MATAURA NEWS

Southland Times, Issue 20206, 17 June 1927, Page 4

MATAURA NEWS

FOOTBALL. MATAURA v. PUKERAU. A hard game was played between the above two second grade teams on the Mataura Recreation Ground on Wednesday afternoon. The weather, though chilly, was good and there was a fair number of spectators to view the game. The ground was in good order and, at times, there was some fairly fast and reasonably good play. The visiting team was composed of much, heavier men than those composing the home team, particularly in the forwards, and it was noticeable that they were making the most of this fact. Their play was marked at times by distinct roughness, and also by a disposition on the part of a few of them—one in particular—to play off-side. They have the makings of a real good team, but attention to these two matters are a first essential. The passing on both sides was patchy—sometimes good and at others of an indifferent quality. But the game as a whole was interesting and the scores (Mataura 9; Pukerau nil) do not give a fair idea of the game itself. The Pukerau team had the ball over the line several times and just missed scoring. For Mataura Amos, from a free-kick, scored a goal, and later he secured a try. The last try was obtained by Stafford, making the tally 9. For the last 18 minutes Mataura played one man short owing to an injury to one of their players. Mr Shanks, of Gore, was the referee. HOCKEY. MATAURA B v. GORE HIGH SCHOOL B. In the hockey match played on the Mataura Recreation Ground on Wednesday the Mataura girls won by 1 goal to nil. It was a good even battle both sides playing well. W.E.A. The W.E.A. Class met in the Coronation Hall on Wednesday evening. Mr R. Macdonald was voted to the chair. Mr August, the lecturer, gave a most interesting address on classics. His object was to show as clearly as possible what it was that constituted a classic, and he held that the two main essentials were sincerity and universality of appeal. Shakespeare dealt with the great passions of mankind and thus his works had an appeal to all men—not merely to Englishmen, but to men of other races as well. He also had a fine sense of language: he chose words that exactly suited his subject. He was a dramatist, a poet and a thinker. The lecturer then spoke of other great writers such as Walt Whitman and some others not so great and compared them with a number of those who write books for to-day and are then forgotten. But so far as a standard by which writers and artists could be measured the speaker held that there was no standard in art. Each writer, each artist made his own standard and by that standard others could not be measured. A peculiarity about many great writers was the effect disease had upon them. The lecturer instanced about half a dozen writers who were the victims of consumption, etc., and stated that it was an accepted fact that disease had a stimulating effect on their mental powers. Another thing he maintained was that the present-day writers of worth-while books were mostly women. This statement may be of interest to Miss Susan Lee and Mr Fea. When the speaker was finished a short discussion followed, and several speakers had a turn. Arrangements were also set afoot to have a debate between some members of the Farmers’ Union and of the W.E.A. on a subject to be decided, and the meeting then terminated with the usual vote of thanks to the lecturer and the chairman. Before closing it is worthy of note that the attendance was much better and gave considerable encouragement to those who have striven hard to keep the class going.