RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1899, Page 4 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

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Some write, a neighbour's name to lash, Some write—vain thought—for needrul

Some write to please the country clash. And raise a am. For inc. an aim I never fash— I write for fun.

The courteous attention shown to Strangers by attendants at the Exhibition must 'be patent to all who go. there. By 'attendants,' be it understood, the ones referred to are those who are merely in charge of the exhibits for the 'purpose of furnishing information to visitors. There are. of course, other attendants who are somewhat too pressing- in their attentions simply because it is their business to'try and effect sales, either oi button-holes. glassware, handkerchiefs, or other articles. They, of course, are not to be blamed for simply carrying out the duties they are eiig-aged'to perform. This kind of ihing- is inseparable from exhibitions, and "visitors are quite used to it. The other attendants are, however, very attentive, although no immediate pecuniary gain may be expected. It is with respect to one of these that a rather good story has been told. A gentleman, and his wife were carefully examining the splendid specimens of kauri gum, of which there are several collections in various Courts in the Exhibition. The attendant at once went up to the stranger, and, with the greatest courtesy, gave full particulars of the gum industry, how the article was first formed, how it was du^-. cleaned, exported, and to what purposes it was turned. The gentleman listened for some time with the gravest face possible, and at the end thanked the attendant for the great amount of information given him. Meanwhile his wife had gone on in order to give vent to her feelings as she had not got such excellent command over her features as her worthy husband, and had reached the stage at which she felt she must either laugh or 'bust.' The reason for her having reached, such a condition was because slits knew what the attendant did not, najfiely, that her husband had been prominently identified with the gum industry in this city for over 30 years, and what he did not know about it was not worth learning. It is only fail* to the attendant to state that the gum expert admits that he thoroughly enjoyed himself and feels deeply" grateful for the valuable information afforded. Not only that, but he is not too proud to admit that although he. has been so long connected with the gum trade he was not aware that the. shiny pieces were dug ready polished; neither did he previously know that one of the chief uses for clear gum was the manufacture of mouth-pieces for pipes. He is, however, one of those quiet, unassuming men who are ever ready to learn anything new, and is thei-efore deeply grateful to the aforesaid attendant.

Ouh annual regatta seems to be getting amort troublesome function every year. This time there is the usual crop of protests, but in addition the committee have got into such a muddle over one of the races in particular that they hardly know where they are. Add to this the fact that

there is a deficiency of aboxit £ 100 in

the receipts as compared . with , the , advertised prize money, and t at , will be seen that the committee ha.ye plenty of work on their hands »• to square things up.. The deficiency . is the simplest problem of the lot to settle, however, for all that will be done will be to reduce the prizes pro rata, a wind up to which our yachting and rowing men have got accustomed by this time. It was not ever thus, but of late years a. deficit in the finances has come to be looked on as «. regular thing and a result quite to he expected.

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The only method 1 can see by which the Regatta Committee will be enabled to pay all its debts in future 5s to offer smaller prize money. .Yachtsmen should do as they were !wont to do in past years, and that is be content with trophies, or else smaller money prizes. Regatta, sailing races nowadays are degenerating into money grabbing contests, in which win or wrangle are the only alternatives. If a yacht owner doesn't get the coveted prize he promptly seizes on some trifling pretext to protest, and so upset the other, fellow's win. There is nothing sportsmanlike about som^i of our yachting men; yachtsmen pride themselves on being amateurs, but I question very much whether.such a term as apjalied to them is correct. They simply go Sot the cash, and are as much professionals in that respect a.s a profession" 8.1 runner, or jumper, or cyclist. .Rowingl club members who win money prizes are on a different footing, for •they cannot personally use the money which must go to the club funds, but a yacht owner who receives his cheque for a "vvin is purely a professional in the correct interpretation of the Serin.

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There are many lovers of sport like who would like to see a return to pure and simple amateurism.A cup .or some other trophy, combined with Ahe honour of victory, ought to be as great an incentive to yacht racing as }s the prize money at present, though lam sorry to say it is not. The ionour of winning a fairly fought-out contest- appears to be as nothing compared with, the hard ca.sh, and this spirit of money grabbing is playing havoc with all branches of sport. "Owners of yachts will no doubt retort ihat they have expensive boats to keep up,' new sails and gear to get Tor racing, etc.. but the obvious ■answer is that if they can afford to build and main-"■i-ain such ' luxuries as yachts they ought to be .able to race them jfor'the honour of the thing. A man who is' able to spend £200 or £300 or !£4OO on a sailing machine has no valid ground for grumbling because lie can't set a £20 or £30 prize ; if lie has any of the true spirit of sport ni him he would race for a cup or trophy as willingly as he would for the cash. There would be little difficulty in Vetting sets of fine trophies, jvhieh would be well wortli winning. <© be competed for at tfaa annual re-

gattas, but the public generally are getting chary of giving cash donations to be frittered away. I hold the opinion that those who are able to afford such luxuries as

pleasure yachts ought also to be able to race for trophies alone, and eschew the cash prizes altogether. They would then be really amateurs and'sportsmen pure and simple. _ As it is they are simply In the dubious eateg-ory'of 'cash amateurs." and are neither one thing nor the other.

AMink&Kb&ni*

In future Anniversary Regattas it might be worth while endeavouring to act on this principle, for the public would then be able to distinguish between the amateur sailor who loves sailing for its own sake and for the healthy and innocent spirit of emulation'to which this best of recreations leads, and the sordid soul who simply goes into the game for what he can make out of it. It would then not be difficult to place one's tinker on the men who are the bane of true sport. I have heard an objection to'this, and that is that the welloff yachtsman would be abie to do without money prizes, while the poor and struggling owner could not. There is not much in that sort of talk, because the comparatively poor man who owns a boat is not so badly off: that he and his crew cannot manage to lit out the yacht for racing between them. Moreover 1 have generally noticed that the poorer yachtsmen are generally the best sports, and that when a man begins to gather money the spirit of acquisitiveness grows within him, and to collar the cash is his first object.

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Tn these remarks I don't wish to include the races for trading vessels and coasting craft. The owners and crews of trading vessels are professional sailors ; they gain their living on the sea, and they can't be. expected to sail for a cup or a piece of plate. The chief money prizes ought to be reserved for them, so long of course as they provide races which are worth watching arul which are really worth tiie money expended on them. Tn the case of rowing clubs these bodies are on a somewhat different footing to yacht-owners, for their members are not as a rule in the position of being able to afford yachts, and the money prizes won must go in the direction of providing plant, in any case members cannot spend it on themselves. But some reductions in the amounts of prize money for both classes of events could be made if necessary at future regattas, and so save a lot of trouble and anxiety to members of committee, who take on themselves voluntarily work for which they receive no thanks bet a lot of abuse.

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I pray that a kind fate may preserve me from ever supposing- that I am master of the intricacies of woman's mind. One might easily devote a life's study to the subject, and then fail entirely to arrive at the right direction as to what a woman's course of action would be given a certain course of. events. Average men act much alike when faced by identical sets of circumstances, but every woman has indefinable mental promptings governing her action which not only cannot safely be applied to another of her sex, but are liable to variation in herself for no reason possible of explanation. Perhaps it is in this very changeableness lies the charm of thetsex as a whole for man, whose equable course may make hiui mentally wonder, but serves as no cheek on his adoration. And yet a woman can take up a thing and pursue it relentlessly to a finish with a single-minded and unalterable determination of which few men are capable. An illustration of this anomaly, reaches me in a marked paper from the hitherto unknown town (to me), Fargo, ' North Dakota, U.S.A. The substance of the marked paragraph may be gathered from the following quotations:

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'To The Forum : Two weeks ago Judge Pollock saw fit to grant;" me a decree of divorce from my husband, Louis Reginald Northey, and I went my way rejoicing—that is, I rejoiced until my attorney sent in his bill for fees. I was altogether ignorant as to the law in such niattei's, but it seems to me that even a leading1 attorney should not be permitted to charge a fee of $1,500 merely for .conducting an ancontested case and I argued the point, but alas, with no very satisfactory result, for presently he fairly frightened me into coming to a settlement by attaching what money and property there was belonging to me at the bank. Now the money is paid and I have but little hope of recovering any of it. I am an English woman, however, and my British sense of justice impels me to expose this manner of frightening a woman into paying an exorbitant fee, not in a spirit of revenge, but as a warning to others. I hive taken a firm stand in this matter and I. intend to keep the ball rolling until my story has gone the rounds of the American pretes. Signed.—Lydia E. Northey.'

It is only natural to suppose that this beautiful city is as little known to the residents of the presumably charming Fango as the-attractions of that light of the State of North Dakota are entirely beyond the pale of knowledge of Aucklanders. In fact ali I personally claim to know of North Dakota even is i he fact that it is noted for the adaptability and pleasing breadth of the scope of its liberal divorce laws. :On perusing Mrs Northey's epistle to the 'Forum' my first thought was that the lady was acquainted with Auckland, but on maturer consideration I came to the conclusion that the place was no more to her than a name —in a press directory. Should such be the case the determination and energy of the lady is to be marvelled at. Apart from her grievance, the merits of which are but of secondary importance, the posting of the English-speaking press throughout the world with copies of that Fargo paper is a colossal work, calculated to rivet attention, and should at least give the case a world wide publicity equalling that of the most important piece of international news. Is not woman's way something to wonder at?