Athletics

HISTORICAL. 3 of the period, nearlyan even timer at sprinting, andcould walk twenty-four milesin four hours. Impromptu feats were undertaken, which trained athletes of to-day would shrink from. One instancewill suffice. A large partywere assembled in Mr. Farquharson's house, Black Hall, in Kincardineshire, on the evening of19 July, 1826, after a heavy day's shoot­ ing. When the ladieshad left the dinner-table, conversation turned on feats of endurance, and Sir Andrew Leith Hay suddenly challenged Lord Kennedy to walk to Inverness, —nearly a hundred miles distant—for a bet of ^2500 a-side. Captain Ross wasappointed one of the umpires. Without any delay,they set out (about 9.30 to 10 o'clock p.m.) as they stood,in evening dress,including thin shoes and silk stockings. Sir Leith Hay went by coach route;! Lord Kennedy andCaptain Rossacross the Grampian Hills, and reached Inverness at six p.m. on 21 July, having been thirty- one to thirty-two hours.Lord Leith Hay arrived aten a.m. (thirty-six hours). A performance like this shows the "grit" of our fathers andgrandfathers. Before this, however, the sensational pedestrian feats of Captain R. Barclay Allardne, 23rd Fusiliers (much better known, however, as "Captain Barclay" to the present generation), hadset the sporting world agog with interest and excitement. A series of remarkable feats reached a climax with his, successfully accomplished, undertaking to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours—a mile in each hour. This tookplace onNewmarket Heath, between 1 June and 12 July, 1809. The tale of his training will be found in BeWs Life, 28 Feb., 1874; and those who are interestedin general sport in pre-(athletic)-historical days ought (if it can be procured) to get a copy of " Facts in Athletics," published by Simpkin, Marshall and Co., in 1868; but many of the records therein must be taken