The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99,
August 16, 1890, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890

Author: Various

Release Date: May 9, 2004 [EBook #12305]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***

Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Punch, or the London Charivari, William
Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 99.

August 16, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S OWN TYPE WRITER._)

NO. XVII.--THE SPURIOUS SPORTSMAN.

There is in sport, as in Society, a class of men who aspire
perpetually towards something as perpetually elusive, which appears
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 foundations he could not rear the stupendous fabric
of his deeds unless he had read much, and listened carefully to
the narrations of others. By the aid of a lively and unscrupulous
imagination, he gradually transmutes their experiences into his own.
What he has read becomes, in the end, what he has done, and thus, in
time, the Spurious Sportsman is sent forth into the world equipped
in a dazzling armour of sporting mendacity. And yet mendacity is,
perhaps, too harsh a word; for it is of the essence of true falsehood
that it should hope to be beli