ATHLETICS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 129, 1 June 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

ATHLETICS.

The Anglo-Indian Colonel, aetat fifty, or thereabouts:, is (says the London "Sportsman") always supposed to be a more or less red-faced or salloW-faced individual, with much expanse below the chest, and an irritable liver. One of the finest possible exceptions to any rule, and this one in particular, is Colonel Savage, an athlete who will never see fifty again, and who is even now almost fit for a Powderhall or Sheffield Handicap. The Colonel, who has recently taken his departure from Ceylon, has left behind him in that beautiful island a record of which even the amateur champion of India, Norman Pritchard, who ran second to Kraenzlein and Tewkesbury in England, last year, might be proud. In 1895 he took second place in the 100 yards, the Jiurdles, and the high jump, at Colombo. In 1896 Colonel Savage was beaten by Bombardier Manning in a 100 yards race, but two weeks afterwards beat the bombardier by two yards in a similar contest, which he ran in record time for Ceylon^—lo 3-sth sec. He was then in his forty-ninth year. In the same year he won the -hurdles, the 100 yards, and 200 jtards, at Kandy, where, among others, he met and beat T. Y. Wright, the fastest threequarter in the island, an athlete not a day over twenty-six years. The following year he ran second to Warlow in the 100 yards, at Darrawella, and in the championships at Kandy, May, 189?, he ran second in the 100 yards to Roberts, but at Colombo he beat the crack sprinter of the Loyal North Lancashires at their annual sports in the 100 yards race. Last May, at Kandy, Colonel Savage, in his fifty-third year, won the 100 yards race in 10 2-sth sec, and in the 220 yards handicap, starting from scratch, he simply left his field. Altogether a unique record for a man of his age. A UNIQUE SCHOLARSHIP. The "Town and A Country Journal" is responsible for the following:—

"Prom Africa we once more get what we are told always to expect from that continent, the aliquid novi, which, not merely from classic, but presumably from prehistoric, times has appealed so strongly to most minds. Mr Cecil Rhodes has offered for open competition to students of the Diocesan College at Rondebosch the very handsome scholarship of £SSO per annum, tenable for three years, the winner to proceed to Oxford. The reader will lind nothing very remarkable in this fact, perhaps, except that scholarships are seldom of these ample dimensions, but the novelty lies in the method of selecting the scholar. Hitherto authorities, collegiate and scholastic, have laid it down as an inflexible rule that the exhibition of knowledge alone qualifies the applicant for success. The strait and narrow portals of classics and mathematics have ceased, happily, to form the only entry, but still through a gate of knowledge of some kind, whatever it may be, the student can alone reach the prize. Mr Rhodes, with characteristic directness, knocks all these accepted traditions on the head. In the novel examination for which the youth of South Africa are called upon to enter "literary and scholastic attainments" do not even form the larger part, for they are allotted only two-fifths of the whole marks. Of the remainder oiie-fifth is g-iven to "fondness for and success in manly outdoor sports," one-fifth to force of character an "instinct to lead," and one-fifth to what might well be grouped under the excellent Latin word virtus —namely, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for the weak, unselfishness, and the like. It would be no difficult matter to criticise doubtless, but we have no intention of doing so, though we may secretly rejoice that the task of selecting the candidate does not rest with us. It is merely our pleasant duty to record the first instance of proficiency in sport taking equal place with proficiency in learning in an examination for a scholarship at one of our older Universities, and to wish Mr Rhodes all success in his novel scheme. It is at least as likely to "get the best man for the world's fight," which is ixplained to be the object, as the present system. Indeed, though we a little mistrust the "instinct to lead" marks, it is even likelier.