PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3593, 23 January 1923, Page 60

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

SEA FEVER.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song, and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a gTey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife ; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleer> and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over. —John Masefield. ***** SHIPPING A COBRA. The king cobra had to be moved into a new box. He was a very wild snake, and whenever his captor approached him the cobra beat its head against the wires of the cage. As this cage was only a shallow box made of flimsy, decaying boards, and covered with a wire netting, and as the snake was the largest cobra on record, measuring 125 ft, it seemed expedient, to put it mildly, to give him a better home before shipping him from Singapore to in ew York. So the animal dealer, Mr Frank H. Buck, as he explains in '“Asia” (New York), had a handsome box made of teakwood, with a plate-glass top, and when this was delivered at Yew Kee’s compound, where he was keeping the snake, the task of changing the cobra to his new quarters was undertaken. lew Kee and two of his Chinese assistants, and Beni Chee, Mr Buck’s Malay “boy, who were helping, were standing in tire centre of a narrow cement passageway that ended blind against a wall. On the one side of the passageway (says the Literary Digest) were a number of wooden crates containing tigers; on the other side were some fish-tanks. One of the Chinese assistants picked up the old box, and just as he came to the centre of the passageway the rotten bottom fell out of the box, and the snake was dumped on the floor. And then, says Mr Buck : “.everybody lost his head. My ‘boy," who faces tigers intrepidly, jumped over three or four boxes and got away. The Chinese scattered in all directions. I was left at the farther end of the passageway, and between me and freedom was the snake. It was almost at my feet. It raised about 2-jft of its body off the floor, extended its hood, and began to glide toward me, hissing and stretching out its forked tongue. I kept backing up, and the cobra kept gliding nearer. When I flattened myself against the wall it was not more than three feet from me. I had never been so badly frightened. If I had had a broom or a heavy stick I could have killed the snake, but I did not even carry the bin knife I usually wear in mv belt. Suddenly I thought of my white coat. I tore it off, and, holding it out before me, threw myself on top of the snake. As I sprawled over it I felt its body wriggling under me, hut I could not be certain that its head would not dart out from the coat, and that I should not feel its fangs in my arm or body in the fraction of a second that I lay there. Fortunately, I had caught its head firmly. The men now came rushing to help me. My ‘boy’ reached over, gathered up the coat, and placed the cobra in the teakwood box. * * * * SUPREMACY IN SPORT. “We’ve every reason for failure, but not a single excuse,” wrote a well-known authority on athletics recently, discussing the British failure in sport. The writer of the criticism was Mr F. A. M. Webster, and he continued : Let us kill straight away the idea that the foreigner specialises in his sports to the verge of professionalism. He doesn’t, and I can prove it. S. H. Thomson, of Princeton University, the American all-round athletic champion, took a number of places at the English 1920 championships, and it is Americans and Scandinavians, in the main, who have taken premier honours in the Olympic Pentathlon and Decathlon time after time, and these are the two hardest tests of all-round fitness and skill ever devised by man. The main difference between British and foreign sportsmen is that the latter are content to practise patiently for years to attain proficiency; we, remembering our established reputation for sporting superemacy, want immediate results—without the bother of working for them. In Scandinavia, whence come many of the world’s finest performers in sport nowadays, boys play every conceivable sort of game that will harden them and make them quick; at about 18 years of age they pick a- group of allied events in which they become past-masters. We practise sporting events haphazard ; the foreigners study them, as witness their extensive use of slow-motion films for instructional purposes, their lecturers and admirably educated instructors, most of whom come from the United States, Sweden, or Norway. The foreigner goes in for the sport he takes up prepared to wait and work for two, three, or even five years for the best results ; we, as I say, want immediate results. If they do not come, we turn our attention to some more easy pastime. Again, we are far too. conservative in sport. Other nations are willing to learn from us. Are we willing to learn from them ? No! We may say that “athletics” are America’s and Scandinavia’s “pigeon,” but let us not forget that Norway defeated our Association football team by 3 goals to 1 in the first round of the last Olympiad, and surely “Soccer,” above all other sports, is our own game, and vet Norway did not reach even the semi-final. In lawn tennis and other sports we stick to our old, old stagers, while the rising generation waits until it is old enough

(too old, according to the lights of our opponents) for international honours. As far as the team games are concerned, w e hold the foreigners too cheaply. We do not trouble to prepare our men properly, nor do we always put our best teams in the field. And there you have the whole reason why we have ceased to break or even hold records. We have lost the art of taking trouble, and we can’t play a waiting game. Another writer makes the following interesting comment on the new “countenance” in sport: In most games nowadays a smile of gratification is apparently not considered •“good form.” I can recall a time when at cricket a fieldsman who made a good catch followed a custom and tossed the ball joyfully 111 the air. But now the player who accomplishes something big is more likely to cover his performance with a yawn. I have not forgotten how Woolley, after playing a big innings in his early days, used to race back to the pavilion, happiness in every movement, raising his cap repeatedly, flushed with pleasure as well as with exercise. But last season the end of a big score found him with tightdrawn lips and sombre eyes, outwardly as dejected as though he had been bowled first ball. Well, perhaps a long experience in a game teaches the players a certain philosophy. Success to-day, failure to-morrow —it’s all in the year’s round. But sometimes it would be a relief to see games approached as though they were occasions for enjoyment—not as if a- painful duty had to be carried through at any cost. How'l should like to see a boyish grin o'erspread Newman’s countenance after he has made a break of 500 or so ! On the other hand, how I should like to see certain footballers mask their feelings when the referee’s decision does not please them! Perhaps we cannot have it both ways.