But certainly something must be done. It is too much that we should allow whisky, which is two-thirds amyl-alcohol; beer, which is full of pectins and colouring matter; brandy, which is German potato spirit—all the allied filths—to sap and weaken a national heritage, and the chief preservative of manhood which remains in this neurotic age.
I put a line from Juvenal at the head of this article. Florio translates it—
“A wise man will use moderation,
Even in things of commendation.”
“Sapiens” should have been translated “sportsman,” for it is a synonym in this case.
I do not know whether one should say that drink or betting is the greatest menace to modern sport. The latter, at any rate, permeates it in an alarming degree.
Mealy generalities are of no use, and it is a mere derision to pretend that nearly every branch of sport is not imperilled and besmirched by betting.
Dumb protest is always going on, but sportsmen themselves hear very little of it. Papers devoted to sporting matters do not speak out, and the campaign against betting made by the layman only reaches the sportsman’s ears with a muffled sound—like a drum beaten under a blanket.
Moreover, if the general public desires anything it always declares solemnly that it is true, the only truth. If it does not, it bawls out that it does not exist and has never existed. The Christian Scientists, for instance, are beginning to say this of Death itself, and the non-sporting majority, who want to make money without earning it, most certainly desire the continuance of betting.
I am quite confident, therefore, that the second half of this essay will be assailed quite as widely as the first part was, when it appeared in a magazine. In the first part the facts are very carefully authenticated, as they are in this one. Yet the obvious retort was hunted out with all the enthusiasm of a short-sighted bloodhound, and in some quarters one was spoken of as a sensation-monger, who probably made a good thing out of his wares!