THE BRITISH ATHLETE'S VADE-MECUM.

Question. What is the specialité of a Briton?
Answer. That given him by belonging to a race of born athletes.
Q. Can any member of the human family outside the British Isles do anything in the shape of sport?
A. Only imperfectly. However, Australians are good at cricket, and Americans have been known to adequately train racehorses.
Q. Can you give any reason for their partial success?
A. Yes. Australians are our first-cousins, and Americans our first-cousins once removed.
Q. Then you consider them of the same stock as the true Briton?
A. Quite so. Hence their prowess in the field.
Q. What do you think of foreigners?
A. That they are typified by "Moosoo."
Q. When you speak of "Moosoo," to whom do you refer?
A. To the average French duffer, who has about as much knowledge of sport as a baby in arms.
Q. Are all foreigners duffers?
A. All; without exception.
Q. How do they go out shooting?
A. With a horn, a couteau de chasse, a toy game-bag, and a decorated poodle.
Q. Can they row at all?
A. Not seriously. They can paddle a little, but have no more idea of pulling than the man in the moon.
Q. And yet, did not a Paris crew beat a Thames Eight, on the Seine, early in the present year?
A. Yes; but that was because there was some good reason or other for the English defeat.
Q. It could not have been, of course, because the French Eight was better than their visitors?
A. Certainly not.
Q. But is not that the view you would adopt if you were dealing with two English crews?
A. Why, certainly; but this was a race between Britons and Frenchman, and the former could not naturally be beaten by the latter on their own merits.
Q. Why not?
A. Because, as a matter of fact, they couldn't.
Q. And so your opinion of the superiority of Britons over foreigners is unalterable?
A. Of course. I should not be a Briton if it were not so.