What a preposterous and malignant thing it is, therefore, that a cloud is forming over one of the noblest of modern forces! Every genuine sportsman _must_ get hot and angry in the presence of such a filthy and disturbing parasite as this is. Leagues, societies, confraternities, are all very well in their way. To accomplish, to carry out a _material_ purpose, they are the best possible machinery. But I am not so sure that they are always as valuable when the point is a moral, or rather an ethical one. Be this as it may, and it is a difficult question to settle, I am sure, at least, that a hundred thousand pamphlets, offices--and a glib secretary--in Victoria Street, even a piece of coloured ribbon as a visible badge of enthusiasm, are not nearly as powerful as a quiet and _individual_ discountenance of what is base and dangerous. A cynical daylight always follows too theatrical enthusiasm. Sportsmen are not theatrical, and their influence can be exerted without pledges of war and a little book of rules. The reprobate purlieus of sport can be cleansed by any one who is awake to the lurking, growing evil on the one hand, and the high mission, the “commission” is a better word, he holds as a “sportsman” upon the other. 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.