Echoes of the Week.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 786, 30 March 1905, Page 15

Echoes of the Week.

(By

“ Ithuriel.”)

A country clergyman finding his congregation very backward in coming forward with the bawbees, recently determined to trace the cause, and, by way of a start, disguised himself, went the round of all the public-houses in the town one Saturday night, and announced from the pulpit on the following Sunday that he had found members of his flock in every one. At least that is what I learn from the local paper (says “Boondi”) ; but, like the Scotch elder, “I hae ma doots aboot it !” The clergyman could hardly have said : “I merely wish to see what time it is,” to every barman he saw. And if he had a “nip” in every second pub, which would only be a fair thinig, I hardly think he would be very fit to mount the Sunday pulpit and deliver a scathing sermon on the evils -of the “accur-r-sed der-rink.” He would probably feel very bitter against the stuff, but if he were really an amateur at the business he would he hankering after a hair of the “dog that bit him,” and more inclined for a pick-me-up than the pulpit. The Victorian Chief Justice, Sir John Madden, famous among Judges for his views on the ethics of “sports,” contrasts amateurs and professionals. To him the amateur sportsman was “one who lived in pride of grand manhood, and who in seeking renown has his incentive nobility,” while, as for the professional, “it was a wildly foolish! thing to speak of a man who put money in his purse as a sportsman.” Sir John’s definitions cannot hope to pass unchallenged. At all events as things, go, his amateurs might be counted on the fingers of one hand when all five were amputated. To be sure, Goldsmith’s dancers sought renown “by holdin/g out to tire each. other down,” but they lived in an Irish village 150 years ago, and knew nothing of stiff uns, cronks, crooks, and the higher walks of sport as developed by horse and tyre. Again would it be a “wildly foolish” thing to regard a great composer, writer, or physicist as a musician, litterateur, or scientist, because his earnings enabled him to sail a yacht or run an automobile ? It is to be feared that Sir John’s opinions will leave matters much as they stood.