Athletics and Football (extract)

CROSS-COUNTRY RUNNING has been injured by distance running, and the rate of mortality among running men is singularly small. Hounds should be strongly cautioned against 'larking' oYer unnecessary jump or doing the least avoidable damage. Fanners are mortal, and are therefore generally fond of sport, and if no great damage is done and if what is done is cheerfully and voluntarily paid for, will generally let a moderately sized pack cross their land ; but near London monster packs of thirty or forty runners become a nuisance. Like hunting the scent, jumping for the sake of jumping is dying out a great deal. \Ve have no fine jumpers nowadays, like the two Burts who learnt the art at \Vellington and would take every gate through a long run, or A. P. Smith who would jump at anything, or tricky jumpers like Bentley, who used to land with both feet on the top of a five-barred gate with a clatter and a rattle, and jump off the top far into the next field. In fact, jumping docs not pay in the cross-country racing which bas to a great exte~t supplanted the old paper-chasing proper, for it takes too much out of a man. The new class of men get over the ground wonderfully fast and can scramble and 'jump up anywhere,' hut do not aspire to jump over obstacles. Still they arc so handy in a very cramped grass country with plenty of difficult wood-grown banks and thick hedges, that a picked team of runners would take the conceit out of most riders to hounds. ·when the run i over, the tub-lukewarm if it can be had -is in universal request, followed, if possible, by a cold douche by means of a bu kctful of water from the hands of a stable- helper. If the run has been extra wet or cold, a steaming glass of port negus may be wisely taken as a precaution; but it i. a singular thing that both before and after the meal which terminates the evening, ' ginger beer and gin' is the favourite drink, having probably been found by long experience to best carry off the extra heat of the body aused by a long run. While on the subject, \Ye may say that though many of our best short- distance runners were actually teetotaller , e.g. J. C. Clegg,