CRY FOR PLAYGROUNDS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 164, 5 April 1919, Page 9

CRY FOR PLAYGROUNDS

« DEEP-SEATED REASONS DETERIORATION OF THE RACE MR. JAMES DOYLE'S IDEAS. "I could not help thinking,",said Mr, James Doyle, Chief City Inspector, and an old athlete of note, "when hearing the boys state their reasons to the Res.erves Committee for more playgrounds and freer access to thoso that wo have, that they misseo: the real point. Their immediate needs are to supply grounds for the increasing number of members of athletic or football clubs, and they leave it at that. They are right as far as they go, but they do not go far enough. With ,the aid of a little vision they would have been able to mako, out a case for playgrounds that would be so strong that they must win. I felt as I sat there that I would like to say something, but 1 let it go. Playgrounds, ■ and more playrounds, are' needed, not so much as a luxury or pleasure, but as the ono means of staving oft' the deterioration of the race—a oelerioration that is too evident to admit of argument. .If anything more than another went to prove it, it was tho average standard measurements of the men recruited in England for tho war. The disclosure, of HIIS must be remembered, when the doctors declared that it would take a. year to build up the men from factory towii9 into fighting material. Tho spirit of old England was in them, as the result of tho war showed, but the oieadfully unnatural life of the great factories, breathing air that was never pure, away from. God's sunshino and the life-giving breezes of tho hills and dells, had slowly •brought down the physical standard. And it is going on all the time. England at one time produced the champions.of tho world. That was yeoman England, when the men lived in the open ana: tilled the land, and felled tho forest, without the aid of machinery. They were great men of thew and sinew, faered by all the world. ' r 'he coming of the machinery age. has sapped tho muscle and thew of the race to a very great extent,'and wo now have to cultivate our muscles and strengthen them through the medium of sport—in other words, play. , "There was a time, not so. very long ago, when England turned out great oarsmen, and the champion sculler of England was a man in the land; when almost any average Englishman could pull a good oar, chiefly, with the great mass of the people, because oarsmanship was the means of propelling a small boat, ond England is an island. Then along came the steam launch, and afterwards the motor boat, and rowing as a working exercise is scarcely known, and tho sport is a deatf, or at least a dying, one. Harriers used to flourish over the whole countryside; long distance runs were a fine healthy thing for young fellowsit gave them great lung power and general endurance; but along came tho push bicycle, on which more ground could be got over in quicker time with less exertion, and the roads of England and every other country twenty-fivo years ago 6warmed with them. Then pushing a bike, became too strenuous, and the motor biko proved to bo just tha thing. ' It relieved the rider of all exertion, except tho unconscious strain on tho nerves, the result of concentration on the track ahead, and the vibrant tension on the wrists. So the long distance rimner and the long-distance walker fell to tho lure of the motor-bicycle and the niotor-car, and gradually the process is telling on the race. Machinery becomes a fashion of ease. People eat large dinners, roll down to the theatre in' a taxi, eat chocolates all the evening, and Toll home again in a taxi, to probably vartake of a rich supper. Then they wonder why they become ill! The wonder to me is that they live as long as they do. And these are some of the parents of the race—don't forget that! How can you expect fine muscular' development from the man who regards motor-cycling or motor-driving an exercise?

"In our everyday life the same craving after easo is being satisfied. There was a time when many thousands of workers would walk from Newtown to their work in town of a morning and walk home again in .tho evening, and feel all tho better for it. But, bless you,,they feel themselves aggrieved now because the trams are so crowded, and would sooner lean against a door and wait twenty minutes than walk the distance, even though they have been sitting the long day through. And, of course, there should bo a lift in every building. How can such young fellows and girls develop themselves as they should under sueh artificial circumstances? Rational exorcise is needed daily all through life. If one could only impress that on people, and get them to take that little bit of steady bodily exercise, what a world of misery and suffering from indigestion,' general debility, anaemia, etc., would be saved, and what a marvellous effect it would have on the race. I am over seventy years of age. I don't think I look .it, but the fact remains, and to-day and every day I go through moderate exercises, and feel and know that they are helping to keep me fit—fit and well and able to do my. work at seventy. "In my day I was accounted a fair runner, jumper, and weight-lifter, but I

was a weed compared with most of the tig athletes on the West Coast. They often used to call me 'little Jimmy Doyle,' all men ranging from Cft. 7in., and bit; in proportion-giants of men. 1 tell you, you don't see such men today, and it 'is. because the race is doteriorating. 'fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, there used to be great gatherings in the North of England, at such towns as AVigan, Carlisle, and Liverpool, where the great wrestlers used to assemble to tho number,of three and four hundred, and people' by the hundred thousand used to so to see them—to see prize men, just as we now go to see prizo fowls, or cows, or horses, or dogs. We go in for 'breed' in everything but men—and the. men (and the women) are the lace. The pity of it! The blacksmith of sixty is one of your finest men. Take almost any one of them, and note tho development of his arms, chest, and legs. That is because, year in and year out, he is tapping away with a fourpound hammer, or lifting weight. He can do that for eight hours, and never feel it at sixty. Thou take tho other type—the man of sedentary employ, who gradually becomes affluent enough to take things easy. Seo him at fifty at the. seaside almost any summer's .day. His shoulders have fallen forward, his hack has rounded, and his knees are groggy. Those- are the'.results of the life the man has led, and his almost entire neglect of proper exercise. If ho had swung a hammer or an axe, or even taken half-au-hour a day with the dumbbells, or club?, he. wmiid be a different being. Ho would be straight and sturdy, and most probably would have 11 better digestion, and be able to enjoy life all the more. "To come down to essentials, Nature is the great teacher.. She teaches everything in life how to fend for itself. Watch kittens or puppies or linn cubs at plav, and vou will seo what I mow. They are gradually becoming lit to take their place in life-thrir play leaches them the game of life, and so they are ablo to hold their own.' But with mail, 'Nature has been superseded by an artificial civilisation, which cannot be avoided and so wo have to make the best of things, and supply playgrounds in plenty for the young men and women, so as to keep the raco fit- for the struggles that may be ahead. At tho same time,let me beseech men and women of nil ages to take some exercise every day,.and so put voars on to then lives and happiness into their frames."