SPORTING MASCOTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 June 1924, Page 1

SPORTING MASCOTS.

There are practical-minded persons who call faith in mascots “stuff and nonsense. 1 ’ They arc no doubt chuckling merrily over the defeat of superstitious Billy Hindley, of Bolton, who has just heen beaten at tho Ring, London, by level-headed Johnny Curley, of Lambeth.

Hilly went into the fight with a silver cross in his belt. He battled for nineteen rounds with his mind at ease, and his confidence in his mascot was stronger than his right fist. lie was vanquished, hut if you dared jeer at bis superstition he would very probably knock you down. Billy lias tiic faith of the true mascot-believer, and a dozen defeats would not weaken it, says F. Prince-AA’liite in the Daily Alail.

Ho is in excellent and numerous company. There are ehanuists among the iollowers of every sport under tiro sun. ] know of women who would .shudder at the thought of driving their cars an inch unless they wero wearing a charm of some sort. There ate some who pin their faith to a piece of “lucky” jade; others-wear on the little finger of the left hand a ring reputed to have an eerie history—preferably one Hint has come undamaged, with its previous owners, througn many accidents.

Then tTTere tire women who will not hunt without a mascot—generally some little article of jewellery with sentimental value, hut sometimes a few hairs out of a black cat’s tail worn in a plain locket. .Scoffers might laugh themselves into hysterics, hut it would not move these superstitious Dianas. Racing motorists are devoted believers in mascots; some have heen known to refuse to race on a track on discovering that they have left their mascots at home. Their most common emblem of faith in the Unseen Forces is it gold coin given to them by women who love them.

For all their dependence on quick sight and responsive muscles footballers are not innocent of superstition. There are many who run on to the field with confidence all the greater because they have tucked some loved woman’s handkerchief into their bosom. Cricketers, too, have a weakness for carrying to the pitch a woman’s K>ft. - Yachtsmen are notoriously superstitious. At tlie close of C'owes AA’eeU you may hear a thousand reasons why their small craft lost or won—all of them based on the behaviour of mascots, such as eats or miniature Chinese gods.

But of all who take risks at Hie bidding of the “sporting instinct” airmen are undeniably the most superstitious. A friend of mine who faced death a thousand times as a night-bomber in the war was afraid to leave solid earth unless, purring beneath his warm coat as he crouched in the cockpit, a jetblack kitten went with him up towards the, twinkling stars.

And only yesterday the wife of Squadron-Leader A. Stuart Alaclaren fixed a mascot to his big amphibious ’plane before the start of his world flight. It was a small brass figure of an airman holding his “joy-stick.” “For luck,” she said, and believed it.