The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1887. SPORTING RUBBISH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1479, 10 February 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1887. SPORTING RUBBISH.

Of all the idiotic rubbish which daily finds its way into print, ihe most utterly inane and senseless is that with which the newspapers are flooded under the head of "Sporting." Professional bookmakers, jockeys anc? stable boys excepted, nine-tenths of it can be of no. earthly interest to any human being, and ninety-nine out of every hundred newspaper readers are inclined to resent the inordinate space devoted m the average colonial newspaper to such miscalled news. For ourselves, though we receive and have the privilege (?) of paying for as much of it as do most of our contemporaries, we decline to inflict this sort of thing upon our subscribers, consigning it to that useful receptacle the waste-paper basket. Horse-racing is all very well, and the results of some of the principal meetings are ot general interest, that is when there are really first-class horses engaged and important events decided, but as for twopenny-halfpenny country meetings, where the value of the cattle is under forty notes a head, perhaps under twenty, and the stakes themselves a mere bagatelle, we cannot conceive that it matters a traction to anybody what are the winners or what are the losers. Positively, to our mind, there would be infinitely more fun m a genuine donkey rase, especially if ridden by sweeps — meaning they of the chimney and not of the course. Even m the case of first-class meetings, all the general public wants to know are the results,* and we do not believe that anybody beyond the owners of horses, the jockeys, the bookmakers, and a few amateur betting men, cares a jot about the weights, and scratchings, and all sorts of things, which Press telegraphic correspondents seem to think of more importance than anything else under the sun. And yet, day after day, this sort of stuff is telegraphed at so much per hundred words to the journals of the colony, to "the infinite disgust of most, if not all, of those who have the pleasure (?; of paying the wire charges. For example, only yesterday we received from Napier a message of well on for two hundred words, giving all the weights declared for the various events at the Napier autumn meeting, which could only interest the limited class above referred to, and who can obtain all the information they want from the columns of the Referet or other papers specially devoted to the sporting interest We did not think it worth while to load our columns with matter useful only to so select a few, and we feel sure that the great majority of newspaper readers would prefer its omission. This, however, is not by any means at all a bad case — indeed, m view of the importance of the Napier meeting the sending of the message was pardonable* enough — it being at our option to print it, or not, after receipt', but we cannot say so much for another message which reached us on the same day from Dunedin, and which supplied the startling infor/natton that "Patrician and Derwenter were out before daylight, and there being no spectators it is impossible to say what was done?" Really now this is too distressingly sensational. Then follow particulars of how " later on Puck did a long sweat, while Quibble, Silvermark, and Lady Ellen joined him, each m succession," that " Ike and Argonaut did slow woik together, and Trapper followed suit alone," that " Molly Bawn and Garibaldi were treated to two miles at half-speed," that Sinclair, too, had "a long sweat, with Mokoia for a companion for two miles, and St. Swithin for the rest of the journey," while the awfully interesting news is added that " St. Ives covered a couple of miles slow." Is that sort of news of any value at all to any living being we should like to. know? We don't believe that it is, even to the horsiest of horsey men, and we protest I against such silly stuff being wired to any other than those newspapers whose special business it is to chronicle such information (!). Recently, we believe, the Press Association instructed its agents to " spread themselves" m the way of collecting news, and the caution may have been necessary, as often much legitimate news is missed that might ond should be sent, but if the " spreading out" is to lead to a deluge of trash such as that under notice then all we can say is that a warning to the agents to " contract themselves" will become an imperative necessity.