MOTOR LAUNCH LANGUAGE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 88, 13 April 1912, Page 9

MOTOR LAUNCH LANGUAGE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — The remarks as to talk in motor-launches, made by a correspondent in your issue of Monday, have only just been brought to my attention. I wouM do nothing to restrain the free expression of any man's opinion : but I am part owner of a launch, and the sweeping statements of your correspondent merely provoke me to impatience and contempt. As to exceptional launch.men the statements are exaggerated, as to average launchmen they are ■ untrue^ Also, I ask you can any credence be given to statements made by a man who declares that he was bothered by bad language from a motor-launch while ho was "on the hills overlooking Point Jerningham?" The plain English of it all is that under stress of special irritation of emergency, occasiouul launchmen may let dip an expletive, which occasional lurking busy bodies may happen to overhear. It i 8 the sort of risk that must bo taken by every mau who does not pass through life muffled in wadding to keep off the wind. lam principally concerned to protest against a charge- launched recklessly against a growing Dody of reputable citizens in a very sane and wholesome form cf sport. Motor-launching is not exactly a dioap amusement, and the men who own motor-launches are not drawn from thedregs. To pretend that as a class they indulge openly in vicious w obscene language is to pretend an absurdity. 1 know most of the launchmen, and 1 tay that tho churgo is as unjust as it is obviously preposterous. Meantime, I notice that this reckless censor has nothing whatever to say about the yachtsmen, who are a much bigger crowd, and as a rule much more exuberant. I have heard bad lnnguage from passing yachts; but I am neither fool nor cad enough to condemn the whole body of yachtsmen for it. One can hear bad language anywhere—at WL'drling.* and funerals, at lootball matches (sometime" awful tit football matches), on sti-pet corners, aboard steamers and trains, and in both Houses of Parliament— in the. preciucts, that is, though not' on the floor of the House. The man who goes about eager to scoop up naughtiness will find that the motor launches cannot cater for him a tenth part so well as many other classes in the community can.— l am, ■etc., MOTOR. 12th April, , *