Pigeon-shooting--if that is indeed a sport, which I personally beg leave to doubt--has become no trial of skill and readiness, but an occasion upon which, when the betting is in favour of a right-hand shot, a needle is sometimes put into the left eye of the bird so that it may swerve to the right upon its release from the trap and increase the difficulty of the aim. I am informed that birds are frequently blinded in this abominable way at local English meetings, and also in Germany--in the interests of gambling. In this matter, however, it is only right to say that the Hon. E. S. Butler--one of the crack pigeon-shots of the day--tells me that the conditions at Monte Carlo are absolutely fair, though the betting is most heavy. There is hardly any “gambling” in English golf. Private matches sometimes provoke a heavy wager between the players, but that is not gambling. In Scotland, however, where most towns have links which are open to everybody for a fee of threepence, there is an immense amount of gambling among the poorer classes. Now it is certainly far better that the Scotch mechanic should spend his Saturday afternoon playing at a fine game than in watching other people play it, as his English brother does at a football match. But it is an enormous pity that such facilities as the poorer folk enjoy for sport should be abused and spoilt. A well-known Scotch clergyman, a favourite preacher of the late Queen’s, tells me that the gambling at golf makes a constant watchfulness necessary on the part of players. “Many of them will cheat if they can,” he said; “and you’ll know how easy it is to cheat at golf? It’s just the money aspect of the question. It’s small wonder that a man will move his ball an inch from under a bunker, if it’s necessary and the other fellow isn’t looking, when perhaps a third of his week’s wages depends upon the lie.” Again I would punctuate my instance with the moral it affords. Here also sport suffers. If I did not believe in the inherent nobility of sport, if I was not absolutely convinced of its supremely important place in the life of both soul and body, I should not be writing this. But as one goes on with this dismal catalogue--no very pleasant task, one gets into a fever of indignation. “_Duo quum patiuntur idem, non est idem_,” of course. No two men experience identical effects from identical causes. But true sportsmen will at least share something of my feeling. And it’s no use to set out alone to kick the world’s shins. The world has several million shins to your one. We must _combine_--we who love sport and realize what it means. The Hermes of Praxiteles is a perfect type of all that is _physically_ fit and fine--and so _spiritually_ also--in man. Take that statue and regard it for a moment as a concrete manifestation of all that is meant by the word “sport.”