Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-01-27
SPORTS

Sports may be arbitrarily divided into
three classes: dc luxe sports served UP at
country clubs in silver loving cups; strenu-
Gus sports, when you pack your camping kit
and make business Of It, and ordinary
sports, when you spontaneously rise UP and
go skating or canoeing because you feel like
It, Most Of us have to depend on this last
class of ordinary sports and the trouble with
winter Is that 1t interferes with so many
Of them.
The prejudice against winter is rapidly
wearing away, however through a growing
realization that winter is a splendid time for
packing your kit and going in for strenuous
sport. In spite of the popularity of summer
vacations there is constantly increasing
number who find or take time somehow for
couple of weeks in the mountains while
the ground is covered with ice and snow
ana winter sports are on Three men, sedate
enough business and professional men they
WERE turned boys again for such trip into
the Adlrondacks, and one of them, Phil
reilly describes the trip with good deal of
sparkle in Jim Turns Back the Clock" "a:
throughout the Adirondacks there is in
oemse interest In all sorts of winter sports,
ana we had chosen the week of the mid
winter carnival, with its storming of the ice
palace, fancy skating hockey games, skiing
ana ana all the other winter sports At Lake
George everything centres upon the ice tt
seLLskatlhg and skating games, ice boating
ana horse racing on the ice, even the tobog-
gan slde extends out upon the ice. 1t was
at Lake George that Dunham first felt the
tnrlH OF holding an iceboat tiller and of
hobbing his first lake trout through the ice.
Iendlng set lines on skates also gave us
much amusement because the Ice was like
glass and we cut circles to keep warm until
the little red flag told us another whitefsh
shnd or bluefsh was attracted by the live
In too Hr-t bod
to the peculiar fascination of the ski jump.
can resist anything except temptation and
IN TINS adventure | certainly got all that was
coming to me. Some howl before they are
hurt, others refuse to groan afterward; did
both and will forgive anybody for doing the
same. How many become proficient in
this most daring of winter sports without
breaking their necks Is more than can ex-
plain, IF an octopus could fly he would look
like you,' was Jim's description of my
achievement.
Riding to hounds, properly performed. is
just as serious and absorbing a matter as
railroad wrecking or bank presidenting. For
the time being your mount and the hounds
and the fox are the only considerations in
the world. In "Out With the Gloucester
Hunt" (2). Nelson Robins gives a spirited
description Of this sense of absolute concen-
tration and absorption. He refers to the
annual New Years hunt in Gloucester, Va:
When they hunt in Gloucester, they hunt
And when they say hunt, they don't mean
shotgun and dog, or cold blind in the
marshes; they mean n pack Of hounds a
fox and everybody riding. And, further
more. they don't mean bunch of fancy
horse flesh, trappings and red coats They
mean everything from wind-broken, spav-
ined mule to thoroughbred whose grand
father carried the colors to the front in the
Brooklyn handicap.
l started for the hunt in ample time to
arrive at the point from which the hunt
would start at o'clock Every dog in the
mecns enSe to s@ddesy lust st fhf
had given up all hope of the hounds ever
striking. one of them gave tongue not 20
yards away. Immediately a dozen voices
took up the cry, and in half moment the
whole pack of 50-odd hounds were in full cry
and making music such as grand opera never
dreamed.
There is no sight in the world 80 full of
color. excitement or real sport as that of |
hunting field under such conditions. First |
two fields ahead, was the fox tail straight |
out behind him and running for his very life |
Next running by sight by this time, was the |
pack, about 10 or 20 dogs punched at the |
head and the remainder trailing close be-
hind, and every one giving tongue. Then
came the riders, racing as II their lives de-
pended on it and forgetting that there ever
was such thing as a broken bone or doc
tor or fence.
chase absorbed me and thrilled like violin
string Everything else in life was forgotten,
and my one ambition was to be in at the
death We came to where hedge of cedars
barred the path and there was but one con-
venIent opening, and there rail fence
barred the way four feet high. Eight riders
went at that opening, which was only rails
length wide. Three went down but was
one of the five to land safely on the other
side 1t was the other side OF this bar
rIer that the hounds killed. Two others were
standing in n tumbling sea Of dogs, and one
OF them came out of the ruck bearing limp
gray bundle. Pleasanton furnished the knire,
and the brush was severed.
Cricket On the Hearth
While Germany and England struggle
against each other, it is interesting to read
a German opinion OF English sportsmanship,
and it's relation TO the national life, written
by German residing in England, 10 years
ago (s):
but the sporting press and care for little but
betting and sport / noticed as n strange
thing that you regarded it as perfectly nat
ural for a team of cTicketers from South
Africa to come to England during your war
with the Beers and play cricket while Eng
and was fighting for her life in South Africa.
II these young men had the leisure TO play
cricket they surely had the leisure to fight.
But no; with you sport comes before the
performance OF your duty TO your country, I
read one night on the bills of your evening
press during the Boer war brilliant Victory
'or England" and when bought the paper I
'ound that II was, after all, only an English
eleven that had won cricket match In
Australia,
OF German spoFtsmanship, as set forth by
1 leading exemplar their Crown Prince,
william, there is an interesting
glimpse in an account by D. r. Freeman of
he young Princes hunting trip TO India
iome years ago, when he was widely enter
aimed by British officials az: