The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-10-04 00:00:00

A PLEA FOR SPORT.
Mom the Fuld)

To us it seems that the man who does not cultivate
fishing or shooting or hunting is as neglectful of • pro-
vision for old age as, according to Talleyrand, was the
reckless personage who never took the trouble of
learning whist. It seems almost as unnatural,
for a country gentleman especially, to be ignorant of
and uninterested in matters of sport. Yet this is the
case occasionally. There are people who thdak it
necessary to farm so seriously and so closely that
it might be thought they would grudge a mouthful
to a partridge. They will not preserve themselves,
and if there are a few odd birds on their grounds
they are quite churlish with reference to them. They
always "travel abroad " in the autumn, and, we need
not suggest, their departure is not felt as a social
deprivation by their neighbours. On the other hand,
we find perfectly new owners, people of business who
retire to country life when they have realized a com-
petency, often turn out most liberal and hospitable
with the royalties of their posseeaions. They have not
been born to the manner of shooting ; they are, how-
ever, willing to learn. They may not prove brilliant
shots; but they are capital companions, and eagerly
and unaffectedly interested in the rural pastimes
in which they engage. The village cricket club is
Indebted to them ; the lawns of their houses are never
idle during croquet time. They keep at the cartridge
in preference to embarking for Germany during Sep-
tember and October. They prefer these Indian sum-
mer afternoons in the fields to studying the interior of
Tartar tents at the Vienna Exhibition. They find it
more agreeable even to thin the coverts just now than
to patronise Brighton or make arrangements for Scar-
borough. There are, no doubt, individuals who, for
choice, would prefer being armed with an opera glass
at Trouville to tramping, breech loads, in hand, through
the Scotch heather, There is ro accounting for tastes.
But we claim intrinsically for sport that it prevents
holyday degeneration. Of cootie we an understand an
invelid being the better for merely resiin.c at • water
ing-place. Even invslids, however, hare plucked up
wonderfully through the stimulants of mountain air,
and the reviving excitement of following the grouse or
the blaclicock. Shooting can be taken easy. It is a
mistake to suppose t at, when an excursion to the
moors is resolved upon, excessive bard work is included
as s condition of the enterprise. For our part we are
quite convinced that doctors who have to deal with
cases of malaise or marasmus would often find it of
benefit for their patients to breathe the air of the Scotch
bills, and come within the influence of the mountaia
breeze. There is too mach of the Bath chair in
modern medical treatment. A vast number of valetu-
dinarians contrast their dyspeptic habit from eating
too much and walking too tittle. They then become
hypochondriac, and are recommended to change from
place to place for distraction. But they have no motive,
nothing to do, wherever they go, and the imaginary
or semi-imaginary complaint soon, perhaps, develops@
into • real one. If they could only fish or shoot, or
think of a recreation for which they would have to
train a-little, they would then hive the best possible
chance of recovering their health and spirits. It would
be much cheaper in the end to hire a partridge shoot-
ing than to be consulting physicians when the cure by
discipline and regimen is feasible. There are, we may
admit, circumstances which might prevent or interfere
with the application of the remedy. It would be
found, however, that healthy people are almost always
actively occupied. Illness preys upon the sluggien,
the indolent, the self-indulgent A taste for hunting,
for shooting, for fishing, is invaluable as a hygienic
aid; and it would pay, as the phrase goes, to acquire
it, even when it has not come as • gift, or, as some of
our friends might say, a blessing.