The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-08-31

score to get squirrels occasionally
caught as the trees fell.
More ingenious were the Tasmani-
ans, VIII would clear forest oasis by
burning, wait for the grasses to grow
and attract animals, and they would
set fire to a barricade of brush they
arranged in the meantime, V it'll exits
near whicl they would take their stand
and spear the frightened animals as
they sought to escape.
Some African tribesmen camou-
flaged their spear-heads with bird
feathe Fuegians attained a low
visibility by daubing themselves with
mud and clay Florida Indians donned
skin and horns of deer to enable them
to approach their prey.
Ways of setting traps for animals
and of poisoning spears were known
thousands of years before Christ. The
sportsmanIike Greeks shrank from use
of poisoned darts n warfare for the
same reason that they regarded arch
cry as q savage practice in combat.
Even in war they declined to use in
struments which would give one side
an unfair advantage.
1t was long before the horse, ridden
so skillfully by the Arab and the
Moor, became either a beast of bur-
den or mans plaything at the races.
And whatever the civilized opinion of
bull-fghting, that sport is far cry
from either the combat to death of
human beings or the lack-sport diver
sion of watching two animals tear
each other to pieces. The Spaniard
will defend his national pastime by
citing that the matador runs a far
greater risk than the hunter of the
biggest game, with the advantage of
his firearms.
Horse-racing is another sport that
dates back to remote antiquity. Prob
ably the French were the pioneers in
turf sport as practiced in modern
times, but it was natural that the Eng
lish, with their love of outdoors and of
animals, should have cultivated the
horse for the race as they did the dog
for the hunt. James / seems to have
been the first royal patron Of racing.
Boxing and Wrestling.
Boxing and wrestling are the more
humanized forms of individual con-
tests Of strength. Naturally the pro-
gram Of he original Olympic games,
veritable encyclopedias of ancient
sports, included boxing and wrestling.
Moreover the Greeks had one game.
the pancrace, which combined both.
Wrestling, at least, is much older
than Greece, as indicated by the bouts
pictured on tombs along the Nile.
In Greece, boxing fell into disfa-
vor in Sparta for an unusual reason.
The Greeks had developed sportsman
like rules for the game, eliminating
kicking, biting and ear-pulling. and
the bout closed when one boxer at
mitted his defeat. Lycurgus held 1t
improper for any Spartan to acknowl-
edge defeat, even in game!
The Japanese have been devoted to
both sports for ages. Sukune, Hack
enschmidt of Nippon, in the days when
John was foretelling the coming Of
Christ, was deified, and from wres-
thing jui-jitsu evolved. Boxing today
is extremely popular throughout the
empire.
Jack Broughton, English father of
boxing" as it is practiced today, is
believed to have invented the modern
boxing glove and the division into
rounds, but he scorned to train in or
der to meet a butcher named Slack.
who belied his name with blow like
a cleaver, and put the idol of British
sportdom In the ex-champion class.
A writer of the Sixteenth century
called football a "devilish pastime"
and charged it with melting ENVY and
sometimes brawling, murder and homi-
eide"
Nevertheless, by the time of Charles
II football had become firmly estab-
lished at Cambridge. 1t was ever
held in high esteem in Ireland. There,
when all other sports were prohibited
for archery's sake, lonely the great
footballe" was exempt. Women Joined
with the men in playing it on Shrove
Tuesdays. So many participated that
few kne the whereabouts Of the ball.
An expedient which not so long ago
aroused furore In the American
sporting world, was adopted by
player, who shook out the shavings
with which the balls of those DAYS
were stuffed and carried it under his
shirt to the goal.
Abandoned as general pastim be-
cause of its roughness, it was re-
tanned in colleges until, with the past
half century, it sprang into renewed
popularity in greatly modified form.
The British carried football into
Jerusalem when they recovered the
sacred city. Missionaries have taught
il TO heather tribes