THE LATEST JOKE.

NZ Truth, Issue 770, 7 August 1920, Page 7

THE LATEST JOKE.

Noisy North's Nauseoueness. (From "Truth's" Christchurch Rep.) j That the attention of the Govern - i ment and of the public generally, be i called to the inhumanity inflicted on jockeys by the present rules of racing. . . . The cruelty of wasting

down to a weight such as Gst. Tibs, is repulsive m the extreme. . . . The Council urges that the case is one for State action and believes that the law should extend to jockeys as it extends to the brutes under the Cruelty to Animals Act. Unsophisticated folk must not run away with the idea that the above resolution was one emanating from the Dunedin Racing Club, the Watersiders' Union, or from one of the multitudious Dominion executive, who so conveniently arrange their annual meetings to take place m the Plat City during Grand National week. It dropped from the divinelyinspired lips of a person no less exalted that "Nagging" North, who runs that influential (?) concern known as the Council of Churches. Strange as it may seem those who have had the time to waste m plodding through the printed fulminations of the Council of Churches against anything that has even the remotest connection with "the sporting kings," it way with . the greatest avidity that North's fellow : wowsers seized upon the grievances of j that ardent, church-goer, the jockey. Of i course, these well-fed, self-important, I well-respected makers of public opinion i never were notorious for consistency; j still, that they should take up the verbal I cudgels on behalf of a section of the ' community which they ! HAVE DAMNED AND RE-DAMNED over and over again, individually and severally, jointly and conjointly, might provoke amazement were not their real object only too obvious. When wowser after wowser rose to his feet and bleated forth a prolonged and unrnei odious "amen" to all that North had to say regarding the "brutality of the sport of .kings," and then drifted into a denunciation of those who "blocked'/ the .lockeys' Union, it became only too apparent that these God -like members of the Council, of Churches were actuated, not by a. . feeling of goodwill towards the thricedamned jockeys, but by a feeling of ill- i will towards the president of the Racing j Conference. Happily all men and women m the racing game, the "jocks" included, are able to assess at its real worth the sincerity of the Council of Churches.' Happily, also, are they able to assess the corresponding worth of Sir George "Clifford and his wowseristic traducers. The Council of Churches (or the Christian "gentlemen" who have the "honor" of belonging to that important body) don't give a rap about the jockeys, any more than they do about the. unfortunate men and women and children of their congregations who wait m vain for the visit of God's representative to hold out to them a helping hand or a kindly word of advice. This lime as oft before they have missed, their target, even though special influence was broupM to bear with the object of having their cant telegraphed all over the country through the medium of the Prens Association. But they have deceived nobody except themselves. It is reported that the most popular church out Riccarton way is still one with a "chimley" m it. and that the only Sunday school attended by the jockey boys is the one known In the classics as the "zwel oop."