SPECIAL ARTICLE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19972, 5 July 1930, Page 15

SPECIAL ARTICLE.

A NEW CANTER. BURY PILGRIM.

THE RING AND THE TURF. (imuu wrtrmrs won tm rouse.) [By Noaio Marsh.] Once a year the three Services hold a tournament at the Stadium, High Holborn, and there you may see interpreted tho Englishman's ideal of the noble art of aolf-dofence, aa distinguished from its declnssd relation, prlae fighting. We arrived for the finals on a warm night in early spring. The Stadium is a huge arena-like building, and my first impresaion, in one of those curious reflex mental flashes, recalled • picture by Degas. Through thick, acrid cigar-smoke loomed red faces, white shirt fronts, white programmes, red hands. Sunk down in the centre was the ring, under aa enormous clutter of lights. Among the Mats at one side was & long bar, from which both barmen and patrons could see the fighting.

We arrived late, during a three-round contest between Lord Henry DouglasHamilton and the survivor of a previous boat. The contrast between the profess* ional pugilists and these well-trained amateurs was immediately noticeable. At tile Stadium there was much less clinching, store clean hamme#-and-toags boxing, leas rougbinj and _:ore acience. The bouts were only of three rounds, and it wa» never necessary for the referee to enter tbe ring. Tbe uproar between the rounds was deafening. An extremal? smart sergeant of Marines made the. announcement In that piercing shout which one associates with the parade ground. He would advance to the side of the ring, survey the audience calmly, lay hie hand on the ropes, and with so effort at all give tongue. "9aht six. Heavyweight contest. In the green corner, Captain Brahn, Nth Hussars. In the red corner, FlightCommander Smith, Boyal Air Force. Brahn—fimith." He would then face about and march briskly to tbe other sUfe of the ring, and repeat his brief Itfond. Boon after we came in, we saw a brisk float between a very junior member of the Air Force and a sturdy little savatoating. These two punched each other's head with such a will that by the end of the second round both were very haay indeed, and half way through tbe third the Air Force boy suddenly shook his head, tottered to his corner, and sat down, much to tbe astonishment of his rather bemused opponent. The heavyweight contests all—so my tame expert tells mo—ehowed a vary high standard of form and technique. Of these, the most entertaining, in contrast and colour, was a bout between a giant naval lieutenant and a very brave little airman. In the most charmingly apologetic manner the sailor knocked the poor little thing down a number of times, beaming eneourageatenft on him each time he scrambled to bis fest and squared np.again, .and faithfully felling htm three seconds later. After two minutes of this the referee stopped the fight. The big sailor htsmsd solieitonsly to enquire after 1 the welfare of the bewildered little morsel in the opposite corner. Apart from these two, who must have represented the extremes of weight in their elass, the contestants were very well matched, with the result that at the end of the tournament six sailors, six airmen, and Ave soldiers were presented with little silver figures of a "boxer, rampant, on » stand, sable. 7 ' So, with an enthusiastle rendering of the National Anthem, the tournament eame to. an end, and we went on to the "Cosmo" In Soho, where a very young and pretty girl sang songs that were neither so young nor so pretty, and where one may dance until one o'clock in the morning.

' Sandnn. I the most arrant stay-at-home, armchair, humdrum, (poll-sport in Christendom not to enjoy a spring day at flandcwa—-Sandown a* it was on Saturday, in the very prime of the "yiiir, when *ll the orchards in Surrey ntt{ pearly with bloom, when the were starry, when that irritating'philanderer, the cuckoo, was flaunt* tog la every wood; Sandown, snug in budding trees, with green turf bruised by fresh hoof prints} Sandown in spring. _ ; ' Here we came for the two first meetbga of the season. April, they say, ernes in with the lion and goes out with the lamb. It bad reached its lajßb-liko phase when we first went to Sandown. The trees were sparkling with the night's rain, the half-shed clouda were scurrying off to the north, the grass was almost as green as Mr Mannings paints it, and rouhd and round the paddock walked the horses, shining in the watery sun. The gentlemen riders, Captain of the Nth Lancers, Major That of the Orenadier Guards, stood in boots and breeches watehlng. Presently they Stripped off their overcoats and mounted. The long string of elegantly jerk- ■ ing -flanks, white thighs, ing colours, threaded its way through the erowd, and a lastrushsotinfor the primitive and newly-installed tota lisator. ji The totalisator at Sandown " were, a tentative movement toward*a larger gesture. There are separate windows for each horse; the chalked up on a moving you caa ouy 2b tickets. ** , itber reminiscent of . »"t ing in New Zealand. Go round to the front of the stand, however, and the Illusion is gone. Here is Tat aaU'a Bing, from time immemorial the elose associate of English rac ®°°" j The bookies—are they a doomed r E . h —are yelling their tonsills up. stands under his great a looks like a low comedian B g spirited imitation of drives a thriving trade with th who "can't be bothered waiting w» « queue by that tote-thing. Meanwhile, the horses have gone out, and above the babel of t sounds the rhythmic beat of hoots on the wet turf. The band of the Scots Guards strikes up a fetarch, the date of which credible, a bell rings, » n< * , ® „ ratQ hundred voices say in & co»g roar, "They're off!" - a The water-jump at Sandown •tiff enough bit of work, * 0 not altogether an unmixed plea stand near it and watch the horses rise up dark and theatrical a S a I ? .. pale iky, bang extended over the Up, and come down Joopily to 96C ". * jT nae disaster. I did it for the but the presence of the the memory of an accident *wr the day were too much for me, . thankfully I went back to closure tor the rest of ,^ e T - There, in the paddock, I wlanidal* sorely the • atf * ow

poseur hi England. He has given up his yellow coach and six and motors to the races nowadays; but there were 'the mackintosh, and the cigar, and the bowler, and there was the pleasant ugly face." A little later on I got an inkling of the real significance. A winning horse suddenly refused to go back through the crowd to be weighed in. The jockey sat coaxing and patting, the onlookers surged unhelpfully round, various sporting gents hurried «p; but all to no avail. The victor had suddenly rebelled against routine, and the issue of the race stood unsettled. Thon, well above the level of most heads, came bobbing the black bowler and a spiral of smoke. Tho stranded jockey dismounted and was engullfed in the crowd. The horse was allowed to walk off in his own time and direction. Up went his name as the winner. - Lord Lonsdale had given bis permission. All was well.

Clothes and Types. j Green lawns ate a grateful baok- | ground for good clothes and Bandown, in a countrified way, is a smart meeting. To adopt the phraseology of the gossip-writers—or am I perhaps stealing the thunder of the weather prophetß?—hats are variable. Many a plucked eyebrow and careful complexion was topped by a beret made of the same ttvoed as Moddara's overcoating. On the other hand—or head —there were lots of new wide brims, particularly attractive worn with short caps made iti one with long coats. The new swathed beret is an uncompromising little bag of a thing. It can look like a footballer's cap, a Bponge bag, something out of tho chorus, or—rarely but gratefully—something from the Rue de la Paix. Many of the most fashionable variety are crochoted and must cost the shopkeeper about two and six and the purchasers some two or three pounds. It is all in the cut, Moddam. The men for the most part wore bowlers, but there was a sprinkling of the new black foltsj and a few huntin' men appeared in battered old soft hats tlmt had once been very expensive. Talk ing of huntin' people I am reminded of a moat amazing couple at Sandown. When first I noticed them they were standing together on the lawn, rather conspicuously, since it so happened that the crowd had settled itself either in the stands or on tho benches and chairs. I cannot tell what their age might be, but I feel sure they have looked like that for many cubbings and through many winters and will go on looking like that until they break their neeka over » bit of difficult country, or hear Peel's horn one crißp morning and ride away to the creak of leather, never to be seen again. The man wore a felt hat that his groom had sat on, a suit of rough tweeds so antique in cut that it was worthy of tha Victoria and Albert Museum, and a pair of sooty brown boots that curved up under the cuffs of his voluminous trousers. His companion, sister or friend or wife, was dressed in a mannish suit of mud-coloured tweed, a hat like a smack in tho face, heavy brogues, thick, stained gloves, and a sort of stock. Their faces were much alike, of a hot brick colour, heavily weathered and pouched, with a certain look of narrow ferocity. The man's mouth was draped by a vague pale moustache; hers curved truculently downwards, the under hp thick and angry looking, and the comers weighted with hoavy dewlaps like n bulldog's. At first 1 thought they were quarrelling: for they talked and talked m the most vindictive manner imaginable, but on drawing nearer I found that they were merely discussing the chances of Victor Noir ln the fourth Mice. They spoke as if levelling insults at the other head; yet some thing told me that they liked each other enormously. They were far mora true to typo than any actor would dare to present them, they were unappetising, unenviable, unbelievable; but still the type that is engendered, not (I nnanalyticalljr believe) by the sadistic side of hunting, but rather by tho curious responsiveness in English hearts to the smell of turf and green leaves, to the immemorial tang of frosti air, and to the inexplicable friendliness between men and beasts.

Mr John Cowper Powys's "The Meaning of Culture" contains an interentl»g passage on tho distinction between culture and education: An adueated parson can glibly dflierlbe what ha wishes you to regard »' ni» lo4t ready-made philosophy. A euUMfld pjrion iflen finds It diffloult to philosophy Ist but when he doe* articulate it you Ual "J* 1 hat secretly and profoundly lived by for riaiit a lon* yew. Vor in • cultured per son'« life Intellectual snobbUhnese h £® in exist He' is not interested in the ques tion whether his attitude is I ®*« u !® t t ttia 5£ cording to the current fashion or »ot. we miaht aren be guilty of a oerMin mahc.ouß satisfaction when it appears bo 00 jP p ]?''L?i i«i»-".^Tw|sSßs petual stumbling-block for instance, is the cultured person's innate predilection fj>* c <™" bluing extreme opposite; in hiß thought and his taste! His philosophical opinion!i will be found, as • rule, judged by the 1 the merely educated, to be at once st£ "tlmg ly revolutionary and startlingly "o ct '« Thus Mr Wells, valuable and sincere thinker though he is, will never quite satisfy a cultured taste because he is neither revolutionary enough nor reactionary enough. One always feels that a merely educated man holds his philosophical views as if they were so manypennies in his pooketj they are separate from his life. Whereas with a cultured man there is no gap or lacuna between his opinions ana his lite. Both are dominated by tha 'awe organio inevitable fatality. They are what he is.

A new American magazine for collectors, "The Colophon," prints an intereating bibliographical article about Stephen Crane's "shocking" novel, "Maggie," which was rejected, by one magazine after another, until Crane himself published it, in desperation and on borrowed capital. This was in 1892. Within a few months only a hundred copies had been sold. Ho gave one to a Dr. Lucius Button—who insisted on paying for it—and inscribed it on the front cover: Stephen Crane to Budgon. It is inevitable that you be greatly shocked by this book but continue, please, with all possible cour* age, to the end* For.it tries to show that environment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently shapes lives regardless. If one proves that theory one makes room jjj Heaven for all. sorts of souls, notably an occasional street girl, who are not confidently expected to be there by many ex* cellent people It is probable that the reader of this small thing may consider the author to be a bad man, but obviously that is a matter of small consequence to The Author. Crane's inscription accurately gauged the temper of the American audienco of the 1890's, says an American critic. Howells read the book and was thrilled with it, but even his sponsorship failed to find a suitable publisher. The publie remained apathetic, and the book even failed to attain the specious notoriety of the news-stand paper-backs. The chambermaid at bis boarding-house used an armful to light the with Crane's help and quite possibly his connivance, In June, 1893. he turned over 300 copies to his friend, Mrs Armstrong, for safe keeping. These were destroyed several years later in the Windsor Hotel fire.

The novels of Theodore Preiser, publiahed at Vienna by Paul Zsolnay, sell in editions of from eight to twenty-five thousand. The "Nejia Freie Prosse" writes: "Theodore Dreiser is one of the most powerful literary figures in the world.*' -c