no SPORT IN EUROPE 



besides increasinor their couraee and their indifference to the risk 

 of death. 



Is the true quality of a sportsman known in France ? 



With us, it is true, anyone possessing one or two horses, looked 

 after by some trainer, is a " sportsman " ; and if he only wins a 

 race or so, he at once becomes " the noted sportsman." The gentle- 

 man, again, who gets together a few baskets of living 



,, ^ , „ pfame, bought overnight, or even rears it in his poultry- 



" Sportsman." & > & & > t j 



yard, is a sportsman whose fame is sung by the news- 

 papers as soon as he has had it all killed by "great shots" invited 

 down to the slaughter. He, too, who hires some kind of yacht 

 and in it parades off the coasts of England and France, under the 

 guidance of a crew, is a "sportsman"; and, to become a "celebrated 

 sportsman," he has only to enter his hired yacht for some race and 

 win, with the help of his hired crew. 



It would be easy, indeed, to extend these instances of the applica- 

 tion of the title to a crowd of folks who are incapable of sitting on 

 a horse, shooting even a sparrow, pulling an oar, or hooking so much 

 as a frog. 



To be frank, the true sportsman, the man of sports, is a rara avis 

 in France. He is not, indeed, common in England. The true 

 all-round sportsman should be able to ride across country and over 

 all manner of obstacles ; to drop birds that fly so rapidly that the 

 point to aim at is far ahead of them ; to take the tiller of a yacht 

 on the open sea, where the slightest error might mean destruction ; to 

 play racquets with skill ; to lure a great salmon of perhaps 30 lbs. 

 to the artificial tly, and keep it in play, maybe for hours, on a trace 



