'I Believe' and other essays Part 12

Now if we pursue the a.n.a.logy of the confirmed inebriate we are able to detect exactly the same symptoms, though in an infinitely less degree, in the player of games who consciously or unconsciously drinks more than is good for him.

At a critical moment in a game (let us say) the cerebellum or little brain fails for a single instant to transmit its message _via_ the nerve telegraphs of the body to the motor muscles. The catch is missed, the pa.s.s is made half-a-second too late; the little extra dose of alcohol has disorganized the accurate execution of muscular action--and perhaps a match is lost, a sportsman's career definitely injured.

Even in small quant.i.ties--provided always these quant.i.ties are in excess of the reasonable individual need--alcohol has a definite and harmful effect upon the actual performance of a voluntary movement.

In an essay of this length one is compelled to take a broad summarizing view of such a question as it deals with. There has been no s.p.a.ce to enter into dozens of aspects of the bad effect that drink is having upon the sport of the day. But I have said enough to show how great the evil is, and I am absolutely convinced that hundreds of sportsmen will agree with me that the poison is active, the danger imminent.

It is an article of my creed that sport in its best sense means not only the salvation of the individual but the consolidation of the country. All sedentary and spoony sins, effeminacy, softness, and every sort of degeneration _cannot_ form a part of the sportsman's temperament. Neither you nor I have ever known a good sportsman who is mentally "wrong." When eggs are oysters and tea is Chablis we may meet with such a phenomenon, and not till then.

What a preposterous and malignant thing it is, therefore, that a cloud is forming over one of the n.o.blest of modern forces! Every genuine sportsman _must_ get hot and angry in the presence of such a filthy and disturbing parasite as this is. Leagues, societies, confraternities, are all very well in their way. To accomplish, to carry out a _material_ purpose, they are the best possible machinery.

But I am not so sure that they are always as valuable when the point is a moral, or rather an ethical one. Be this as it may, and it is a difficult question to settle, I am sure, at least, that a hundred thousand pamphlets, offices--and a glib secretary--in Victoria Street, even a piece of coloured ribbon as a visible badge of enthusiasm, are not nearly as powerful as a quiet and _individual_ discountenance of what is base and dangerous. A cynical daylight always follows too theatrical enthusiasm.

Sportsmen are not theatrical, and their influence can be exerted without pledges of war and a little book of rules. The reprobate purlieus of sport can be cleansed by any one who is awake to the lurking, growing evil on the one hand, and the high mission, the "commission" is a better word, he holds as a "sportsman" upon the other.

But certainly something must be done. It is too much that we should allow whisky, which is two-thirds amyl-alcohol; beer, which is full of pectins and colouring matter; brandy, which is German potato spirit--all the allied filths--to sap and weaken a national heritage, and the chief preservative of manhood which remains in this neurotic age.

I put a line from Juvenal at the head of this article. Florio translates it--

"A wise man will use moderation, Even in things of commendation."

"Sapiens" should have been translated "sportsman," for it is a synonym in this case.

I do not know whether one should say that drink or betting is the greatest menace to modern sport. The latter, at any rate, permeates it in an alarming degree.

Mealy generalities are of no use, and it is a mere derision to pretend that nearly every branch of sport is not imperilled and besmirched by betting.

Dumb protest is always going on, but sportsmen themselves hear very little of it. Papers devoted to sporting matters do not speak out, and the campaign against betting made by the layman only reaches the sportsman's ears with a m.u.f.fled sound--like a drum beaten under a blanket.

Moreover, if the general public desires anything it always declares solemnly that it is true, the only truth. If it does not, it bawls out that it does not exist and has never existed. The Christian Scientists, for instance, are beginning to say this of Death itself, and the non-sporting majority, who want to make money without earning it, most certainly desire the continuance of betting.

I am quite confident, therefore, that the second half of this essay will be a.s.sailed quite as widely as the first part was, when it appeared in a magazine. In the first part the facts are very carefully authenticated, as they are in this one. Yet the obvious retort was hunted out with all the enthusiasm of a short-sighted bloodhound, and in some quarters one was spoken of as a sensation-monger, who probably made a good thing out of his wares!

That, of course, is very easy to say, but it is not argument. It is nevertheless welcome, because the vigour of the attack always shows the strength of the position.

In connection with the Betting Question, the mind at once turns to horse-racing. There is much to be said in this regard, and I intend to treat of this branch of sport later on in my statement. But I propose to begin with other instances of the evil. Evil it undoubtedly is. The ma.s.sive harmony which the body and mind sound in correlation under the influences of true sport, is made discordant by it.

Like the youth of a nation, sportsmen are, in a sense, the trustees of posterity, and we must unite not only to recognize the fact but to crush the evil.

No sportsman ever takes a puritanical view of betting. It is the sort of person who thinks vaccination immoral, and whose conversation is like a gla.s.s of still lemonade, who thinks that a wager is a sin. This is a fault. I believe that I am voicing the point of view of the sportsman--which is simply the conviction of the sensible man--when I say that there is absolutely no harm in an ordinary wager. You put what you can afford to lose upon the result of a horse-race or a football match. If you win you are rather pleased and you have hurt no one. If you lose you are not hurt in any way, and you have done no more than make a mistake in prescience.

It is necessary to define the difference between a bet which is harmless, and systematic betting which is eventually an attempt to obtain the emoluments of industry without the effort of toil, an attempt which--and here is the very essence of the matter--leads to an abominable dishonesty and the most scandalous abuse.

And now, by graduated steps, let us proceed to a definite presentment of the evil as it exists on the day when you read what I am saying.

You will please observe that one begins upon the small organ and in the minor chord. The swell and the crescendo will start later on, until we have full pedal music and thunder of the big pipes!

It has always been the boast of Oxford and Cambridge men that the Boat-race was in its very nature an event which was utterly removed from the gambling evil. One had a wager on one crew or the other, perhaps--most people did not--but the great rowing match was at least pure of offence in this regard. No public harm was ever done. I do not for a moment say that the Boat-race is provocative of general gambling, or is injured by it, as so many other sports are injured.

But the fact that I am going to relate is symptomatic. It shows how the gambling spirit is growing and radiating until, in one instance at any rate, the Boat-race itself became the incentive to dishonesty.

Upon a dull day on the Stock Exchange, a group of the younger members began to make wagers about this event. The race was known to be a near thing. The next day the wagers were continued until quite a little "market" was established. The prices fluctuated according as the reports of the training of the crews came to hand. The whole thing was but half serious, though in a day or two large sums of money became involved.

One member of this _coterie_, a man who was known to be a sportsman, and one whose word had influence, deliberately circulated a false report as to the time in which Oxford had rowed a course, queered the market, and made a considerable sum.

In regarding the gambling question the attention of the ordinary man is generally focussed upon the race-course and upon the bookmaker, as he squirms his careful way through life. People either forget or don't realize that most of the minor sports are being utterly spoilt and ruined by betting.

Cycle-racing is still a sport which is keenly pursued, though perhaps it has declined somewhat in popularity of late years. In many of the suburban districts round London there are fine cycle tracks, built with all the last improvements which the track-architects of America have discovered. In the Midlands and North of England there are magnificent tracks in nearly all the princ.i.p.al towns.

Cycle-racing is popular, draws enormous crowds, and draws the small bookmaker also. It is a known fact that at any big cycle-race meetings bets are made with all the briskness and regularity possible.

Large sums do not change hands. Half-crowns, sovereigns and half-sovereigns represent the actual ready-money transactions, though in sporting public-houses, for days before a big local event, much greater amounts are wagered.

It is no use for any one to pretend that this is not so--I have innumerable facts. One instance, which may be interesting to set down here, was related to me by a friend who is a builder of scientific miniature rifle ranges. At one time he resided in Manchester, and frequently visited the great pleasure-gardens known as Belle Vue in that city. My informant used himself to make a book on the cycle track in this popular place of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I used to make quite a lot of money," he told me. "It was great fun."

"But how did you do it?" I asked him. "Describe" ...

"Oh, it was quite easy. You waited till the one or two policemen who were strolling about were not near; they were never too anxious to bother one in any case. Then I used to jump up on the railing and say 'I'll take money!' I used to get a lot of punters round in a minute by shouting the odds."

How many readers will call out, "Much ado about nothing." "What harm,"

they will ask, "can the small wagers of a crowd at a Manchester cycle-race possibly do to Sport?"

I reply that these wagers do the very _gravest_ harm, not perhaps to the wagerers, but to real Sport itself. The fact of so many hundreds of people having a financial interest in the success of this or that rider at once puts the rider--a sportsman--in a position of danger and temptation. The low cla.s.s of person who has his being in the side-scenes, the tortuous _coulisses_ of Sport, is always at hand to make a disgraceful bargain with the athlete. Men who are accustomed to regard life as no more than a game of cunning come with gold in their soiled hands. And if the sportsman succ.u.mbs, then not only is a bar sinister charged on his personal escutcheon, but the whole tone of Sport is lowered. Every single instance of this kind fosters a base and ign.o.ble view of Sport, and it _does_ matter very much indeed that Tom loses half-a-crown, d.i.c.k makes five s.h.i.+llings, and Harry comes out "even on the afternoon."

If fools _must_ gamble, why are they not allowed to do it apart from such a fine and splendid thing as Sport? I would far rather see a nasty little Casino established in every town, where fools might lose what they can't afford in the hope of winning what they won't work for, than see them tempting athletes and spoiling the game.

Of two evils choose the least--a make-s.h.i.+ft maxim, but sound in its way!

Very few dwellers in the South and West of England are aware of the extraordinary interest taken in the Midlands and the North in pigeon-flying. This is a good and fascinating pastime. It certainly interests me, and there is something very stimulating to the imagination in it. The careful breeding of strong-pinioned birds, the training of them, the vast distances they cover under changing skies and down the long invisible slants of the wind--it has an appeal, has it not? Certainly it requires real knowledge and care.

I don't suppose that there is any minor sport so utterly spoilt and degraded by gambling as this sport is.

They tell a good story in the North which epitomizes the whole thing.

It is a reprobate yarn, but it is funny.... An old pitman lay a-dying.

He had been a worthy fellow, a very well-known breeder and flyer of pigeons, and his only fault had been that he wagered what, to him, were reckless sums upon the results of pigeon-flying matches.

He lay dying, and the Vicar of the parish sat by his bedside and tried to ease the fear of pa.s.sing from one life to another by telling the man of what might well await him in the next world.

..."Did thee say as I should be a gradely angel, parson?" the old fellow said.

"You've lived a straight life, John."

"Angels 'as wings, don't they?"

"The poets and painters have always imagined so, John."

"Well, I'm goin' first, and I'm reet sorry to say good-bye to thee, Vicar. But I make no doubt thee'll be up there soon theeself. Now I'll tell thee what I'll do when thee arrives. _I'll fly thee for a quid!_"

That makes one laugh--it makes me laugh at least--but it is merely one of those pleasant jests which divert the mind from the contemplation of an evil. Clergymen in the Midlands and the North have told me the saddest stories of humble homes ruined, broken and bankrupt, because of the gambling on pigeon-races. The moral fibre of many a collier and millhand is often destroyed by betting on this sport. Women and children suffer in consequence, rates are raised in the local commonwealth, and once more "sport"--that misunderstood word--is soiled and besmirched in the public mind. And those of us who are capable of taking a broad and comprehensive view of affairs must allow that the sport-hating Puritan has at least got some reason for his distorted point of view.