The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-21
THE ENGLISH I.ovD oT cAMEs

stoWeu provisions, tools and uSeful
 assortment of disguises.-Leisure Hour. ~------
 THE ENGLISH LOVE OF GAMES. All men who passed through the
 strand on Tuesday had an opportunity
 Of noticing fact highly characteristic
 or the hour. The street was full of
 newspaper placards announcing that
 the Australians were picking up." A
 great government had just suffered Q
 considerable disaster; ominous tele-
 grams were arriving every hour from
 south Africa; and there was. of course,
 the usual crop of murders, suicides and
 social events;" but the news which in
 the Judgment of the proprietors of
 evening newspapers would interest the l public was struggle on the cricket | field. There is no reason to suppose
 that these gentlemen do not know their
 own business, nor are they in the least
 peculiar in their notions as to the infor-
 nation which it pays newspapers to 1 circulate. The conductors of the Times
 are grave men enough, but they now
 frequently devote the longest single
 paragraph in their jealously com
 pressed news of the day to a statement
 of cricket events, and they give up, like
 every other daily paper, entire columns | to reports of racing, cricket, football golf, and sometimes other sports, such
 as bicycling and billiards Every as-
 semblage for the purpose of witnessing
 games is attended by increasing
 crowds, sometimes so vast that as at
 Lords this week, they frustrate their
 own object, and not only interfere with 1 the players but spoil their own enjoy
 ment of the playing. And, as we noticed
 some weeks ago, games are becoming 1 the leading topic in universities and public schools.
 There is, however, no need to give
 evidences of the thesis. The increase
 of the desire not so much for games as for seeing games, reading about games, and talking over games is admitted on l all hands, and is condemned by good
 many moralists as sign that the na- ton Is deteriorating, and giving up | both work and thought for frivolous | forms of recreation. The moralists are right in part, but as often happens when social questions are discussed, | they perhaps read into a social change
 more evil than there is in it. It is quite | true that the nation is a little more | frivolous than it was, that it is under l the influence of a mood which it has | betrayed several times before, mood | in which 1t is impatient of hard think | ing wants everything short, even its | stories, likes no plays that are not ex- citing, gossips with gusto principally about the great, whose movements i'll columns even in grave papers, and in | fact is lxeenly desirous of any distrac- 1 ton which does not burden it's mental powers. All that is regrettable, if only | because there is in 1t such a dissipation ! of energy, of which there is never too much for the increasing heavy de- mands that fall upon every class ana every country in the world We should not admit however having some mo- l tion of what society was like in the eighteenth century, that the English public is more vicious than it has ever | been; 1t certainly drinks a great deal l less than it did, and though it's desire l for amusement has increased, the kind of amusement is almost infinitely less l barbaric. There are causes at work | in favor of amusements, which in
 themselves are by no means to be re- gretted
 | One Is undoubtedly increased pros perity among the masses of the people. | We all talk about depression" and none but the bed question of terrible suffering from poverty among us, but | the majority are so much better off I that they are inclined, with the san l gune temperament which is part of tine national character, to be a little waste i full of money. More is spent upon diet, much more upon clothes-God only ] knows how the children of working | households are turned out so trig-and more therefore, upon amusements. | Just look in an evening at the crowds l of bicycists who pass, watch their | dresses and their faces, and explain, II you can, on any theory except that Of the workingman's prosperity, how they 1 get their machines They do not of | course pay the quoted prices, the rich, 1 in fact, in bicycling as in surgery, being taxed good deal for the benefit of the poor, but they cannot pay in silver for any kind of bicycle, and If they want one they always contrive to get 1t. | Whoever is ruined the steady workers | are not, and after all, in this country, though there are loafers at every street | corner, and though the mass of what must be described as the precipitate of humanity is enormous, still the steady workers are in an overwhelming ma- 1 jority.--hondon Spectator