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7. Quong Tart—Sportsman.
Quong Tart was a lover of sport. Not any kind of sport, but sport that was above all things clean. He looked upon horse-racing as a splendid pastime, and at one time owned a race-horse and was his own jockey. Braidwood people will remember his stirring rides in that district on his favourite horse “Nobby.” He was an expert rider and prided himself on being able to keep his seat on a buckjumper.
But the advent of the gambling element resulted in his exit, for gambling was in his opinion an evil deserving of a place alongside of opium in its power to ruin home and destroy national life.
True sport, sport in which the chance element was at a minimum and skill at a maximum, always found in him an ardent supporter. In his quaint humorous way, and peculiar mixing of metaphor, he gave expression to the principles in the spirit of which he thought all games should be carried out. Addressing the League of Wheelmen, he said, “he hoped the members of the League would act honourably in their racing and have no shinaniking. If they raced right out from the shoulder they were bound to get on. The man who shinaniks is unworthy of the name of a British bicyclist.”
In this and other ways he sought to elevate sport into a purer atmosphere than that which sometimes surrounded it, and in his speeches tried to impress upon sportsmen the necessity to preserve their prestige and integrity by going straight and doing their best to win.
He took a keen interest in cricket and while in the Braidwood district was one of the most enthusiastic cricketers. In many a match he was the hope of their “side,” and by the scores he made proved conclusively that he certainly was.
On moving to Sydney he still continued to take an active part in cricket. On March 30th, 1898, a match between the Ladies and Theatricals—in aid of the Queen Victoria Hospital for Consumptives Fund—took place.
Later on at a social the ladies of the Novelty Cricket Match presented Mr. Tart with a large frame containing portraits of the lady cricketers, and the original rosettes worn by them on March 30th. Mr. Ironside, on behalf of Mrs. Capt. Donnan and the ladies of the team, made the presentation,
To explain the reason of the presentation it must be told that after the match, Mr. Tart expressed a wish to have a little piece of the rosette worn by each lady as a memento of
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the occasion, and thinking this request over, Mrs. Capt. Donnan came to the conclusion that it would be a graceful acknowledgment of the great kindnesses shown by Mr. Tart to give him the rosettes in their entirety—a unique gift, as the rosettes and their peculiar associations could not be duplicated or reproduced.
Still later he was elected Vice-President and Starter of the League of New South Wales Wheelmen.
He was much interested in football and lacrosse, and especially in the game of bowls, being a member for years of the City Club.
Hardly a week went by that he did not have at his rooms some “Sport” or “team of Sports,” and sportsmen from other States and from all over the world were always sure in coming to New South Wales that there was one man who would extend genuine hospitality to them, and that man was Quong Tart.
List of Societies and Clubs he was a member of:–
Highland Society.
Royal Agricultural Society.
Zoological Society (life member).
Horticultural Society.
Society of Artists.
Camden Agricultural and Horticultural Industrial Society.
Hospital Saturday Fund.
Australian Ambulance Association (life governor).
Judge, A., P., H. and T. Association, Cootamundra.
Freemason Society.
City Night Refuge.
League of Wheelmen (Starter).
City Bowling Club.
Ashfield Bowling Club.
International Tug of War.
Burwood Cycling Club.
Summer Hill Owl Club.
Sydney Cricket Club.
Waverley Football Club.
Park Grove Football Club.
Sydney Flying Squadron.
Sydney Dinghy Sailing Club.
Johnstone's Bay Sailing Club.
City Band, Balmain Coldstream Band, also Ashfield Band.
N.S.W. League of Swimmers.