Athletics and Football (extract)

WALKING AND WALKERS 131 the three, and, if we recollect rightly,over sixfeet. Rye walked with a perfectly straight leg, very erect, and was certainly a better walker than any whohad preceded him. He held the L.A.C. Challenge Cup for the seven-mile walkingrace through the year 1867. Towards the end of that year, however,Smith and Griffith had begun to make their mark, and in the last L.A.C. meeting of that year Smith, Griffith, Rye, and Williams all met in a two-mile handicap, the two last named being at scratch and Smith and Griffithwith 25sec. start. In the result Smith astonished the spectators, gaining 2 sec. upon Rye, and finishingin 15 min. 15 sec., the best time on record at that period. Smith, though then onlya lad of nineteen or there­ abouts, is said to have walked in splendid style and with great fairness,and would probablyhave done something notable had he persevered on the path; but in the spring cf the next year he abandoned the pursuit as suddenly as he had taken it up. In the race to whichwe are alluding Griffith finished second, after being once cautioned, his time being 15min. 32 sec.; Rye third, in the time of 15 min. 17 sec. \ and Williamsfourth, in 15 min. 35 sec. In the succeeding year Rye won the championship easily enough ; but in the two followingyears Griffith was the winner.Rye not being a competitor. Griffith,who has long been a familiarfigure as the representative of ' Bell's Life,' certainly disputed with Rye the reputation of being the best walkerof his time, but although, in 1870, he beat his rival's times when he wonthe championship from R. H. Nunn in 55 min. 30 sec., we believehe never beat Rye when the pair met in a race. R. H. Nunn, who made so fine a race withGriffithin 1870,wasbeaten by Rye, who took the L.A.C. Cup again in the autumn of 1869, this being the last time he competed for it. Rye, Griffith, Nunn, and Williams retired about the same time, and their placeswere taken by inferior men. The next celebrity in the walkingline wasW. J. Morgan of the Atalanta R. C., whowas champion for the three years from1873-75 inclusive. Morgan wasa short man, hard and thick-set, and was, webelieve,about five-and-twentywhen he took to the path. His first appear- k 2