ENGLAND'S CRAZE FOR SPORT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9675, 18 October 1909, Page 2

ENGLAND'S CRAZE FOR SPORT.

♦— ; ■ A GERMAN VIEW. A German correspondent has sent to the "Times " the following free translation of' an article on "English Sport" in "Der Tag":— According to statistics, which, the ; London Press only repudiate as toolow, a capital of forty-five million pounds sterling is laid out in Great Britain in chjb-houses, raoecourses, playing grounds, and such like, and more than forty million is yearly spent in these arenas oi sport. This makes the Englishman (according to English opinion) stronger and healthier than the son of any other nation. As a matter of fact, among the com* paratively small upper classes who for fox-hunting alone spend four million a year and hare laid Out another fifteen million, in capital, it is possible that sport lrnay have had a good influence on their physical constitution. All the same, we must consider tiiat the tall, powerful form of the British aristocrat is only known to us from British assertions. But incomparably more beneficial ihaii the English sport is our compulsory service and also the official care for the bodily constitution of the lower classes. The pure animal 1 strength of the workman is without doubt far greater in Germany than in any other land. It is always a great joy to the German travelling homo from abroad to see the way the porter heaves his mighty box on his shoulders and. carries it with long strides to the cab. RED-CHEEKED BEEFEATERS. A visitor in "England only finds such well-developed powerful men— -as •, one meets on every station and in every manufacturing town in Germany — on the quays of the harbours, whither all the Strong men are attracted by high wages for the loading and unloading work. It is not here that a stranger can form a, good opinion of the physi-' cal constitution, of the English masses. He must go into the streets of London on the occasion of a Lord Mayor's show. Here the "red-cheeked beefeaters'' are well represented, but for every one of these one sees, not twen<ty, but fifty, ill-set, pale, narrowchested, half-Crippled men. • Only under the British flag in India does one visibly see such poverty pressing down on man's bodily frame, such physical degeneration, such tragic de- , formity, such' unhealed, ever-present illness, such laziness, and such depravity on living bodies. Bad air, bad food and bad lodging, and the absolute lack of any regular training or strengthening enforced by a superior power, have mutilated a whole nation. ENGLAND'S PHYSICAL DEGENERATION. We meet the same crowd at sport on the football field. They do not play themselves (they lack the means), but they have enough money to support a horde of professional players, and they watch their efforts till quarrelling, brawling and often fighting set in. Have they profited by football, the sport of the masses? Do they look like it? No; only th© rich can derive advantage from sport. The physical degeneration of the English nation, which no offerings to sport have succeeded in stopping, has compelled the War Office' constantly to reduce the minimum measurements for recruits ever since^ the Crimean war. It was originally caused by the migration from country to town. Now the counties are almost uninhabited, the towns overcrowded. In God's, free air the workman call remain healthy and strong in the worst of lodgings. Should he be attracted to the town, then the town must do for him what in England is omitted and in Germany seeii to — it must build airy streets and houses. In such alone can a manufacturing nation avoid physical degeneration. The daily walk of the workman, through the pure air of clean streets gives the body' the necessary' exercise in a much more beneficial arid practical form than th short ovorstraining on the playing field.