SUNDAY TENNIS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LIII, Issue 5531, 24 September 1929, Page 3

SUNDAY TENNIS.

To the Editor

Dear Sir, —-Your article in 1 Friday's istue of the "Aka v oa Mail" skimmed over a very vital question in a most unsatisfactory manner. I refer to the article on Sunday Games.

If I rendi correctly you irviintain that if one game is allowable on Sunday any other game is allowable also. In that I agree, but your argument is unsatisfactory in that ycu carefully avoid what is the main issue, is Sunday sport right ? If Sunday sport is right then let us play tennis or any other game, but if you haven't settled that question then don't belittle yourself bv trying to make a right out of a wrong -

that is, in other words, by making iSunday sport right because the Golf Links are open, on Sunday.

T'ha real question 1 at issue, if we are honest enough to* look at it, is net should we open our tennis courts because the golf links are open, but should 1 we have Sunday sport ? Surely, Sir, in these days of enlightenment we are honest enough to look at the main issue.

Your argument is 'based on the question of healthy recreation. •

Am I to understand that unless we plav ganv;s on Sunday we will inevitably become a physically degenerate race fit only for a bed on Cashmere Hills ? 'My own physique and the physique of our fathers belies such a statement.

| Let 1 us come to grips with the facts. Health and strength of body are fine things but health and strength of soul are finer. The vigorous training of soul —of that part which distinguishes us from the mere b"ute —is of more value than training tin Ibody. While sport is a good thing there is' a better and a nobler ideal, the cultivation of the highest in us. As I see it Sunday sport is a lowering of our ideals — rather than live in "God's own Country" we would live in "Sports' own Country."

If lowering our ideals is a good thing then God pity us.

Yours, etc., J. ■GRiAIWiPO©D Me,CAW.

To the Editor,

Dear Sir, —In. a recent issue of your paper I noticed that it is the intention of a Councillor to move a notice of motion rescinding a very old one which prohibits the playing of tennis on Sundays. His action is to be commended. I feel sure the ir«otion will be strongly supported by the progressive members of the Council amid will have the hearty support of the .general public, for at present Alkaroa is ait ai standstill and without these progressive moves would soon become a nonentity into which state it has been slowly but surely lbe.com.ing. Akaroa is without dcy.bt a very bea.uiti.ful little village, and to make: i't popular .we must offer some inducement to attract the puibli'e especially the younger classes, for with 1 the young invariably come the old.

'Sceptical and 1 narrow-.minded people will be opposed to such a move; but why worry ab-out people who are and always will be the stumblingblock to progress. Let us take our cue from' honoured personages as the Bishop of London and 1 the ArchBishop of Canterbury, who believe in good wholesome recreation on Sunday and strongly advocate it from their pulpits.

The Tennis Clubs' members constitute a very large proportion of the congregations and can be relied upon to take their recreation on Sundays without it interfering with their attendance at Church; or affecting thsir Christian life by so doing Many City Councils with courts under their control have given us the lead by granting permission for Sunday all-day play and in granting the request of the two- Tennis Clubs for the few' hours'' 'Sunday afternoon play the Council will be doing some thing by way of popularising our little town and the results from same will be their best reward.

ADVANCE AKAROA.