INTERNATIONAL RUGBY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 142, 8 February 1932, Page 7

INTERNATIONAL RUGBY

Geoffrey

Tebbutt.)

'1 ' f ENGLAND BEATEN BY SOUTH AFRICA'S BIG FORWARDS. INCOME TAX HUMOtfR. (Speeially Written for the "Post"

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LONDON, January 5. Seventy thousand Londoners trekked to Twiekenham last Saturday, and a good many of those tbousands worked as hard as any Rugby forward to keep their hard-earned standing-room for a view of the England-South Africa international, which the Springboks won by seven points — a try and a field goal — to nil. There were also a good many spectators turned away from the gates of the famous ground, which was unfortunate, for the game, though not spectacular, would have afforded them a lesson in some oecasionally-forgot-ten principles of Rugby.. I should like to have seen more frequent application of the New Zealand prin- j ciple of the value of possession of i the ball, and the addition of some ! Australian trieks in attack might have made the match more pleasing to the eye. But everybody agreed that the Springbok forwards had a lesson to teach in forward play. These big Afrieans brought joy to the hearts of i those who contend that the first duty of a forward is to shove hard in the scrums — to "pig it," as the unapologetic, expressive saying goes. And they did shove! They shoved the valiant, hut outweighted, English pack clean off the hall time after time, and it was a great tribute to the defence of England's baeks, and their attaclcing powers on starvation rations, that South Africa recorded only one try. England went down, as Wales and Ireland had gone down, before the supremacy of the South African, forwards. The winners' hacks could not have asked for more opportunities than they got, and I think a more polished side would have made much better use of them. But there is no gainsaying the South African victory. The forwards were doubtless chiefly to thank for it, and, as New Zealand and Australia, as well as Britain, have learned, eight South African forwards constitute more than merely eight-fifteenths of a Rugby side. Changing Fleet Street. Journalists of the picturesque, if rather hedraggled, Fleet Street of half a century ago would find it today yielding, as easily as any other part of London, to the necessity of buildings appropriate to the times. The old is not automatically beautiful, the new not necessarily without heauty, and, even in my own relatively short experience of the Street of Adventure, its appearanee has changed for the good.. No longer does it seem that a dingy building with rat-eaten staircases and' tiny, ill-ventilated cells of rooms may be excused its squalor because it is a newspaper office. The whitelygleaming "Daily Telegraph" ofiice is a landmarlc of the new Fleet Street, and, a stone's-throw from it is rising the ultra-modern establishment in which the "Daily Express" — Lord Beaverbrook's gift to his son — is to he housed. Buildings disappear and new ones replace them so ratpidly that one can sCarcely recollect what had been there before; I cannot, now, in memory, place the exact location of the coffee-stall in Fleet Street in which I had my first meal in London. Veterans, in sentimental moments, sigh for the days when messengers from Westminster galloped up slushy Fleet Street and slid from, their saddles with the Parliamentary reports which then constituted the hulk of the newspapers; for the days before the Cheshire Cheese had hecome a tourist resort and automatic buffets penetrated the stronghold of the Bohemians, and before advertising agents and special correspondents received knighthoods, and their proprietors coronets. But Fleet Street to-day is too husy for Bohemianism. More yirile than evei'j it marchcs with the stirling times it records, as fascinating as ever it was in the days of the newspaper giants. They, like all the best giants, lived in the past. One cannot beCome a properly certified giant until one has long heen in the grave. The Skeleton at the Feast. With a fa;nt suspicion that some of it is but patriotic fiction, one reads in these early days of an unprosperous New Year of queues of taxpayers waiting eagei-ly to pay: their dues to the Inland Revenue Department, and of others magnanimously waiving aside proffered refunds on taxes so that the nation shall henefit. Still, let us hope that there are such people, and that theirs will not be the experience of the too-willjng horse. Income tax in England has ceased to be a joke to any but the professional humourist, and even the stage laughter-maker probahly fails to see the fun when he receives his own peculiarly malicious-looking buff envelo'pe. Income-tax was the skeleton at most of England's Christmas feasts, the spectre behind all the regular and virtuous rejoicing of Yuletide. It .is not, however, beyond the wit of man to make capital of the direst calamity, and I have heen admiring the use to which one poster artist has been putting the incojne-tax hlow. The sharp features of Viseount Snowden of Ickornshaw, looking particularly realistic ahove a butcher's outfit, appear on an advertisement for a coolcing extract. He is shown smilingly wielding a large ehopper, and underneath is the apt line "... makes all cuts palatahle." Would. it were true outside the realms of poster advertising. The Coupon Age. How cheaply would it he possible to live were one tp accept all the ' "something for nothing" offers made in coupon form? The thought is prompted-.by a 1932 burst of activity on the part of the popular newspapers to excel oue another in the fortunes they . offer to pay out to people who have their nearest relatives killed • in a railway accident, always provided that, cautiously, they had made themselves registered readers of the journal in question. If one were to smoke what I personally consider a vjle hrand of cigarette long and hard enough, one might

take a house unfurnished, and, in the course of years, have it furnished from eigarette coupon gifts; Going outside the range of eigarette coupons, might add to the household n pedigreed dog (free) by giving it what the Dog Editor considers the most suitahle name; the luck of a draw might provide a free railway seasonticket; and the luck of another draw in Dublin might put one beyond the need for consideration of such trumpery things as household furniture and season-tickets. And then . . . One wonders whether saturatior point is -not near in the "something for nothing" trade.