SPORT: ITS RELATION TO THE STATE 345 



were to say that this neglect to provide healthy 

 recreation is responsible for more than half of our 

 crimes ; but, if it is only responsible for a small 

 number, then the expenses of our prisons would be 

 diminished in proportion as the neglect diminished. 

 The money thus saved might be devoted to pro- 

 moting healthy games amongst the youths of the 

 lower classes, and this money might be supple- 

 mented by diminishing the expenses of the present 

 Board School education, which now err on the side 

 of extravagance, so that no further burden would 

 fall upon the ratepayers. This may not be the 

 loftiest point of view from which to regard sport 

 in its relationship to public morality ; but the ideas 

 of the theoretical philanthropist are of little value, 

 unless they can be reduced within the practical 

 limits of financial politics. 



I have been told by large employers of labour 

 in the Midland Counties that there never was a 

 time when the working classes were provided with 

 so much sporting amusement, and they point to 

 the large crowds which attend football and cricket 

 matches and race meetings as evidence of their 

 statement I rejoice to hear it, though the state- 

 ment was made to me in the form of a complaint, 

 for it proves that the working man prefers to spend 

 his playtime watching sport in the open air to 

 loafing about in public-houses. Country gentlemen 

 have told me in bitter sorrow that sport has now 

 become a matter of commerce, and refer me to 



