ill reel off for you
the names of the best bowler, the best bat, the champion forward,
the cunningest of half-backs. The portraits of football players are
published by the dozen and the score, and the native knows the names and
achievements of every man thus signalled out for honour. In England the
schoolboys would know all about these people, but in Australia the world
at large is interested. The bank clerk who has a recognised position
in a football team enjoys professional privileges which another may
not claim. His athletic prowess reflects upon him in his business. His
manager allows him holidays for his matches, and is considerate with him
with regard to hours for training.

From all this one would naturally argue the existence of a specially
athletic people, but the conclusion is largely illusory. The worship of
athleticism breeds a professional or semi-professional class, but it is
surprising to know how little an effect it has upon the crowd of city
people who join in all the rites of adoration. The popularity of the
game is answerable for the existence of the barracker whose outward
manifestations of the inward man are as disagreeable as they well can
be. The barracker is the man who shouts for his own party, and by yells
of scorn and expletives of execration seeks to daunt the side against
which he has put his money or his partisan aspirations. When he gathers
in his thousands, as he does at all matches of importance, he is
surprisingly objectionable. He is fluent in oath and objurgation,
cursing like an inmate of the pit. This same man is orderly enough at a
race meeting and takes his pleasure mildly there.

The barracker and the larrikin are akin. The gamin of Paris, grown up
to early manhood, fed on three meat meals a day, supplied with plenteous
pocket money, and allowed to rule a tribe of tailors, would be a
larrikin. The New York hoodlum is a larrikin with a difference. The
British rough is a larrikin also with a difference. The Australian
representative of the great blackguard tribe is better dressed, better
fed and more liberally provided in all respects than his _confrere_ of
other nations. He is the street bully, _par excellence_, inspired to
this tyranny by unfailing beef and beer. When Mr Bumble heard of Oliver
Twist's resistance to the combined authority of Mrs Sowerberry and
Charlotte and Noah Claypole, he repudiated the idea of madness which
was offered as an explanation of the boy's conduct.