Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 835, 23 March 1909, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

To-day's cables bring us the solution of a question which agitated the last annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union, viz., whether a profesisonal runner, or sculler, or boxer was admissable as an amataur footballer. The football authorities held that a man was not barred from amateum Rugby circles because he was a professional in another branch of sport. This decision is opposed to the dictum of the Australian Sporting 1 Federation, which has decided that a professional in one branch of sport is a professional in any other. But the New Zealand Rugby Union was always a little peculiar in its rulings. It is a pity that some public-spirited citizen does not interest himself v the establishment of an institution 'i Feilding where the growing youths who cannot be persuaded to take advantage of the facilities offered by the Technical School could spend their evenings with considerably more profit to themselves and pleasure to the community than in hanging round street corners, sitting on the hand rails of bridges', and poised on fences, sometimes "throwing off" at pas-sers-by for their own edification, but to the discomfort of their victims. One can hardly Mame the. young fellows, for there is no doubt it is the fault of the community that' something is not done in the direction we indicate, asi there is only one method of coping with the idleness of youth and) that is by persuading him to be busy, if it is only at play. It seems a pity that so capable a president as Mr N. Gibbons has shown himself to be in connection with the Manawatu Rugby Union should feel compelled to resign the position he had held with such credit to himself and profit to the game. The fact that he has been principally actuated in h% decision by the idiotic decisions of the Management and Appeal Committees of the New Zealand Rugby Union, which are both notori. ous for their incapacity, prevents any possibility of reconsideration on Mr. Gibbon's part, and it is necessary that steps should be taken to secure the services of someone public-spirit-ed enough to take up a position in which a great deal of good can be done, but whioh carries with it plenty of abuse and acerbic criticism on the part of those who would not lift their finger to assist any public movement where there was not personal gain possible. FncsT Pagje: Wanganui Stock Market; Apiti Notes; Manila v. Flax. Fourth Page: The British NavyNew Zealand's Offer ; Football Notes ; Last Stage of the Goode Trial; The Corinthic's Passengers ; Volunteer Officers Selected for England ; A Fight over Nancy — and the Sequel.