SPORTS AND WOWSERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4849, 6 July 1925, Page 4

SPORTS AND WOWSERS.

TIIEIB DISTINCTIVE FEATURES. MR. L. M. ISITT’S DEFINITION’S; Speaking in Dunedin, at the anniversary celebrations of the Methodist Central Mission a few days ago, Mr L>. M. Isitt, M.P., dealt entertainingly with the subject of "Sports and Wowsers.” Mr Isitt opened his address by asking his hearers what was the cause of the two types known as “sports” and "wowsers.” For some years past, he added, a eeri.ain section of the population lias been arbitrarily dividing their fellows into those two sections and at an early stage of the game ne had been entered as a wowser. He was not an ordinary or common variety of wowser, however. It had been his endeavour to find out for some time .what a wowser was,, and he had never done so. One man had told him that a wowser was “a feminine man, who did not believe in sport.” “But I believe in sport,” said Mr Isitt. “I have played football and cricket, and many other games, so I can’t be that kind of wowser.” Another explanation that had been vouchsafed him was that a wowser was a faddist. Well, he had heard a ■well-known man addressed, as a crank, and his reply was that he would rather be a crank than a tank. “Similarly,” said . the speaker, 1 would rather be a wowser than a

“What is a sport ?” Mr Isitt asked. -He is a man who plays the game, who doesn’t whine when he is losing, and who doesn’t get a swelled head when he is winning, and, above all. he plays for the team and not for his oZn personal glory and aggrandisement. You must pass the ball and let your friend score the try rather than hang on to it and risk losing all. That is sport in athletics. What is sport in the game of life ’ It is much the same. Religion is part of the game of life, and yet there are many who think that it is a careful saving o .their own souls. That, to my mind, is a most narrow-minded belief. People who think that don’t know the •A B C of religion. The task God has given the people is. the salvation of the 'people, and to do this we must live not for ourselves but for the. uplift and benefit of humanity. ’ There were other people, he continued, who had no religion because 'they believed in nothing they did not understand. Such a man as that was more of a fool than he ought to. be. A scientist might tell us that a stai was millions of miles away, and that it took so many million years for its light to reach the earth. Could we understand that? Could we understand space—north, south, east, and west ? The true sport in the game of life followed the true sport in athletic life. He was the team player who played not for his own glorification. His life God had given him for his fellows. In the name of God he fought for every movement that lifted men but of the mire of evil into the redeemed bf God. That was the true

sport. “I say that I am. a wowser," Mr Isitt added, ‘‘because I hate drink and gambling. This infernal trade is still being left in existence by decent men, who look upon it from the point of view that it doesn’t hurt them. What about your team work ? Where does that come in In the interests of the children you should work together.” Mr Isitt also referred to his fight in the House against the increase of totalisator permits, and yet, during the past twelve months, £11,000,000 liad been put through the machines. Down had come the sports who had wanted additional permits—and had ot ba incd them. Anyway, what was the 'sport of racing ? The jockey himself rode a race, but lie was ‘‘a wee youth with his cap and colours and cigarette: a youth Who read the lleferec and thought lie was a sport.” In conclusion, the speaker pointed out that, if people lived only on the animal level, seeking a good .time atul social position, .then they would in their time find that they had only taken out of life what they had put into it.