Punch (99.1890)

August 16, 1890.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVAEI.

73

and a mud-stained ooat for his rider. These little accidents will by
no means dash his spirits, or impair his volubility in the smoking-
room, where he may be heard conducting a dull discussion on
sporting records, or carrying on an animated controversy about
powder, size of shot or bore, choke, the proper kind of gaiter, or the
right stamp of horse for the country. Having shot with indifferent
results on a very big day through ooverts, he will afterwards aver
that such sport is very poor fun, and that what he really cares
about is a tramp over heather or turnips, and a small bag at the
end of the day ; but if he should ever be found on a grouse moor,
or a partridge shooting, he will sneer at the inferior quality of a
sport which requires that a man should exhaust himself with useless
walking exercise before he gets near his birds. " Covert-shooting
is the game, my boy ;" he will say, "most difficult thing in the
world when the pheasants are tall, and the finest test of a real
sportsman," and with that he will miss his twentieth grouse, and
call down imprecations on the dogs, the light, the keeper, and his
own companions.

The Spurious Sportsman is often an officer of the auxiliary forces.
He knows by heart every button of the British Army, talks much
upon questions of discipline, and has a more

MODERN TYPES.

{By Mr. Punch's own Type Writer.)
No. XVII—THE SPUEIOUS SPORTSMAN.

There is in sport, as in Society, a class of men who aspire
perpetually towards something as perpetually elusive, which ap-
pears to them, rightly or wrongly, to be higher and nobler than
their actual selves. But whereas a man may be of and in Society,
without effort, by the mere accident of birth or wealth, in sport,
properly understood, achievement of some kind is necessary before
admission can be had to the sacred circle of the elect. What the
snob is to Society, the Spurious Sportsman is to sport; and thus
where the former seeks to persuade the world that he is familiar
with the manners, and accustomed to the intimate friendship of the
great and highly placed, the latter will hold himself out as one
who, in every branch of sport has achieved many notable feats on
innumerable occasions.

Such a man, of course, is not without knowledge on the matters of
which he speaks. He has probably hunted several times without
pleasure, or fished or shot here and there ______

without success. But upon these slender >rt|t JI, i I : ,\\ sharply defined and more permanent mark

foundations he could not rear the stupen- r-^~\ b-iif II ! I 1 * °^ sunburn across his forehead than any

dous fabric of his deeds unless he had read ( jA"\ ||1 ' , 'd regular officer. He is also a great stickler

much, and listened carefully to the narra- >^ j- ft|N 11 \ \ 'II I |j for etiquette, and prefers to be addressed

tions of others. By the aid of a lively ' W,{ M ' J I '* as Major or Colonel, as the case may be.

and unscrupulous imagination, he gradually ^ wi I! p h ii ^«-t» He bears his rank upon his visiting-cards,

transmutes their experiences into his own. A tim fil'flp'jl Mwll and fre1Ilellts a military Club. In the

"What he has read becomes, in the end, \~J ^S^v^l " I ' \rm^ ftjli_fc_V B0°ie-;y °* otner Spurious Sportsmen he is

what he has done, and thus, in time, the _S, ^ Q> H^Sfei__s%~. JL^mnrrtB a* De8t and noblest. They gather to-
Spurious Sportsman is sent forth into the -'j, |f «- fi&'l -^_3gjg ^^BSfu ^A gether at their resorts, each with the
world equipped in a dazzling armour of I 'W iS .WjM / ^?W^^^ft^f^W> sincere oonviction that every other member
sporting mendacity. And yet mendacity; %;fv,<\ \_!8|£i--^ »§ °^ ^e little coterie is a oonfirmed hum-

is, perhaps, too harsh a word ; for it is of \ NA fiVg^Uft\ '' i( \ f XWK ^VLg' ^ev never fail to bring their

the essence of true falsehood that it should 1 J| 'r^c^r \ i/lifi ll qtfRK store of goods, their anecdotes, their expe-

hope to be believed, in order that it may I3_ \M_Bj^m^wJM. Willi rienees, their adventures, and their feats, to

deceive. But, in the Spurious Sportsman's , {' f^sM^JmrA amarket where admiration and applause are

ventures into the marvellous, there is _ i,> \\J / ^Mrfi! wP< paid down with a liberal hand; for though

generally something that gives ground for j I - f xWsKj/m^^m I ml a^ |know their fellows to be impostors,

the exercise of charity, and the appalled | ! X;- ^ k. r they are content to sink this knowledge in

listener may hope that even the narrator \\| 1 1 ^%.Y>\ t« ill ! the desire to gain acceptance and credence

is not so thoroughly convinced of the reality I I i ^\f||^\\\\V^w\ , \ 1 || for themselves, and thus there never comes

of his exploits as he would, apparently, i Yill||S$5™ifflfil V^ilJ i a whisper of doubt, hesitation, or disbelief

desire others to be. And there is this also •nSteg^k j fl Vim'II IMnMHR - Wf« *° mar the perfect harmony in which the
to be said in excuse, that sport, which calls ^ I ill i i^Bfifl TO® Spurious Sportsmen live amongst them-

for the exercise of some of the noblest I i?!etv' {§ \ 111 S^^^ffi^ VfTji selves. Yet, when they have separated, they
attributes of man's nature, not infrequently ^teii^ ^v^/v*\ill1!"'If^SIt * <p-' { never fail to hold one another up to ridicule
leads him into mean traps and pitfalls. ?w W VW§______| and contempt.

For there are few men who can aver, with " The Spurious Sportsman thus spends the

greater part of his life in building up a reputation out of nothing.
As time goes on, he becomes more and more anecdotically expe-
rienced, and, if possible, even less actual. He will have lost his
nerve for riding, and a sight which gets daily weaker will have
caused him to abandon even the pretence of handling his gun; but
he will seek a recompense by becoming a sporting authority, and
will pass a doddering old age in lamenting over the decay of all
those qualities which formerly made a sportsman a sportsman, and
a man a man. _

perfect accuracy, that they have never added a foot or two to their
longest shot, or to the highest jump of their favourite horse, and
have never, in short, exaggerated a difficulty in order to inorease
the triumph of overcoming it. But the modesty that oonfines most
men within reasonable limits of untruthfulness has no restraining
power over the Spurious Sportsman, to whom somewhat, therefore,
may be forgiven for the sake of the warning he affords.

He is, as a rule, a dweller in London, for it is there that he finds
the largest stock of credulity and tolerance. To walk with him in
the streets, or to travel with him in a train, is to receive for nothing
a liberal education in sport. Nc man has ever shot a greater number
of rocketing pheasants with a more unerring accuracy than he
has—in Pall Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly. He will point
out to you the exact spot where he would post himself if the birds
were being driven from St. James's Square over the Junior Carlton
Club. He will then expatiate learnedly on angle, and swing, and
line of flight, and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder,
by way of an example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive
passer-by. This incident will remind him of an adventure he had
while shooting with Lord X.—"A deuced good chap at bottom; a
bit stiff at first, but the best fellow going when you really know
him"—through the well-known coverts of his lordship's estate.
"When travelling safely in a railway-carriage, he is the boldest cross-
country rider in existence. He will indicate to you a fence full of
dangers, and having taught you how it may best be cleared, will
add, that it is nothing to one that he jumped last season with the
(Auytchley. "My dear Sir," he will say, "a man who was riding
behind me was so astounded that he measured it then and there with
a tape he happened to have with him ; Six foot of post and rail as
stilt as an iron-clad, and twenty foot of gravel-pit beyond." He
will also speak with infinite contempt of those who "crane" or
stick to the roads. It will sometimes happen to him to get invited—
really invited—to an actual country house where genuine sport is
carried on. Here, however, he will generally have brought with
him his wrong gun, or his "idiot of a man" will have packed the
wrong kind of cartridges, or his horse will have suddenly developed
an unaccountable trick of refusing, which results in a crushed hat

MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.
Paeuamentabt.

" My right honourable and, learned friend;" i.e., " A prof essional
politician, devoid alike of principle and capacity."

'' I pass from that matter;" i.e.," Find it somewhat embarrassing."

" I don't know where my honourable friend gets his facts from ; "
i.e., " He should try and get out of his inveterate habit of lying."

"A monument of antiquated Norman_ tyranny," or, "A relic of
early English fraud and ignorance; " i.e., " A statute which I and
my Party wish to repeal."

" The most precious constitutional legacy of those who fought and
bled," Sfc, fro.; i.e., Ditto ditto impugned by the opposite Party.

Legal.

"lam instructed, my Lord, that this is, in fact, the case ; " i.e.,
" I see that, as usual, you have got upon a false scent; but as this
suits the book of my olient, the solicitor (whose nod at this moment
may mean anything, and, therefore, why not approval ?), I encourage
the mistake."

Lectttbee at a Battle Panoeama.

" It is a well-known historical fact that-,-" i.e., " You needn't

believe a word of it."

"A bank of heavy clouds lowers in the horizon;" i.e., " The black
paint has been laid on thick."

" The plain stretches far away; " i.e., "About five yards."

vol. xclx. h