Excerpt from The Sport of Our Ancestors, Being a Collection of Prose and Verse Setting Forth the Sport of Fox-Hunting, as They Knew It, Edited and Selected: With an Introduction and Appreciations
By the 'Sport of our Ancestors' is meant the sport of Fox-hunting. Anything to do with Sport has always been so popular in these islands that the word is now used to dignify almost anything in the nature of a competition, being applied to golf, football, lawn-tennis, hockey, or battledore and shuttlecock. But perhaps a better testimony to the supreme value of the idea of Sport in the Englishman's mind is the natural way in which he designates as a good sportsman any one whom he particularly wishes to praise. No man can have greater honour in this country than to be known as a good sportsman, or, in the vernacular of those who are regardless of grammar, as a 'Sport.' He may achieve this reputation without ever having been on a horse or handled a gun or a fishing-rod. But he must possess a sense of humour and, above all, an ability to take risks and to play for his side. These attributes, added, of course, to a certain standard of kindliness and good conduct, are what distinguish the good sportsman or 'Sport' among his fellows.
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