HENCE THESE TEARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 927, 21 March 1930, Page 9

HENCE THESE TEARS

WHEN STRONG MEN WEAKEN SARRON FOLLOWS PRECEDENT “Talk not of grief till thou hast sec-i the tears of warlike men .” — Mrs. Hemans. When Pete Sarron, the tough Yankee: feather-weight, burst into tears at the sensational end of his fight with Tommy Donovan, he was but following a well established precedent. Our American cousins are an emotional breed. Instances of American pugilists sobbing bitterly over unexpected reverses are common enough to excite no particular comment in their homeland. Only a •week or two ago Jack Sharkey, the “Garrulous Gob,”-distinguished himself by an unmanly display of hj'sterical weeping and cursing after his fight with Phil Scott. And this tendency to easy tears is by no means confined to pugilists. Alonzo Stagg, greatest of all American football coaches, tells of a Chicago university team “going into a huddle” and sobbing in unison over some adverse de- j cision on the part of a referee. A year or so back the London illustrated papers panted photographs of a Yankee sculler, defeated in the Dia- 1 mond Sculls at Henley, being led away by his father, crj'ing brokenly into his sleeve, for all the world like any five-year-old primary school kiddie. Weeping in defeat, of course, is not by any means confined to the Y’ankees. ! Some' of the Continental nations take | their defeats to heart in the same | thorough-going manner. Georges Carpentier, the one-time idol of France. | dissolved into tears at the ringside { more than once. In one of Kipling’s i short stories he makes the Yankee nari rator remark that, “Fer a race that i fights so well, the Dutch cry mighty | easy.” i Crying unde** the lash of defeat is ! happily not a characteristic of British j | sportsmen. In a long association with j all sorts of sport in New Zealand, I i have not seen a countryman "lift up j his voice” over “a licking.” Long ago, in 1897 to be precise, a New Zealand Rugby team touring in New South Wales took a salutary licking in the second of three test matches. There . was tremendous jubilation in New South Wales, though the Sydney “Bulletin,” more outspoken then than now, reminded its readers that “the hotel table and the little scented handkerchief had probably done more to defeat the New Zealanders than the efforts of its countrymen.” However that may be, the Rugby en- ! thusiasts of New South Wales were so ! “bucked” by the win that they would • not hear of defeat in the final test. I The New Zealanders, however, bent or. j revenge, “scorned delights and lived laborious days” to such purpose that j they literally overwhelmed the Sydneysiders, winning by 26 to 3. And cer--1 tain members of the home side, their i high hopes dashed, wept aloud. HON I KARUWHA.