Athletics and Football (extract)

26 ATHLETICS meeting. He allowed no stalls, stands, or booths for variety entertainments. Proceedings commenced with a procession headed by the ' Mayorof the Guild,' and a circle was formed round a maypole. Then began the sports, which were as follows:—(i) Wrestling; (2) Foot-races; (3) Jinglingmatches ; (4) Jumping in sacks; (5) Wheelbarrow-races blindfold; (6) Spinning matches ; (7) Whistling matches ; (8) Grinning matches ; (9) Jumping matches. After the presentationof the prizes, the nature of whichis not described, the dancing began, the strictest order and decorum being preserved by the beadles and other officers of the guild. This annual meeting, which commenced in 1819,was still being held in 1826, but we can find no further trace of its history. ' Numerous,respectable, and fashionable companies' generally attended the meetings of the Necton Guild, which appear to have been universally approved. MajorMason, of Necton, certainlydeservesa niche in the temple of athletic fame for his institution of the guild. These wakes were not confined to England alone. Hone tells us also of an Easter gathering at Belfast (which is to the present time the scene of an excellent athletic meeting), where running and jumping matches were the chief features of the day, and of another meeting at Portaferry,in County Down, where these amusements were diversified with ' kissinggames.' ' The men kissed the females without reserve, whethermarried or single.' To clear the men, however, from the charge of rudeness, it should be said that the ' kissingis taken quite as a matter of course, without any coyness.' The author sagely re­ marks that ' tradition is silent as to the origin of this custom.' We have, however,said enough of these fairs and the rustic athletic gatheringswhich took place at them. They doubtless grewrarer and rarer during the present century, but it is equally doubtless that some of them have survived quite up to the present day, although most of them have been replaced by regular athletic meetings held under modern and organised rules. The present writer, however,in the year 1885, witnessed a wake in a small Cornish town, where, besides the round'