NO one else among the Canadian schoolboys, attracted half the attention directed to Sammy Richardson who, at the age of fifteen, had won the broad jump at the Empire Games with a leap of 23ft. 8in. Dressed, he looks no more than a boy well grown for his age. Stripped, his magnificent build drew gasps of admiration from the crowd. He is the negro in excelsis in build, beautifully proportioned, loosely coupled, and muscling that is an artist's delight.

There are all the makings of another world's champion in this boy, another cause for wonder what it is in the build of the negro that makes him in two branches of track and field, stand out as the Finns do in long distance track running.

There has never been an outstanding negro distance runner. Very occasionally there has been a fine half-miler—the Canadian crack Phil Edwards being the best of all—and almost as rarely the negroes have produced a quarter-miler. But in sprinting they have produced some of the fastest runners the world has seen. Howard Drew, away back in 1912, would have won the 100 metres at Stockholm but for breaking down. Two years ago, at Los Angeles, Tolan and Metcalfe were first and second in the hundred and first and third in the 200 metres. Since then Metcalfe has gone from victory to victory, and Tolan is now in Australia to contest the world's professional championship. England, too, has had her great negro sprinters, H. F. V. Edward and J. E. London (both West Indians). Edward had a remarkable record in the English championships, winning the hundred and furlong three years in succession (1920–22), and in the last year won the quarter as well. In New Zealand, a negro, H. Martis, was Dominion sprint champion in 1914, and one of the best professionals I have seen here was C. J. Morris. Beautifully proportioned and modelled, with a very fine action, Morris was formerly a jockey—like George Smith, the famous All Black of 1905.

In field events the strength and limitations of the negro are just as marked. Not only is his success limited to jumping, but (apart from a very occasional high jumper, falling short of the highest class), in that field he is a broad jumper pure and simple.

Returned men who saw the Inter-Allied Games at Paris in 1919, will vividly remember the magnificently built Sol Butler, who won with a jump of 24ft. 9in. The first man to reach 25 feet was E. Gourdin, the Harvard negro. Contemporary with him was an even greater black, De Hart Hubbard, who was first, with Gourdin second, at Paris in 1924. Two years ago, at Los Angeles, the Olympic winner was another negro, E. L. Gordon. The first to jump 26ft. was yet another negro, Cator (of Haiti). For the moment, the world's record (26ft. 2 1/in.) is held by a Jap, Chuhei Nambu (who also holds the hop, step and jump record of 51ft. 7in.), but by and large the negroes are in a class by themselves.

What is it that makes the negro such a wonderful broad jumper? Nobody has explained that yet in a satisfactory manner, but there is a noticeable difference in the feet of negroes that must have something to do with it. Long and seemingly (but only seemingly) flat, with the heel held by an Achillis tendon that from the very walk of the race seems more tightly stretched than in the white man, the negro undoubtedly gets a tremendous kick off from the board. This, with his sprinting speed (and that is of more help in broad jumping than in any other field event) has made him the freak he is. Young Richardson gave us a sample of the kick off. The slap of his heel on the board could be heard all over the ground.

The strange part of it all is that this tremendous power in the heel is of such a specialised kind. The heel, of course, gives all the spring in all kinds of jumping, and yet for all his tremendous springiness of heel the negro has never made his name in high jumping, pole vaulting, or the hop, step and jump.

Rhodes Scholathletes.

With nothing but congratulations to the young men themselves, it is nevertheless a pity that our latest batch of Rhodes Scholars have relatively poor athletic qualifications. There was wisdom in Rhodes when he aimed at the all-round man. He wanted high intellect directed not wholly to scholastic and professional ends. He was after men who in after life would become public figures—not necessarily politicians, but men who would take a prominent part in the life of their communities if not in Empire affairs. His benefactions are intended to fit them for that.

Now, athletic excellence in a Rhodes scholar gives him opportunities to fit himself for a public career in a way that is denied to the brain worker pure and simple. And this is more true of excellence in track or field events than of any other sport, simply because of their greater opportunities for international contacts.

Take Arthur Porritt for instance. By reason first of his prowess on the track he held successively the offices of Secretary and then President of the Oxford University Athletic Club, but he was fitted to hold them down by his sterling qualities of mind and character. The experiences of such offices, with their responsibilities, led to his becoming one of the biggest figures in the organisation of University sport in the Empire. Further than that, the English Universities have become a very big influence in setting international standards of sportsmanship and goodwill. And Porritt's standing in this direction is now evidenced by his attaining the high honour of becoming a member of the International Olympic Committee, which is perhaps the one body to-day really achieving anything in the matter of international goodwill.

Just what influence sport can bring to bear will be pretty clearly shown in the near future. The fear of America, Canada and other countries not competing at the Olympic Games at Berlin in 1936 has already drawn promises of Nazi fair dealing with German Jews.

To come nearer home, Porritt, and, still more, his greater athletic successor Lovelock, have by their prowess on the track in many different countries, and their fine sportsmanship, done more to make New Zealand well and

The Cross Creek Railway Cricket Team, 1932–33.

page 37 favourably known abroad of recent years than almost anything that has been done deliberately to that end, and have certainly more nearly attained the ideal of Rhodes than all the other New Zealand Rhodes scholars combined.

Lessons from Abroad.

The visits of American golfers and Canadian schoolboy athletes have opened our eyes to the reasons why New Zealand is lagging behind in those sports of individual achievement.

Golf is now revealed to us as something as exacting as billiards or bridge in the demands it makes on its devotees. Here in New Zealand for many years the golfer has been almost a man apart (even the most amateurish of him) in his desire to fathom the theoretical mysteries of his remarkable game. Remarkable is truly the word for to the non-golfer the club and the ball can never appeal as anything but unnecessary complications of walking exercise, tending to destroy all the benefits of strolling by their effect on the temper of the stroller. The golfer will devote to unravelling the mysteries of grip and swing and to discussions of the mechanics of both, time which, when given by anyone else to any other sport, he is the first to deplore.

And yet with it all, our standard is so low. The Americans have shown that golf is a matter of deeds, not words. And by deeds they mean practice, practice, practice of individual shots, or with individual clubs till the whole world is just a whirling weariness of wood and iron with white spots dancing before the eyes. The reward of it all, as witnessed in the ease and achievement of a Sarazen is something to behold. There was truth in a cryptic remark I heard the day Sarazen played at Miramar. “Sarazen is the most ill-mannered player I have ever seen. He does not even say ‘Good Day’ to the ball.” The painfully prolonged address of such a good player as Drake made the meaning clear.

The desire is here not accompanied by the fierce will to achieve that makes the Americans what they are. If our amateurs had that will they could be among the world's best for their achievement in the absence of it is excellent, as Sarazen emphatically bears witness.

There is one other condition, however, that is an even greater handicap than the lack of practice—opportunity for continuous competition in first-class company. Our professionals are the great sufferers from this. There is no doubt that Sarazen was sincere in his expressed opinion that given the opportunities for match play enjoyed by professionals in America, Andy Shaw would be a world figure in golf.

The Canadian schoolboys read us much the same lesson. It is not that by nature they have been better equipped for athletic success than our own. Very few who saw young Limon, for instance, run his great quarter in 50 2-5 secs. on the Basin Reserve, Wellington, were aware that in New Zealand we have a boy between whom and Limon the only difference is knowledge of how to run a race. Young Sayers, of Auckland, who was such a close second to Limon in Melbourne, would on Limon's own admission have run the Canadian into the ground if he had only known anything at all about running a quarter. And Sayers is not by himself, for two other boys finished between Limon and he at Auckland.

The Canadian boys apart from Richardson and, perhaps, Jansen are not outstanding, by word of standards, for humans of their age. But to us they are outstanding as an example of what proper coaching and, by the boys themselves, desire to excel and intelligent effort to that end can achieve. Young Jansen, the high jumper, is wonderful evidence of what the individual himself can do. He has never had real coaching. Dissatisfied with the 5ft. 2in. (which was the best he could do using the natural scissors style) he, with the aid of books and photographs, made a study of high jumping. His present record of 6ft. 1 in. is the result of his own efforts—the intelligent practice of what he read and saw.

[No sooner had this been written than Arthur Duncan went round Here-taunga in 67. So far, however, from that effort being a reply to all my criticism it is but confirmation. No one more than Mr. Duncan has taken seriously in all its phases the game in which he excels. The world over he has but one peer, the Hon. Michael Scott, and these two are the grand counter by mature age to the cry that modern golf is a preserve of flaming youth.]

“Cigarettes are superseding cigars in this country,” remarks the New York Times. It's the same story in New Zealand, where the sale of cigars, even the cheaper qualities, is steadily dwindling. Like the Yanks, we smoke prodigious quantities of cigarettes (in proportion to population). Nevertheless and notwithstanding, the pipe, with us, is more than holding its own. It's true that the coarser brands of tobacco are not nearly so much in request as formerly. The demand now is for brands of a better—but not necessarily a more expensive grade, with less nicotine in them. In a word smokers are at last waking up to the fact that nicotine is a menace and must be cut out. Hence the overwhelming success of “New Zealand Toasted,” which, quite moderate in price, combines flavour and bouquet with practically complete immunity from risk. The effect of toasting is magical!—it gets rid of the nicotine! The genuine toasted brands are five in number: Cut Plug No. 1 (Bullhead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Desert Gold and Riverhead Gold.*