PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23084, 9 January 1937, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Pertinent questions arise from the reports of the third cricket test. What is cricket? What is sportsmanship? What part is played in them by rules and “ rights ”? And what have “ tactics ” and “ strategy ” to do with either? In the report of J. B. Hobbs appear such sidelights as this:— The Australians evidently did not want to come in, and started bowling wide. It was amusing to watch the tactics, but they should have covered their intentions more cunningly.

And C. G. Macartney, in the Sydney Herald: Bradman showed good strategy in closing the innings and bringing England in when the pitch was nearing its worst. . . . After Hammond’s departure the game became a battle of tactics. The Englishmen evidently had received instructions to disguise their intentions. . . Allen stopped

their plan by closing when the Australian bowlers bowled wide to waste time.

Each side was perfectly within its “ rights,” blit .In other branches of sport these “ rights ” show up with unpleasant prominence. When Miss Dorothy Round in her final game at Wimbledon broke her shoulderstrap and appealed to her opponent for permission to retire’and change her dress, the other lady declined. She, too, was perfectly within, her “rights,” but —; The tactics were excellent, but everything else in the' incident was bad as bad could be. ; ■ '

Cricket, too, has cases quite parallel. In the NottinghamshireSussex match last July the Notts captain appealed on account of the rain when Sussex # needed only two runs to win. Pointed remarks were made by various cricket commentators, and the Notts Committee refused to approve the action qf_ its captain. The discussion elicited some trenchant but kindly remarks from an American banker now resident in London:

For many years in America I was led to believe that the game of cricket was the perfect expression of the British character. Your public men frequently ' used the term, “It isn’t cricket," as applied to the actions of their opponents. When I came to live here, I naturally took an interest in the game which was supposed to have all those qualities of fairness, chivalry and sportsmanship which we rightly associate with the British ch cll'cl Cl 6 F* After some years of close study at Lord’s and the Oval (I am quite a cricket fan now) I have been unable to distinguish a single moment in the game when you give your opponent anything but the rawest deal possible. If you win the toss and the pitch is bad, do you put your team in to bat? No, sir. You put the other fellow in. Then if, towards the end of your innings, the light is fading, you purposely get your side out so as to give the other team the bad shout “How’s that?” at the umpire when you know it was a pick-up and not a catch. I believe, also, that it has been known for a bowler to go for the body, of a timid batsman and even to loosen his sleeve so that its flapping may confuse the eye of the batsman. I have heard of other things, but , perhaps they are not true. Personally I think it’s a grand game, and I prefer to play a game with all one’s wits within the rules. But why or when did cricket become an expression of fair play and chivalry? v,; / ■ 1 • Fast approaching is the unhappy day when motor will be in close touch with tqe people, and the motor car within easy reach of every pedestrian. Every pedestrian will then be forced to carry about with him his own spare parts, and his remarks, Tike , those ’of the well-be-haved small boy, will be obscene and not heard. In this direction pohit all the signs of the times. The issue of driving licences in New Zealand is proceeding by leaps and bounds, like the pedestrian himself. So great was the rush of licenceseeking candidates in the two preChristmas weeks that the waiting queues were two days long, and each testing time must have been two hours short. The licences issued for the half-year just ended exceeded by 929 the 15,924 issued for the whole of the previous 12 months. Bright were the prospects along the public highways on December 19, when the press reported: There' has been a considerable decrease in negligent and reckless f driving since the Minister of Transport gave prominence to the imperative necessity for increased road safety. The holiday period, with its crowded roads, will prove a testing-time, testing whether this desirable result -will be maintained, but there should be no difficulty if drivers give consideration to other road users. Unhappily, the wish was father to the hope, and became childless on Christmas Eve. Why should Christmas Eve have been so catastrophic? Why should the outward holiday motor journey have been more dangerous than’the homeward journey after New. Year’s Day? The outward journey was a leap in the dark. The night of Christmas Eve was wet and black, and many newly licensed fledgling drivers were taking their first flight in an all-night run over half an island, with cars over-laden, with heavy baggage behind and a heavy mortgage in front. And this after a long and tiring day in shop and office. With the eagerness of liberated schoolboys they sped and skipped and tripped along the highroad, accelerating in their exhilaration. When a motorist is tired he should sleep on it. not in it. Different were the mood and .the speed of the laggard homecoming after January 2. Then was the motorist like A whining schoolboy with his ■ satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.

These are merely particular causes. The general causes explain much more. .Many are the varieties of motor drivers. Talk not" of the “■Tip and run ’’ man—words upon him are unspeakable. There is also the “Toot and tear” driver. He it is who toots loudly at each comer and tears on ahead, slackening his speed not one notch, as who should sav. “You hear me coming, get out of it! ” Next we have the “ Wobble and straddle ” driver. His half of the road is in the middle, and he bestraddles the white line like a swaying tight-rope walker. Next the “ Scurry and tarry ” man. He speeds to overtake and pass you with the tense and breathless haste of a son speeding to the bedside of a dying parent. A mile further on you see him loungingly chatting to the garage man. Next the “ Scare and Glare ” driver, who scares you out of your wits, then glares at you for doing it! He- is mostly a woman driver, for the foot made to rock the cradle is now pressed hard on the accelerator. From the ditch you say to her—when and if she stops—- “ Why didn’t you signal what you w r ere going to do? ” She replies, “ Because there isn’t any signal for what I was going to do.” Other varieties are self-explanatory: the “Jamb and Damn,” the “Rush and Crush,” the “ Sleep and Creep,” and

the “Feckless and Reckless." Hence arise all these meetings of headlights and light heads, of horse power under the bonnet and no horse sense under the hat. Hence it is that a telegraph pole never hits a motorist except in self defence. It explains, too, why the race to the level railway crossing is so often a dead heat. In fact, car thieves have their occasional uses—they have put many a motorist on his feet. Said Dame Sybil Thorndike to an Edinburgh audience in November last: I prefer middle age to my earlier years. When I started in London in a very .lowly position I enjoyed my work almost as much as I do now, except that I feel that as you grow older you enjoy life more, since you have a better sense of values. Give me middle age every time. To Dame Sybil, therefore, middle age is the golden period between thoughtless youth and sweet old age —called by some the noon, by others the autumn of life. Unfixed are its limits above and below—called though it be by some a “ certain ” age. As in Byron: . She was not old, nor at the years Which certain people call a “certain age," ■ Which yet the most uncertain ' age appears. And Byron again: Of all the barbarous middle ages that Which Is most barbarous is the middle age Of man. It is—l scarce know what: But when we hover between fool and sage. To Disraeli, “Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old'age a regret.” Another eulogy of middle age is given by Scott: 1 On his bold visage middle age Had slightly pressed ■ its-signet sage, Yet had not quenched the open truth And fiery vehemence ’■ of youth. Let us all then be middle-aged—or as middle-aged as we can. The credulous infallibility of youth is gone, and we can grow old gracefully. Many are the ways of earning a living in places where much is allowed. Reported is the story of a Paris engineer-fitter who, finding his occupation too uninteresting, left a good job and joined the ranks of the Paris beggars. He did not do so badly. His methods were businesslike. He even kept books—or, at all events, a book. When arrested on the Champs Elysees, a note-book found on his dilapidated person contained careful entries of his receipts from various districts, with his personal comments. A typical oneweek’s account was as follows: •Monday, Saint Denis,- passable, ~ 34 fr. 25. Tuesday, 18th arrondissement, fairly good, 47 fr. 50. Wednesday, 16th arrondissement, ; bad, people away at races, 21 fr. 70. Thursday, 9th arrondissement, excellent,, 52 fr. 10. Friday, my day off. ■ Saturday, Colombes, bad, 23 fr 30. . SUnday, Bth arrondissement. good. 48 fr. 80. The devalued franc being now worth about 2£d, he was earning over £2 a week,, without overhead expenses on his head, on his back, or under his, feet. But sewn up in his clothing were found 20,000 francs* The note book entries were merely his income tax return and a statement for the police. He had seen- them coming. ;

Those romantic press columns that deal with the Weekly Worries of Wondering Women let; the male half of the world know how . the other half lives. Men shouldTose no time in reading them. In one stich column is an item that leaves us. breathless and almost makes us choke. Is it credible or even creditable that the atmosphere of ladies’ bridge parties frequently becomes so thick with tobacco smoke that ladies can scarcely see their neighbours’ cards? And that the fumigated room must be defumigated with a hot shovel on which are deposited a Jew drops of oil of lavender or lavender water? A hot shovel of lavender oil carried round a 1 men’s smoking carriage v/ould drive the “ incensed ” occupants into the guard’s van. For men may take their pleasures sadly, but they take their annoyances furiously. The emancipation of women has come in with a rush, not in the slow decorous fashion which would, of course, be much more seemly. Had it broadened down from precedent to precedent—here a little, there a little—men might have accustomed themselves to the little cigarette here and there. Smoking is the outward and visible sign of this new-found feminine liberty, and liberty suddenly acquired is a heady wine. Women have smoked ever since the scandalous smoking of George Sand—but privately, sub tecto, sub rosa. Now they do it aggressively, with bravado, without necessity. Nor do men object. 'lt is the pleasantest step old evolution has taken since women and evolution were born. It helps the_ shy woman, it enepurages the more timid man. It shortens the distance between man and woman to the length of her cigarette—when he lights it. And her eyes throw back the light of another match. And so on. But the expense of it! A man with seven smoking daughters can scarcely call his sou his own. Certainly not his cigarettes. Civis.