TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9126, 10 June 1895, Page 3

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We cannot undertake to publish letters copies-of which have been sent to any other journal. Correspondents desiring insertion of their communications should therefore send us a statement that they have not been and will not be forwarded to any other paper.

PROFESSIONALISM IN CYCLING. TO THB EDITOR OF THE PRESS.

Sir, —I should like to know if you, or any of the numerous readers of your valuable paper, can inform mc why the Christchurch Bicycle Club gave Mr B. J. Pither a sendoff instead of the Pioneer Bicycle Club, having been a member of the P.B.C. for some cousiderable time, and during that period represented the P. B.C. at all Championship meetings, with honours to the Club he represented, and marked credit to himself for his unassuming gentlemanly conduct. No man could take a beating or win a race with more or truer sportsmanlike modesty.

When we take into consideration tbat the P.B-C. or more correctly speaking the Canterbury Amateur Athletic Association, and the New Zealand Cyclists' Alliance combined, recruits from the ranks of professionalism, why should they so shabbily treat their champion (the P.B.C. I mean), when his only fault, was simply leaving the amateurs ? I couid understand if they had no professionals amongst them, or did not recruit from the ranks of professionals.

For instance, take Ren Lewis's case. From the time Pither entered Mr R. Kent's employment he could not, in the true sense of the term, bs considered an amateur. Th« P.B.C. could not be blind to the fact of Pither being acting as an advertising medium for tne Jubilee bicycles, and must have known, also, that the wage of an apprentice would not induce Pither to give up farming. Now that he has had the honesty and manliness to leave the amateur ranks and show hia true colours, that of a professional, they treat him with contumacy and silent contempt, and send him from them as if he was a culprit guilty of some menial offence. By jingo ! Mr Editor, I have trespassed long enough on your valuable space, but would like to know where professionalism begins and where amateurism ends.—Yours, _c., T. C. Hunt.