"A NATION OF ONLOOKERS."

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 9

"A NATION OF ONLOOKERS."

The dangers of what has been called the ''gladiator system" in sport— huge crowds of people, who themselves never take part in games, taking an absorbing interest ia games played for their amusement by champions— are strongly condemned in a letter which Major-Gener-al Baden-Powoll has written in reply to a correspondent. He says :— "1. I do not, in the abstract, see any harm in young men going to look on at football matches on Saturday afternoons". But' l do see great harm to themselves and to the nation m their payingother people to play their games for them, and m going in big driakinc parties to have a gamble on a 'match on ?,% when th °y should bo working 2. I am the last to obiect to good healthy English games placed for the good of the players, but I do not like to see us gradually becoming a nation of onlookers at games, like the Romans had become immediately before that empire fell to pieces. "As a nation we now spend more tdmo in looking on at races, football, cricket, etc., and wfe have more unemployed and loafers, in every walk of life, than any other country. "Though I am myself, very fond of sport, in almost every form, I quite realise that in many quarters, in all ranks of society in Great .Britain, th«j importance of sport and games is becoming unduly exaggerated ; it is carded to an excess at tho exnense of solid \vork."