"BE A SPORT!"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2476, 1 June 1915, Page 7

"BE A SPORT!"

WHAT DOES THE PHRASE MEAN?

[By Smios.]

"Be a sport!" Is there any sialic expression, used with equal freedom by both sexes, so common a trick of speech, and so variously applied? indeed. the term is used under such a wide range of circumstances that the average sober-minded citizen is at times hard put to it to iinow precisely what tho term means. Turning to the dictionary—in the light of tho modern misuse of words, one ot the most misleading authorities—a "sport" is a game or amusement, or to divert and "make merry," "to frolic," "to trifle." These definitions may or may not fit the term "a sport" 111 certain circumstances, but there are other applications that are quite deluding. During the recent Cafe Chantant ac the Town Hall, all tho channiug girls who were working so earnestly m a good cause urged their victims to "be sports." It did not matter if he or she had spent Ss. or £8, they were not "spores" unless they invested with the fair persecutor then "on the job." It she failed fo make "a sport" out of him by the simple process of extracting a shilling or sixpence, the probability is that she would tell her friends that So-and-So was "no sport." If he happened to spring the necessary coin of the realm, then he became a "good sport" right an ay. It's funny, but it's true. But that is only one way of measuring up "the sport." Many young fellows are urged to be "sports" in a sense that they must drink or gamble to attain that pinnacle of eminence in the estimation of their associates. When tho term in contemplation means being uuseliish and generous, then it .? ® n . 6 ' f ree > au d easy expression of estimation, but there are so many cases where the term is not so used that it loses its value in that regard. One of its most evil interpretations is when one is being encouraged to do what ho (or she) knows is perfectly wrong. "Be a sport" under such circumstances simply means —do that which you know you should not do. Of recent weeks, however, the sportv term has been used in quite another and a proper sense. There is something in being a national "sport"—iu taking a sporting chance in defence of the Empire. The fighters of other' countries are not given the chanco in "be sports," as their military systems aro upon a compulsory service, not a volunteer base, and, willy-nilly, the younger men have to go forward to shoot, <uid be Shot at bv the enemy. Our system is a voluntary one so far. In the meantime the chance still remains t-a every single young man who is medically fit to "be a sport" in the best sense of the popular phrase. Later on that chance may not occur—every fit man may have to go to tha front.

A stock sale will be held at Masterton 011 Wednesday. Jles6rs. W. and G. Turnbull and Co. are the agents, to whom further entries of stock may be sent. Sfesrs. E. Johnston and Co., auctioneers, have received instructions from tho Registrar of the Supremo Court at Wellington to auction four undivided fifth parts of shares of and in all those leasehold promises, being all that piece of land situated in Section 285 of Wellingtou City. Tlie sale takes place en July I.

Tomlera aro invited by the Defence Department for tiie simply of lfl|)0 leather headstalls. Tenders close o\ June 9.