ATHLETIC NOTES.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9363, 12 March 1896, Page 2

ATHLETIC NOTES.

[By Vaitlter.] The annual meeting of the Waipa Amateur A thletic Club was held on February 15th, when there was a large attendance. The balance sheet showed a credit of £15 Is Sd. The following officers were elected for the ensuing twelve months : —President, Mr F. W. Lang, M.H.R. ; vice-presidents, Messrs W. S. Rutherford, G. Edgecumbe, F. C. Germann, T. Hodgson, J. H. Scott, R. Hall, and Rev. W. H. Wilson; judges, Messrs C. Bowden and S. Reid : starter, Mr W. S. Rutherford; handicapper, Messrs Dawson, T. Finch, and F. Bowden; committee, Messrs W. H. James, T. Finch, T. Bainbiidge; C. Bowden, R. Rvder, W. M. Chappell, G. Miles, S. C. Macky, E. H. Aubin, S. Reid, F. Bowden, P. Delaney, and J. J. Ryburn ; auditor, Mr Wickham ; hon. sec. and treasurer, Mr T. S. Hodgson. It was decided to hold the annual sports on Easter Honday. •'_.-'-'"

The Board of Governors of the New York Athletic Club have considered the charges of conduct unbecoming a member preferred against E. F. Haubold and C. H. Allen. They 2>articipated in the attack on the British flag in the club house prior to the international games between the New York and the London Athletic Clubs. Volumes of testimony were read, and- several witnesses examined. The evidence was so strongly against the accused members that the Board had no alternative but to suspend them for six months.

There have lately been rumours of prbbable international athletic competition in London, next summer, and in reference thereto I take the following from the latest issue to hand of Land and Water, which appears to regard the meeting is an assured fact, provided the Americans accept the proposed challenge : At last we understand that the London Athletic Club have decided to challenge the New York Athletic Club even - without the support of the Irish and Oxford and Cambridge Athletic Clubs.. This is as it should be. The A. A. A. will have supervision over the arrangements, and it is an understood thing that the British team will probably be selected, if possible, from the winners of the A. A. A. championships next summer. The match will take place in London in July, and if properly managed should bo a big success. Programme and other details have yet to be fettled. It is to be hoped that the N.YiA.G. will have the good senSe not to include ia their team any British born subjects, even if we ou our side do not insist on this proviso. Things athletic are looking up in 1896. The following telegram has been published in Amertea. "San Francisco, -January 12tb.- The Pacific Amateur Athletic Association has suspended the Stanford University Athletic Association and the Acmo Athletic Club, of Oakland, for delinquency in dues. It ha 3 also suspended every amateur athlete who has taken part in any athletic contest since January Ist until his record can be thoroughly investigated and ths charges ot professionalism made disni'oved."

Some writers in the Old Country are very anxious to see the proposed series of matches allowed between the ex-amateur, W. G. George, and T. E. Bacon. A London journal to hand this week Bays : —" George, having once taken, the .step, of becoming a 'pro.,' cannot- rehov.ncg and, in. turn become an amateur again. But why he, shouldn't be permitted "to"do.-so ia a puzzle, for he has always run honest and straight as a die, and was only compelled to turn professional through force of circiimstances over which he had no control. A must live. He i 3 now close on forty years of age, and even at that age fancies that he could succeed in lowering the colours of such a. flyer as Mr Bacon. The man's pluck will commend itself to the heart of every sportsman iv the land, and we . hope the amateur athletes of Great Britain will join in a body, and petition the A. A. A. to amend their rules so as to permit of this contest being allowed to take place without Mr Bacon's social-status having to suffer. To do so would be in the interests of sport, and:.whatever is beneficial to sport is worth doing. Could not some of the young bloods at the London Athletic Club pluck up sufficient courage to propose a resolution to that effect at the next club meeting? The A.A.A. would probably listen, to the L.A.C. The Nelson A.A. and C.C. have been offered and accepted 400 cigars by an enterprising asjent to be awarded to a bicycle race at their forthcoming meeting. It has been decided to hold a two lap race, 240 cigars being awarded to the first man, 120 to the second and 40 to the third, the competitors to pass the post with a cigar alight. The club now has 107 paid up members and between 50 and 60 outstanding subscriptions. T. B. Bax was to have made an attempt to beat the world's club-swinging record in Sydney on Friday and Saturday last, but up to the time of going to press no news had been received if he was successful or not.

A writer in the London Re'eree says:— So long as an amateur definition exists I shall always be on the side of law and order as prescribed by our authorities, and bear up for pure amateurism or what comes nearest to their idea on that article. Now and then I suggest that a whole heap of bother and worry would be wiped out if amateurs who are amateurs would arrange to keep themselves to themselves, go their own way, and let all the rest do as seemed best in their several and collective eyes. That is because, with such a happy attainment as abolition of a definition which enables tiie unamatcur to pose as a non-professional and keep on .so posing, we should compel that indilndividual, vastly collective as he is, to keep himself to himself, or at least in his natural clasß. But it is gate, a principle opposed to amateurism, that hampers them all the while. That gate properly handled works all right with conventional amateurism goes without saying. : Yet if sportsmen, nonprofessors, benefit, as they do, through gate receipts, they are, you know, getting something out of their or their men's athletic abilities. Receiving any consideration is in effect professional, and you must shut your eyes-ito a lot when you reconcile gate, which keeps a game alive ; and also amateurs who get prizes, training facilities, accommodation as onlookers, and all the rest, which do not come out of subs. Unless a club— I do not care what branch of sport it may be in—-is self-supporting without gate, and finds its prizes from its own inner resources, it is only conventually amateur. If really thorough-going amateurism is ever established it will be by clubis quite autocratic and careless of gate men who can afford to pay, and will pay, for their own amusement. Is it not possible for the good school who work so hard in the right direction, but are hampered by so many difficulties, to relieve themselves of many of these by building up a reputable professionalism? Without disrespect to other pro.'s I may venture the statement that when pro's were the best exponents of cycling they were as a body the most respectable, well-conducted, and intelligent, and a credit to their craft."