Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC SPORTS IN ENGLAND 33 "Bath Road in seven hours, doing his first ten mileswithin the hour. After this he travelled abroad, exhibiting his feats of pedestrianismin Switzerland and France, and it was not until 1773 that for a heavywager he performed the feat of going on foot from London to York and back in less than six days—to wit, in 5 days 18 hours—the distance being 402 miles. In 1777 he went from London to Canterbury and back (112 miles)in less than twenty-four hours, thousands of spectators watching him on the road and greeting his return. Eleven yearsafterwards, being then fifty-fiveyearsof age, he ran a mile match against a Mr. Smith of Canterbury, who was too speedy for the elderly pedestrian, and beat him. At the age of fifty- seven Powell again went from London to York and back in 5 days 18 hours, and two years afterwards beat his own 'record' again by doing the same distance in 5 days 15^ hours. It is hardly strange that so great a performershould have excited enormous interest, and the number of his re­ corded feats (the genuineness of whichthere seems no reason to doubt) would almost fill a book by themselves. ' Absurd as it mayappear,' says an encyclopaedistin 1823, 'so desirous were people to have a sight of him that he was engaged at Astley'sAmphitheatre for twelve nights, wherehe exhibited his pace in a small circle.' He died, however, soon after this, never having recovered from the effects of his last and most severe journeyto York, and lies buried in the east corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. From the contemporary accounts of his appearance he seems to have been of medium height and spare of person. Probably the performances of Foster Powelldid much to spread the popularityof pedestrianism as a sport, for we in­ variablyfind that one great performer brings a host of inferior imitators. In Powell's time pedestrianism ' boomed' again, and the waning popularity of the sport was again revived by the performancesof BarclayAllardice. The feats of the latter pedestrian, indeed, called into existence a product w T hich had never been known before—a book on pedestrianism. In 1813 D