ATHLETIC VICTORIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 12661, 15 September 1904, Page 4

ATHLETIC VICTORIES.

New Zealand representative teams are making their mark in the great world of athletics. Very recently our footballers swept all before them in Australia, and worsted the British team in the Wellington match. Now our tennis players are giving a good account of themselves on the other side, and have scored a remarkable victory against the Hunter District Association at Newcastle. We must confess to the belief that these evidences of athletic prowess have a very great national value. Apart from the desirability of doing well everything that we do, and the pleasure of demonstrating that in these nea-girt islands the old stock does not deteriorate in the physique that underlies all, human excellence, there is a distinct gain in a national devotion to the training of the body such as these athletic victories prove to exist among us. Some over-exer-cise, of course. But for one who over-exercises under the influence of these national ambitions to excel in athletics, a hundred are induced thereby to take much-needed exercise, and to obtain all the good exercise brings in its train. Wealth is good for a country, but health m even more necessary for the individual, as the wealthiest learn when they lose that which .money cannot buy. And although there is no royal road to health, any more than to learning, there is a wide and pleasant road which, in this fortunate country, few are unable to travel if they will. It leads by the tennis court and the bowling green as much as by the cricket oval and the football ground. That New Zealanders know it;, and use it, and appreciate it, our athletic victories proclaim to all the world.