellerup. poor law (sce 22.74a).—ever since the exposures made by the royal commission on the poor laws in ro09, the whole british system of boards of guardians and parish relief has been, so to speak, under sentence of death. mr. john burns, president of the local government board at that date, tried to save it by administrative reforms. but those reforms left the fundamental defects of the poor law untouched, and they did little to restore it to popular favour. the world war brought a temporary reprieve; the volume of pauperism diminished, and in any case drastic reform would have been impossible under war conditions. (see also insurance, social.) recommendations of 1917.—in 1917, however, a committee, appointed by the ministry of reconstruction and presided over by sir donald maclean, re-examined the problem. its report confirmed the sentence passed by the royal commission eight years before, and made detailed recommendations for the break-up of the poor law. it proposed:— 1, the transfer of all the functions of the boards of guardians to the councils of counties, county boroughs and boroughs or urban districts with populations exceeding 50,000. 2. provision for all the sick and infirm (including the aged re- quiring institutional care, and maternity cases and infants) should be made by these authorities under the public health acts suitably extended. 3. the ministry of health should have power to put any borough with a population over 10,000, or any urban district with over 20,000, in the position of an autonomous health authority, with such reservations as might be desirable. 4. the children should be dealt with by the local education authorities, the mentally deficient by the local lunacy authorities. 5. every county or county borough (or borough or urban district council with a population over 50,000) should set up: (1) a preven- tion of unemployment and training committce (on the lines of the education committee, and including representatives of employers and trade unions); (2) a home assistance committee (on the lines of the education committee) to enquire into the economic circumstances of all applicants for public assistance, to supervise them, to administer all relicf given in the home, to recover expenses of maintenance, treatment, etc., and to keep a private register of all such applicants and their families and of the assistance given. 6. county councils should appoint committees for districts or combinations of districts, to which various functions of the home assistance committee and the prevention of unemployment com- 183 mittee would be delegated. such district committees would consist of: (a) members of the county council; (2) borough or district coun- cillors; (c) persons experienced in the work to be done. 7. london should have a special scheme, in which the functions would be divided between the l.c.c. and the metropolitan borough councils. the borough councils would appoint home assistance cam- mittees, and would also be responsible for vaccination and registra- tion of births and deaths. the l.c.c. would, through its appro- priate committees, exercise the rest of the functions transferred. it would also appoint a central assistance committee, which would lay down a policy and rules of local administration for the hame assist- ance committees in the metropolitan boroughs. 8. poor law officials should be transferred to the local authorities (provided both they and the local authorities agreed), and com- pensated for any pecuniary loss incurred by the change. 9. the cost of all functions transferred should fall on the new authority (the county, county borough, borough or urban district and in london mainly on the county, but partly on the metropolitan borough). scotland was outside the committee’s terms of reference. but the matter was referred for consideration to the scottish consultative council on local health administration. the council issued majority and minority reports, the majority declaring in favour of a scottish scheme on the general lines of the maclean report. the recommendations examined.—these reforms were not advocated on the ground that the boards of guardians were corrupt or incompetent or remiss in their duty. broadly speak- ing, the guardians were recognised to be doing devoted service. but it was the service of an out-of-date principle; relief of the poor by an ad hoc destitution authority, employing—and obliged by law to employ—deterrent methods, could not be squared with modern views either of scientific treatment or of efficient admin- istration. and, indeed, it was this very fact which had caused an all-round encroachment on the guardians by other public bodies, better equipped for dealing with the needs of this or that class of the poor. as the maclean committee put it: “ for the last decade parliament has been unwilling to entrust the boards of guardians with new functions, and the provision for new serv- ices has had to be made by other local authorities—in some cases new local authorities—often to the increase of confusion.” thus, with the reversal in ro11 of the “ pauper disqualification ” clause in the old age pensions act of 1908 many thousands of the destitute aged became entitled to old-age pensions, and so passed out of the poor law. similarly the national health insurance act took a vast number of patients, or potential pa- tients, from the poor law medical service, while later acts, em- powering the local health authorities to set up maternity and infant clinics, to provide midwifery service, to supply milk to expectant and nursing mothers, to treat venereal disease or tuberculosis, still further diminished the scope of the poor law. all this served to reinforce more and more strongly one of the principal charges made by the royal commission in 1909. for it meant in practically every department an increase of adminis- trative disorder—overlapping, multiplication of machinery and waste. in the case of every class of the pauper host, infants, children of school age, the sick, the feeble-minded, the aged, the able-bodied, there was at least one, and generally more than one, other authority set up as a rival to the board of guardians. there was little, if any, co-ordination between the work of the medley of public bodies engaged in giving various forms of assistance out of the rates and taxes. they were in many cases dealing on different lines, and for different reasons, with different members of the same family. so far as the poor law guardians were con- cerned, it was often a mere matter of chance whether it was they or the local health or lunacy or education authority who be- came responsible for a sick or fecble-minded person or a school- child. and as regards the aged, it was found that at the begin- ning of 1920, out of a total of 46,846 paupers over 70 in england and wales, no less than 09,345 were old-age pensioners, two- thirds of them receiving outdoor relief and the other third in institutions. the argument of the maclean committee, therefore, like that of the royal commission, was based on administrative as well as on humanitarian grounds. the abolition of the poor law was 184 demanded in the interests both of the poor and of the public. the maclean scheme was approved by the govt. of the day, and by their successors. pledges were given, and repeated, that a bill would be brought in so soon as the opportunity could be found. but the opportunity was remarkably elusive, and before long the moribund poor law had received an unexpected fillip. the industrial depression, which began in 1920, led to an ap- palling increase of unemployment. the unemployment in- surance act and such relief works as were instituted soon proved inadequate to meet the situation, and armies of unemployed workers and their dependents had recourse to the guardians for money or the necessaries of life. in dec. 1920 the total number of persons in receipt of poor relief in england and wales was 567,900. in the following oct. it had risen to 1,494,000, and it went on rising till june 1922, when it reached the record of 1,837,980, or one in 21 of the whole population. thercafter there was a gradual fall, but in june 1923 the figure was still over 1,250,000. nor, of course, was this burden spread evenly over the 600 odd unions; it fell heaviest on the most necessitous industrial areas. no less than 30 poor law unions had one in 10, and poplar and certain others one in five of their population in receipt of parish relief. "the poor rates mounted to alarming heights, and in some districts the ratepayers were unable to meet the strain; the guardians had to borrow and thus saddle the rates with a heavy future load. two opposite views could be taken of this rush for relief. defenders of the poor law urged that it proved the folly of the abolition policy. it was only the poor law, they said, that had enabled us to meet the crisis, and the minister of health spoke approvingly of the boards of guardians as “‘ the sheet anchor of the nation.”’ others, however, passed a very different judg- ment. they did not blame the guardians; indeed, there was no question of blame, for the guardians were only performing their duty in preventing starvation. but they insisted that the poor law was never intended for such a task. wholesale out-relief to the able-bodied was not among the objects of the act of 1834; nor could even the most resolute opponent of reform honestly pre- tend that a board of guardians was a satisfactory unemployment authority, crisis or no crisis. and there was much criticism of the govt., which, having failed to make proper provision for meeting the exceptional distress, had then, as it was alleged, deliberately encouraged this recourse to the poor law in order to divert the cost as far as possible from the taxes to the rates. but the rising tide of unemployment jed also to another startling development in the shape of a struggle between the poplar board of guardians and the ministry of health over what was known as “ poplarism.”’ the poplar board, dominated by a socialist majority, had long favoured the policy of giving what it regarded as adequate, and its critics as extravagant, outdoor relief. but in the circumstances of 1gt9 this policy meant an intolerable burden on the ratepayers. efforts were made to get the minister of health to devise means for mitigating this burden in the poorer parishes, but in vain. the poplar borough council then refused to collect the rates for the l.c.c. and cer- tain other central bodies. legal proceedings were taken, and the high court ordered the collection of the rates. the borough council ignored the order, and 29 of its members were imprisoned for contempt of court. following upon this a concession was made to the poplar claim by the passage of the local author- ities (financial provisions) act, 1921, which provided for a large measure of equalisation in london, and in particular jaid down that the cost-of outdoor relief should be borne by the metropolitan common poor fund within the limits of a scale to be fixed by the minister. _ the “mond” scale, so called because sir alfred mond was then minister of health, was issued in jan. 1922. it did not satisfy the poplar guardians, who now pressed for a loan to tide them over their immediate difficulties. a special inquiry was then instituted by the minister into the circum- stances of poplar. the report was unfavourable to the guardians, condemning their policy and declaring that by more economical methods they could save {100,000 a year. as they refused to poor law abandon their claim to administer relief at their discretion, the minister issued a peremptory order, applying to the poplar union alone, and providing that no relief in excess of the “mond ” scale to an able-bodied person or any member of his family should be legal unless specially sanctioned by the minister. this order the poplar guardians continued to defy, and so laid themselves open to surcharge. a curious complication was presently introduced by the local authorities (emergency pro- visions) act, 1923, which apparently revoked automatically the “ mond scale,” but left the special poplar order intact, though the two had been closely bound up together. this anomaly lasted till feb. 1924, when the poplar order was rescinded. the poplar guardians meanwhile were regularly surcharged by the auditor, but successive ministers of health ignored the surcharges, until at length, in feb. 1924, mr. wheatley announced that he would take no action to enforce surcharges in respect of “ illegal relief ”’ given before the rescission of the poplar order. that was the end of this particular struggle, though it was not the end of the policy of high relief scales. other boards of guardians continued to favour “ poplarism,”’ and came into conflict from time to time with the ministry of health. the history of the poplar case illustrates some of the worst features of the poor law system—the problem of ‘ necessitous areas,” for example, the unsatisfactory relations between the central and the local authorities, and above all the unsuitability of the guardians to deal with unemployment. this indeed was recognised by the poplar board as well as by its critics, and drastic legislation was expected from the labour government. the labour govt., however, fell before it could prepare a bill, and the task of breaking up the poor law was left to its successors. towards the end of 1925 mr. neville chamberlain, minister of health in the conservative govt., issued his “ proposals for poor law reform,” after successfully piloting through parha- ment a rating and valuation bill which prepared the way for the abolition of the guardians. under this statute the parish dis- appears as the valuation area, the board of guardians no longer appoints the assessment committee, and all the rating functions of the overseers of the poor are transferred to the town and dis- trict councils. the act comes into force on april 1 1927. the main points of mr. chamberlain’s poor law scheme are:— (1) boards of guardians to be abolished. (2) registration of births, deaths and marriages to be transferred to electoral registration officers acting for counties and county boroughs. (3) the rest of their functions, and their property (including institutions), liabilities and staffs to be transferred to the county and county borough councils, 3 (4) county borough councils to provide at their own discretion for the carrying out of the transferred duties. (5) the county council to be the supervising and controlling authority for all heaith purposes and to have complete responsibility for ‘ home assistance ” throughout the administrative county, the transferred duties to be carried out “ through existing or new com- mittees of the council, assisted where necessary by local sub-com- mittees consisting of county councillors, or partly of county council- lors and partly of representatives of the borough and district councils of the localities ’ (or of the metropolitan borough councils in lon- don). but delegation to be allowed to borough and district councils (or metropolitan borough councils in london) of *‘ any transferred service identical in kind with a service already administered by the borough or district council ” (e.g., care of infancy and expectant or nursing mothers). (6) relief to able-bodied persons to be limited and correlated with unemployment insurance. (7) the assigned revenue system to be abolished. block grants fixed for a term of years to be paid in aid of transferred and existing health services and distributed to county and county borough coun- cils on a basis of population qualified by a factor representing low ability to pay. the cost of delegated services to be borne by the borough or district councils to which they are delegated. this scheme, it will be seen, is based in principle on the mac- lean report. but it has certain differences of detail, some of them important. in particular, it gives a greater power to the counties, allowing no such autonomy as the maclean report recommended to the larger non-county boroughs and urban districts. it also contemplates some special system of dealing with the able- bodied unemployed, though what that system is to be cannot be pope j. r.—-~population discovered from the brief and obscure statement (see 6, ante) in which it is adumbrated. the whole scheme, however, was stated by the minister to be provisional; it was issued primarily for consideration and criticism by the local authorities and others concerned. there was no likelihood of a bill being passed before the session of 1927. the number of persons in receipt of poor relief in england and wales at the end of dec. 1925 was 1,324,314 (222,494 in institutions and 1,101,820 relieved at home). this figure does not include lunatics in asylums, casuals or persons receiving medical relicf only, who together amounted to about 119,000. the totals in previous years were:— i9i3 632,242 1922 1,406,028 1919 433,148 1923 1,240,723 1920 507,909 1924 1,071,945 1921 1,375,982 (see ministry of health ‘‘ statement showing the number of persons in receipt of poor law relicf in england and wales in the quarter ending in dec. 1925,” 1926.) the following table shows the total expenditure (other than out of loans) on all poor law services in england and wales in the post-war period. year ending march 31:— ‘ 1919 . 18,424,000 1922 » 42,272,555 1920 . 23,501,000 1923 . 42,020,000 1921 . 31,925,000 1924 . 37,883,000 1925 . 36,500,000 of the 1925 total of £36, 500,000 about £3 1,000,000 was borne by the rates, as compared with £32,571,000 in 1923-4, £38,537,000 in 1922-3 and {12,078,000 in the year before the world war. in scotland, in may 1924, the total number of legal poor of all classes, including dependents, was 229,019. the great majority were on outdoor relief; 17,486 were insane, maintained in asylums, poorhouse wards or private dwellings. of the sane, r1,091 (including nearly 1,000 children) were in the poorhouses, and the destitute able-bodied unemployed numbered 30,000. scottish poor law expenditure for 1923-4 amounted to £4,370,600, as compared with {4,538,127 in 1922-3, £2,003,523 im 1919-20, and £1,609,538 in 1913-4. these totals include the amounts spent on relief of able-bodied unemployment, which were £1,286,654 in 1923-4 and {1,466,891 in 1922-3. bibliography.—official publications from ji. m. stationery office, london; local government commutice report on transfer of functions of poor law authorities in england and wales (cd. 8971, 1918}; annual reports of local government board, and of local government board for scotland, down to 1919; annual reports of ministry of health, from 1920 onwards; ministry of health, afem- orandum on the rescission of the poplar order (cml 2052, 1924); provisional preposals for poor law reform, prepared in the ministry of health for circulation to the london county council, associa- tions of local authorities, etc. (1925). (ce mt) pope, john russell (1874- ), american architect, was born in new york city april 24 1874. he was educated at the college of the city of new york, and graduated at the school of mines, columbia university, in 1894. in 1895 he was fellow of the american academy at rome and in 1896-7 held the scher- merhorn travelling fellowship in architecture. in r1o0o he at- tended the ecole des beaux arts in paris, and in the same year commenced practice in new york city. in addition to many private residences he designed the scottish rite temple, wash- ington, d. c.; plattsburg (n. y.) city hall; the terminal sta- tion, richmond, va.; the mcdonough memorial at plattsburg; and the lincoln memorial at hodgenville, kentucky. he was chosen architect for the roosevelt memorial in washington, d. c., and the roosevelt memorial in new york city. pope, sir william jackson (1870- ), british chemist, was born in london march 31 1870, and was educated at fins- bury technical college, and the central technical college, london. from 1897 to 1901 he was head of the chemistry department at the goldsmith’s institute, and in tgot he became professor of chemistry at the municipal school of technology at manchester, occupying the chair of chemistry in the university there from 185 t905 to 1908. in 1908 he was appointed professor of chemistry at cambridge, where he was later elected a fellow of sydney sussex college. pope carried out much valuable research work on organic chemistry and crystallography, with particular reference to optical activity, and, conjointly with barlow, on the relation between crystalline form and chemical constitution. during the world war he served on lord fisher’s admiralty inventions board (1915), and was conspicuous for his work on poison gases, and for the active assistance he gave to chemical industries. ile was knighted in 1919, and was in addition the recipient of many british and foreign awards, including the davy medal of the royal society, to which he was elected, in 1914. his numerous scientific papers appear in various learned journals. popper, david (1816-1913), bohemian violoncellist (see 22.91), died aug. 7 1913.