ATHLETICS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2565, 10 June 1881, Page 2

ATHLETICS.

SECOND EDITION

The following extract is from the “Lancet"- :—“Whilst we deprecate unnecessary risks of all kinds, a certain amount of danger is inseparable from all kinds of athletic sports. The cricket field, the hunting field, the racecourse, and the arena of athletic sports —all number a good many maimed, or even killed, among their votaries; but the undoubted value of athletic exercises to the individual and the nation more than counterbalance the occasional mishaps which must inevitably occur. There are many pastimes infinatelymore ruinous to health than those we have enumerated. Dancing night after night, in crowded and non-ventilated rooms, in among the most unwholesome and dangerous practices of modern life, and kills infinitely more persons (though more indirectly) either than the “ liugby ” or the Association Football Rules. The men who are killed by silting in publichouses, playing billiards or cards till the small hours and drinking “B. and S.” are not held up as a warning, while . their ; fellows who happen to be killed while engaged in some sport which has a dash of nobility and pluck, are spoken of as frightful examples of this or that amusement. If by undue roughness or by unfairness one man kills another at a game, the ordinary law is sufficient to deal with him. This is enough protection, and wo very much object to return to anything approaching the sumptuary laws of a bygone age.”