AQUATICS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 258, 9 February 1889, Page 2

AQUATICS.

NAPIER V. GISBOBNE—STRICTURES ON TEEMER’B BACKEB.

Our Napier correspondent telegraphs:— “ The following is the crew to represent Napier at Gisborne next month: J. Hutchins (list 31b), stroke ; A. Guy (list 121 b), 8; L. Von Haast (Het 6ib), 2; J. G. Hughes (Ost 81b). bow. The crew will be coached by Mr 8. H. Gollan.”

The Sydney Referee says:—The news that the backer of John Teemer in his late race with W. O’Connor, of Canada, had repudiated all his bets on the match, and served an injunction on the stakeholder against paying over the stakes to O'Connor, will have a very bad effect upon American rowing interests. Nothing is supposed to bo eo sacred to a man ae his probity where debts of honor are concerned, and to find that even an American ” sport ” can bo so barefacedly dishonorable is anything but pleasant American sports have for a long time been industriously earning a moat unenviable reputation in tho way of crookedness. Not an international fight could come off without eometbing underhand about it. Even on English or Continental soil those fighters who opposed American representative men have had a bad time, and th* very Americans themselves have suffered at the hands of these self-styled “ sports." Tho journals of America, with few exceptions, acknowledge and deplore the fact that straight sport has no show. It is “win, tie, or wrangle *' all through the chapter. Teemer has been stigmatised by tho newspapers of his own oontinent as being “ as crooked as forked lightning, ’’ and it would appear that in this regard his backer and ho are a finely matched pair. The fact is that a lot of thieving scoundrels, who are a living disgrace to the great and generous natlfl that has the misfortune to own them aR citizens, and whose glorious flag they drag ' in the dirt, are constantly on the look-out for “ probable ” men as a means of “ faking ” a living without So long as their tool wine, well and good, but let him got whipped, or look like getting whipped, on tho square, and they squeak and " repudiate," or interfere. Should thia charming and honorable sportsman, who has crowned the . Teemer career of questionable praotioea with such a dirty finial, ooms out hero to pose as Teemor'o backer—if that great (I) oarsman comes at all—it will behove the honorable men who wager on rowers hero to see that the dibs are up before they bet, and to have the articles in any match drawn so hard and fast that there will be no breaking through them, Fancy the tens of thousandi that have changed hands over boatracea and never s word or a kick. Such an action as that alleged to have been Committed by Teomer's baoker is unworthy of a man of any sort, let alone one calling himself a sportii man.