The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1916-09-13
SUPPOSE It WERE
MATTY, COBB, WAGNER
WHO DIED IN BsyONET CHARGE
ON THE EUROPEAN BAT
TIE FRONT.
by j. W tBUD) PEGLER.
United Press staff Correspondent

LONDON, Aug 20-tBy maiD -
Picture the local ball club down on
the border tossing bombs at Mexi-
can trenches; the football. tennis
and track star men suddenly whisk-
ed from the field o. sport.
Relatively. that is what England
is up against. Sport has been put on
ice till the bigger game with X. Bill
of Potsdam--a game transcending
all sport--has been played to a
CORY finish.
II American ball passs we're to be
suddenly deserted. with no one to
beat back the weeds from the infield
and the papers daily were telling
how Matty. or Cobb. or Wagner died
in a bayonet charge: If sportsmen's
battalions of the eountry's keenest
athletes were being punished under
artillery, then the American sport
fan. might appreciate the English
lsltudtion. ~
| In a small way the gents of the
scrambled ear still manage to oblige,
but as rule they divvy their small
purses with hospital funds. Sport
ing meets, field days end football
are nix. Soldier events bring out
| some of the best of the Empires
surviving talent. but the public at
tends not so much in expectation of
q contest as to kid itself along and
give up for the wounded and desti-
tute.
English football differs from the
American game, but the Cedrics and
Cyrils are rough performers just the
same Mostly the college players
come from first families--that Sc
ries of outer ripples around the big
social splash--for ''rugger" is not
| for the ordinary gink.
Their gameness knocks the props
from under some mythical, Ameri-
can conceptions. Percy may call
his friend "deah boy and turn up
| his wrist to see the time, but how
he battles is story told by the Vic
toria Cross and the ID. S. O. The
list of athletic gods who have fallen
in action, the Mattys and Cobbs of
England, daily grows longer. Others
| by hundreds have been relegated to
the side lines for good.
There's not much fear for the oars
men. Englishmen think they're Ito
per cent good in a shell anyway and
patronizingly tell an American why.
| It's because their school striplings
are put In a shell and taught to row,
taught to like it so well they get the
eager fidgets when they see an oar.
Therefore the home guard logician
figures that SO long as there are
school boys and oars. England will
boss the ripples.
The school plan,' says an Eng
lish papps with gray hair and a rus
SCI, wattled neck, '.is what gives US
an advantage ON the water and pre-
serves our men l.. later life. Prac-
tiee makes not only skill but perma-
nent physique as we'll" A Sunday
on tho Themes confirms what he
says of physique, for there the old
boy who looks all il but isn't will
pull an or half the day taking his
family for an outing
While English athletes claim SUI
|periority for their style of rowing
and coaching they wobble in trying
to match up to the claim with Capt.
Guy Nichalsl showing at Yale last
year. The alibi is that Nichals
couldn't be expected to teach his
charges what they should have learn
ed as kids and make champion oars
men of them in the time allowed
him.
Soccer has hit the skids The
kicking game is stunned more and
more BY the sport e 'ect because the
lower classes have, had the dis
tressing gall to take ii up. 1t would
play merrycll with the fitness OF
thing ii team of uncouth steve
dores mixed with a college squad.
So the game is falling from favor
with the athletic all highest and the
chance OF deadly parallel between
the uppers and the lowers is slight.
Jimmy Wilde, the fly weight,
holds the spot in boxing. Wilds is
smaller than split second and like
most flyweights hits like Stanley
Ketchel. Clever fighters weighing
as high as 10 pounds have curled
up on the floor under the crushing
attack of this "a FOUNDER. He gave
away ten pounds to Johnny Hughes,