T.

* * * * *

THE SPIRITUAL SPORTSMAN.

[The Executive of the German Sporting Clubs and Athletic Associations have issued a manifesto expressing satisfaction at the substitution of German for English words and phrases.  “German sport,” it declares, “in future places itself unreservedly on the side of those who would further German Kultur.  German Song and German Art will in future find a home in German sport.”  This new patriotic programme has been greatly applauded in the Press, the Berliner Tageblatt observing that the culture of soul and body must proceed pari passu, with the result that “not only will the German sportsman become a beautiful body, but a beautiful soul as well.  Every club must have its library, not filled with sensational novels, but with works of art.  And before all else the club-house must be architecturally beautiful—­an object from which he may obtain spiritual edification.”]

  The German is seldom amusing,
    Since humour is hardly his forte,
  But I’ve frequently smiled in perusing
    His latest pronouncement on sport;
  For it seems that he thinks it the duty
    Of sportsmen to aim at the goal
  Of adding to bodily beauty
    A beauty of soul.

  They’ve made a good start by proscribing
    All English and Anglicised terms,
  To counter the risk of imbibing
    Debased philological germs;
  And they’ve coined a new wonderful lingo,
    Which only a Teuton can talk,
  Resembling the yelp of a dingo,
    A cormorant’s squawk.

  But in spite of his prowess Titanic,
    His marvellous physical gift,
  The soul of the athlete Germanic
    Still clamours for moral uplift;
  So we learn without any emotion
    That, his ultimate aim to secure,
  He must bathe in the bountiful ocean
    Of German Kultur.

  In the process of character-building
    Hun Art (Simplicissimus brand),
  With its rococo carving and gilding,
    Must ever advance hand in hand
  With its sister, Hun Song, that inspiring
    And exquisite engine of Hate,
  Whose efforts we’ve all been admiring
    So largely of late.

  Thus, freed from all sentiment sickly,
    The sportsman whom Germany needs
  Will help to exterminate quickly
    All weak and effeminate breeds;
  And, trained in the gospel of BISSING,
    Will cleave to the Hun decalogue
  Which rivets the link, rarely missing,
    ’Twixt him and the hog.

* * * * *

    “Parlourmaid wanted for Sussex; under parlourmaid kept; Roman
    Catholic and spectacles objected to.”

Our own preference is for a Plymouth Sister with pince-nez.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Cook (who, after interview with prospective mistress, is going to think it over). “’ULLO!  PRAMBILATOR!  IF YOU’D TOLD ME YOU ’AD CHILDREN I NEEDN’T HAVE TROUBLED MESELF TO ’AVE COME.”