Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-08-02
The BRI7IsH CRIsIs
XXVL.-Sport and SpOr tSn1en

LoNDON.-England spends every year
more money on sport than for its army
and navy, its religion, its schools, or any
thing except it's drink. An accepted
authority on English sporting matters
has compiled statistics showing that the
forty-odd million people of Great Britain
spend $225, 100000 annually for sport, be-
100000 in property devoted exclusively to
the uses of sportsmen.
In no other nation in the whole world
is sport an essential factor in the life
of the people. Americans stand pa
tiently before bulletin boards waiting to
hear the score of a baseball game, but
few of them, after they become men.
actually play the game. In some parts
of the union a few men and women still
ride to hounds, but fox hunting in the
United States amounts to so little that
the great majority of the people know
nothing whatever about 1t. Football,
in its American form, is played only by
school boys and college athletes. Racing
IS outlawed in nearly every community.
and to be associated with the turf is to
forfeit social standing in nearly all parts
of America. Americans still delight TO
shoot and fish, but 30 per cent of them
never have the opportunity to do either.
except in the most occasional way.
In England sport seems to be, after
food and drink. the chief end of exist
ence. Everybody has a Saturday half
holiday and everybody devotes IT to sport
A crowd of 10000 at a professional foot
ball game is not unusual; Americas high
est college football record attendance
does not reach this figure. An English
boy is taught to play cricket, not by
other boys, as the American urchin
learns baseball, but by his father who
had been in turn. taught the mysteries
of the game by his father. This instruc-
ton is not undertaken lightly, but is
as much a part of the serious business
OF life as any other feature of child train
ing Not to have been a cricketer, or
game player of some kind, is not to
have fulfilled the requirements of a
British education. Both Mr.. Asquith
and Mr.. Balfour, the leaders of the two
great political parties In Britain. fail
to appeal fully to the imagination of
their followers because neither of them
at college took any interest In sports.
this shortcoming.
When George Y. assembled the throne
HIS people remembered with qualification
that as prince of Wales he had the rep
utation of being a splendid shot. One of
the first things the new king did was
to announce that he would continue the
racing stables establish by his father.
although 1t was generally known that
George had little vital interest In the
turf When the kings horse, or the
prime minister's entry wins the derby or
some other great classic Of the English
turf, the victory is an occasion for ma
tional rejoicing. It is impossible to I'M
agine a president of the United States, or
even a prominent senator, attending a
race meeting as the proprietor of sta
BILE. Sometimes, even in England,
Puritan will object to the patronage OF
the turf on the part OF a great states
man. A Congregational minister once
attacked Lord Roseberry, then prime MIN
lister. because he was the owner or a.
derby winner. Lord Roseberry in reply
said, in effect, that 1t was none OF the
minister's business, and that Christian
charity should prevent the criticism or
any mans preferences in sport. without
doubt the great majority OF Englisn
agreed with Lord ,Roseberry.
Ont Of a territory of less than twenty
million acres in Scotland, almost four
million acres are devoted to deer Tor
ests alone. Scotland has population
about equal to that of Ohio. Can any
American imagine one-hfth or the ter
ritorv OF Ohio devoted to deer forests?
The licenses for shooting game bring 10
Great Britain a revenue of million
dollars a wear. Men who shoot or FISH
are compelled to rent the property for
that purpose, whether they take 1t for a
day week, or a year. one single
firm of land agents in London holds
property worth more than fifty million
dollars on its lists to be rented for
shooting and fishing. The annual ex-
penditure for hunting, shooting, ana
fishing amounts to hundred million
dollars. while nearly two hundred million
dollars worth of property is held ex-
clusively for the purposes of these par
ticular varieties of sport.
While all classes of the people are
only football and cricket are
the free privileges of the lower classes
The game preserves are guarded care
fully by armies of keepers. and poaching
is severely punished by the law. About
twenty years ago parliament gave ten
ant farmers the right, by enacting the
mares ana TdDDlIS Oil. 10 SllOOI AdI
on the land which they lease and Guilt !
vate. But in many parts of the country !
II is dangerous for tenant to exercise
this right lest he fall under the dis
pleasure of the squire" Even the pos
session of a fowling piece is sufficient
to bring a tenant farmer under suspicion
Of poaching. There is an agitation in
favor of giving the actual holders of
land the right to shoot feather" as
we'll as fur" but there is little likeli-
hood of such a radical piece of legisla- /
ton at this time. And yet there are I
few in the peasant class who are not /,
potential poachers. In the last political !
Lloyd-George Mortified the +,
gentry and endeared himself to the |
peasantry by confessing that he had, ]
himself, violated the game laws of a /
dark night
Just what sport there may be in TAX
ing a seat on comfortable shooting ,
stool, attended by battalion of FUN I
bearers, and then pot-shooting peyect-
ly tame pheasants as they are driven
past by an army of beaters and divers
may arouse question in an American