Sporting

“ While speaking of sportsmen and sportsmanship I should like to call the attention of all the readers of this Department to a definition of "sportsman," published in the "Amateur Sport" columns of Harper's Weekly of August 17th: "A sportsman engages in sport for sport's sake only, and does by others as he would be done by. A 'sporting man' or 'sport' enters sport for mercenary motives, and prefers to 'do' others." ”

“ This neatly gotten-up book is full of valuable hints to athletes of whatever kind and character, having been compiled with rare judgment, which long years of laborious work in the sporting world has given its author. The unpretentious volume, among other things, contains useful chapters on Training for Rowing, Boxing, Wrestling, and Pedestrianism, in addition to instructions for High and Broad Jumping, Fair Walking, Hammer-throwing, and in fact everything else useful to the professional or amateur athlete. ”

“ They usually know nothing at all of sport, though professing to know a good deal, as in their vocabulary sport is only another name for exercise: they fondly imagine that the man who trots on horseback every morning round the Tier-Garten, especially if he wears English gaiters and carries a hunting-crop, is a sportsman, and consider any game “sporting” where there is plenty of running—even if no demand be made on the courage, decision, quickness or other mental qualifications of the players. ”

“ I strongly advise any one who contemplates betaking himself to the velt after big game to set about the enterprise in the true sporting spirit, making of it a really genuine contest between man and beast—a genuine duel—not an onslaught of the many upon the one. Many English writers support me in this, and they understand the claims of sport in this field as well as we Germans do at home. The English have instituted clearly defined rules which no sportsman may transgress. ”

“ The topic of sporting is, perhaps, the most effectual of these, and it must be understood that a man’s convivial condition is often undergoing a crucial investigation when he is questioned as to his views upon such subjects as the Cesarewitch or the Cambridgeshire. ”

“ Reader, I hope we have not failed by this time to give you an insight into the mysteries of a sport which, though now defended by stringent penalties, was no unworthy one in its time, requiring, as it did, the utmost dexterity, training, and endurance: three objects which in themselves are sufficient to elevate any pursuit which can promote them, and which many seek to acquire amongst the mountains of Switzerland or the hills of Scotland. ”

“ Do not be inveigled into buying a lot of useless guns, rods, or sporting paraphernalia; a real sportsman does not require them.
I think I have now pretty well exhausted the subject, and told you how to go to work.
PARTRIDGE MANORS AND ROUGH SHOOTING
Bright, beautiful, glorious June!
I have often been asked which of the four seasons I like the best; my answer has ever been the same: "The hunting, shooting, fishing, and racing." One season I detest (the very name of it gives me the cold shivers) —the London one; defend me from that ”

“ For your wealthy noblemen, or large landed proprietors, it matters little what sport of any kind costs them, whether in horses, hounds, shooting, fishing, yachting, racing, or coursing.
Yet very many rich men are the greatest screws possible—carrying out the old adage of "the more you have, the more you want." Love of sport is one of the boasted and general characteristics of an Englishman ”

“ Potts,” Dycer screamed out. “Shoes removed, and to be ready in the morning.”
CHAPTER II. BLONDEL AND I SET OUT
I had heard and read frequently of the exhilarating sensations of horse exercise. My fellow-students were full of stories of the hunting-field and the race-course. Wherever, indeed, a horse figured in a narrative, there was an almost certainty of meeting some incident to stir the blood and warm up enthusiasm. Even the passing glimpses one caught of sporting-prints in shop-windows were suggestive of the pleasure imparted by a noble and chivalrous pastime. ”

“ Perhaps, as years creep on, one is wont to look back on his youthful days and fondly imagine nothing is done so well now as then. Understand, I do not say hunting and shooting are not as good as they were. I do both still, and enjoy them as much as ever; but there is not so much sport in them, to my mind, as formerly—men are not the hardy, genuine sportsmen they were.
Horses are much dearer now than twenty, thirty, forty years back—provender also. Where £1 would go thirty years ago, you require now nearly £1, 10s.; this alone prevents many men from following their favourite pursuits. ”

“ Generally speaking “sport” includes the out-of-door recreations, the “field-sports,” such as fishing, shooting, fox-hunting, &c., connected with the killing or hunting of animals as opposed to organized “games,” which are contests of skill or strength played according to rules. It also includes the special class of horse-racing, the votaries of which, and also of the prize-ring, have arrogated to themselves sometimes the name of “sportsman,” applying that word even to those who follow racing simply as an occasion for betting. ”

“ But shout and play with ball and bat,
Or dance with maidens fair;
Play tennis, cricket, kiss-in-the-ring,
Rounders or golf or catch,
Play baseball, rounders—anything, But please don’t fight and scratch.
Run quarter miles, or hurdle race,
Jump high or low or wide;
Try football tricks, both drop and place,
Join us in seek and hide.
But please don’t squabble, dear boys,
It isn’t nice to squall;
It looks so bad, makes such a noise,
It quite upsets us all. ”

“ All through the livelong day on Saturdays, and in the afternoons during weekdays, boys in strange-looking running costumes of various designs could be seen diligently practicing at all manner of stunts, from sprinting, leaping hurdles, engaging in the high jump, with the aid of poles; throwing the hammer; and, in fact, every conceivable exercise that would be apt to come under the head of a genuine athletic tournament. ”

“ The Olympic beauty of this game is beyond all praise. It calls into active exercise every muscle of the human frame, and brings into bold relief the supple and athletic forms of the best built people in the world. ”

“ To the sportsman in training, full of health and strength, and well appointed, it is of little consequence whether there be game or not. The inspiriting character of the sport, and the wild beauty of the scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that dispels fatigue! ”

“ Imagine the athletes of every village training for those prizes—thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, ward delegates running for something besides office, and the members of a Young Men's Association seeking paradise on this side of the grave!
With the decadence of athletic sports, games of skill come generally into favor ”

“ Rowing, cricket, football, athletics, and, in a lower degree, gymnastics, bicycling, swimming, and riding, constitute, besides walking, the favorite modes of exercise; and it is impossible to suggest better. I have only to object that, regarded as recreation, there is, both at Oxford and Cambridge, far too much tendency to a specialization of these forms of exercise. Competition dictates practice, and practice entails too exclusive a devotion to the one kind of exercise which is practiced ”

“ Blessed with a strong, symmetrical frame, a quick eye, a sure hand, a perfect constitution, and abundant courage, he came easily by a mastery of the different sports he entered into, and had few equals, and fewer superiors, at cricket, football, lacrosse, baseball, swimming, rowing, and the other amusements of the day. ”

“ There is no finer sight among the long catalogue of athletic sports, more exhilarating and amusing to the true sportsman, than to see a walking-match carried out to the strict letter of the meaning, each moving with the grandest action of which the human frame is capable, at a pace which the feeble frame and mind is totally unable to comprehend, and must be witnessed to be believed. ”

“ He it is, too, who is the prime supporter and patron of the manly English sports, horse-racing, glove-fighting, coaching, moting, polo, shooting, fishing, yachting, and so forth. In these exercises he finds great delight. When he is not busy dining and wining and painting the town red, sport is the mainstay of his existence. ”

“ Ringing, bowling, shooting, playing with keel-pins, tronks, coits, pitching of bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, playing with wasters, foils, foot-balls, balowns, running at the quintain, and the like, are common recreations of country folks: riding [Pg xxxiv] of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse-races, and wild-goose chases, which are disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes. ”

“ But if any one can present to us a sport or pastime, a race or a contest, which can in all its essentials of stirring excitement, displays of manly courage, nerve and endurance, and its unwearying scenes of skillful play and alternations of success equal our national game of ball, we should like to see it. ”

“ It is supreme in matters of amateur status, records and licensing of meetings, and has control over the following branches of sport: basket-ball, billiards, boxing, fencing (in connexion with the Amateur Fencers’ League of America) , gymnastics, hand-ball (fives) , running, jumping, walking, weight-putting (hammer, shot, discus, weights) , hurdle-racing, lacrosse, pole-vaulting, swimming, tugs-of-war and wrestling. ”

“ Nay more, in any other contests of strength and endurance, I believe they would more than hold their own against any younger athletes; and would overwhelm any similar number of non-athletes of the same or any other age. As contests I should select a hard day's shooting over dogs, cross-country riding, tug-of-war, boxing, long-distance rowing, or, in fact, any contest in which the special element of racing in light ships has no part. ”

“ In the fifties, although golf and tennis were not games for the multitude, bowls and cricket were as dear to the bewhiskered public as now to the clean-shaven or moustached; and women had their lawn diversions for the hours they considered enough to give to them, the balance of their active exercise being put into housework and "duties" generally. There was a primitive sort of lacrosse that we were addicted to, and archery, which was a graceful and quite scientific game. ”

“ Keep the game free from the taint of professionalism, free from betting, free from the disposition that would win fairly if possible, but win at any cost, and we have a form of recreation distinctly beneficial to the whole community!
The discipline of athletics develops obedience, self-control, and the spirit of cooperation, all of them useful, moral qualities. Many a rich man’s son, ambitious for college honors, has gotten his first taste of real discipline on the athletic field. ”

“ This care is the common function of all gymnastic exercises that have an element of pleasure in them, but there are other special points in small ball play which I will now describe.{114}
‘Firstly, it is easy. If you consider what time and trouble all the business of hunting involves, especially coursing, you will clearly see that no one who is engaged in public service or who follows an art or trade can take part in these forms of exercise; they require abundant wealth and a person who enjoys considerable leisure. But ball play is different. ”

“ In “sport” they include large hunts and shooting expeditions such as can be practised on vast estates, together with betting, which involves millions of pounds sterling, riding and driving, fencing, boxing, swimming, skating; everything which calls into play the forces and energy of the body, to the too frequent neglect of mental activity. ”

“ Fox-hunting, hare-hunting, rabbit-coursing, ferreting, ratting, badger-baiting—it [4] was all one to him so long as he could get “a bit of sport”! What higher character could a Briton possibly aspire to? No wonder the man was so popular with his neighbours, and so highly esteemed!
And so, if we begin to question the humanity or the propriety of any of these forms of amusement, the crushing answer invariably is, “But it’s sport!” Surely that is amply sufficient! Surely that is final! What more do you want? Sport is always excellent. Sport is an end in itself. ”

“ This noble exercise ought not to be judged by the dishonesty or the low lives of too many of its professional followers. Let it stand alone, an athletic practice, on the same footing as boating or foot-ball. ”

“ College yells, cheers, rowing, marching, processions, bicycling, running, tug-of-war, calisthenics and class gymnastics with counting, and especially with music, horseback riding, etc., are rhythmic; tennis, baseball and football, basketball, golf, polo, etc., are less rhythmic, but are concerted and intense. These latter emphasise the conflict factor, best brought out in fencing, boxing, and wrestling, and lay more stress on the psychic elements of attention and skill. ”

“ The high sport of such intelligence—between gentlemen, to the senses of any other than whom it must surely be closed—demanded and implied in its own intimate interest a certain amenity. Yes, accordingly, I had promptly got the answer that my wonder at his approach required: he had come to me for the high sport. He would formerly have been incapable of it, and he was beautifully capable of it now. It was precisely the kind of high sport—the play of perception, expression, sociability—in which Mrs. Server would a year or two before have borne as light a hand. ”