Athletics and Football (extract)

24 ATHLETICS mean to say,' he goes on, 'that the Cotswold games were invented or even first established by Captain Dover : on the contrary, they seem to be of much higher origin.' Strutt then shows by a quotation from Heath's description of Cornwall, published in 1750, that a meeting of a similar nature was held near Bodmin. ' The sportsand pastimeshere held,' saysHeath, 'were so wellliked byCharles II. when he touched here on his way to Sicily,that he became a brother of the jovial society. The custom of keeping this carnival is said to be as old as the Saxons.' There can be no question that the connection between fair and wakes and athletic sports was kept up well into the present century, and indeed in some out-of-the-way corners of England has lasted almost to the present time. But as the fairs decayed in importance, owing to improved facilities for travellingand trading, so did the glory of these popular athletic meetingsdepart with them. Still, side by side with the growing and flourishing profession of pedestrianism in the towns, these rustic sports kept their place, until finally, when the great athletic movement of recent years swept over the country, it renovated and rehabilitated these annual gatherings. The paper from which we have just quoted in the ' Spectator' gives a very minute account of the one at Bath at the beginning of the eighteenth century. There is abundant evidence that their character did not substantiallyalter, althoughthey undoubtedly diminished in number and importance. In the first volume of Hone's ' EverydayBook' there is a communicationfrom'Mr. Carter, the antiquary,' describing the great ' May fair' held in the fields near Piccadillyat the end of the eighteenth century. The builder has covered the fields of Mayfairlong since, and only the name survives to show what vulgarsports were held in that nowfashionable quarter. There were shows of jugglers,a booth for boxers, another booth for cudgel-players,a ring for fire-eaters,&c. ' The sports not under cover,' says Mr. Carter, who had been an eyewitness, ' were ass-racing,grinning for a hat, running for a shift, and an infinite variety of other similar

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