The Sporting Loafer.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11736, 13 September 1902, Page 2

The Sporting Loafer.

In Mr G. Street's striking "Book of Essays" nothing more pungent :s to be found than the writer's contempt for the modem loafer, and especially blasting is- Mr Street's irony on the sporting loafer. Here is the portrait he gives' of that gentleman: — "His face is smooth and bland, adorned with an adolescent moustache. He hasneat, smooth hair, growing quite low on his fore-head, and showing as little tendency to baldness as when he was sixteen. He has bright,amiable' and absolutely expressionless eyes. His habits are as simple as his face. He rises at a reasonably early hour, and after a good breakfast reads aIL about cricket or football, as the case may be, m the paper. He reads rather slowly, and this occupation, together with answering a few invitations to play games—he writes more slowly than he readsr—takes up his time till lunch. After lunch he plays an athletic game. In the evening he may possibly go to a play, avo«Bng those who. are suspected/ of having (anything clever in them, or he may dance, or play a, mild game of cards. If he has no such amusement, he is quite willing to talk from dinner to bed time about the game he has played in the afternoon. This is his life in London; healthy and English. In the country there are more games and less newspapers. He never talks or listens to others talking about politics., or literature, or anything of that land, not so much because it bores him as because he does not understand a word of it. I doubt if he was really aware until lately that anybody really cared for anything except games. The war forced him to recognise that other transactions take place in life, but I think he will not soon forget it. For the moment he has slightly modifiedl his habit of estimating all men according to their proficiency in some game or siport, but v the habit will reassert itself before long. Even now he never mentions General Baden-Powell without adding that he kept goal at Charterhouse."