AN EXCUSE FOR DRINKING

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 169, 4 August 1937, Page 9

AN EXCUSE FOR DRINKING

— Presp Asaociation.)

Severe Press Coirunent

(B.v Telegraph

| DUNEDIN, Last Night. I ,The Otago Daily Times, in an edijtorial on the Ranfurly Shield inatch, says: "The huge attendance at Carisbrook was, in the main, orderly aud •well behaved, but it is questionable whether the elevation of sport to such a position as first-class Rugby football has come to occupy in the publie mind is desirable. Organised interest on such a scale, as was witnessed on this occasion and as on similar occasions in the past, was almost certain to lead to excesses on the part of less responsible elements. "It is not an edifying thing to see whole groups of visitors under the infiuence of liquor. It is a distressing and disturbing thing to see young men Ln particular making a football match an excuse for nnseemly license and public parade of folly. Interest in sport cannot bo wholesome when it thus expressea itself. The game provided a luanly spectacle, but reflected in street conduct there were aspects of the gathering attracted by the match that did not suggest manliness so much as an indifferent sense of moral resptfnsibility in the country's youth."