An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY it. Looking over some old diaries the other day, however, I found I spent the holiday in copying tombstones in Fulham Churchyard, and only saw the illuminations in the evening. during which I had my first and last street fight, caused by a rough jostling me. Conceited by recent sparring practice, I went for him, to be received by two nasty blows on the nose and mouth, a fact probably to be accounted for by the absence of the "mufflers." A friendly old many-caped cabman gave me a knee, and while I was snuffling up my blood (the nastiest fluid I ever tasted), he advised me to keep him at out-fighting for the next round, which I did, and in the third was lucky enough to land a flush hit with my right, and I think I am correct in saying that the back of his head was the first part of his body to touch the ground. The subsequent proceedings interested him no more, but the old cabby introduced me to dogs– nose, which he insisted on standing me at the adjoining pub. On 24th January, 1863, I walked iu my first public walking race in a Gentlemen Amateurs' Walking Race at Hackney Wick, leading till the end of the third mile, but was utterly untrained, and could not finish. In March I see by my diary that primroses were growino- on the site of Clapham Junction ! On Good Friday a lovely walk over Box Hill, repeated on 12th June. On the 20th May saw W. E. Gladstone for the :first time, when he gave away the prizes at the King's College Evening Classes. In the autumn of 1863 I made my first walking tour through Norfolk with a knapsack, some details of which I printed in my "Rubbish and Nonsense'' (1887). It was during this journey that I made the acquaintance of John L'Estrange, the well-known Norfolk antiquary, who was a clerk in the Stamp Office at Norwich, by buying search stamps of him. He afterwards taught me to read old deeds. During December, 1863, and January, 1864, I had another very severe attack of pleurisy. In April I weighed 10 st. 8 lbs. in my clothes, and jumped 8 ft. 5 ins. and 9 ft. thrice in three consecutive standing jumps, a very fair performance for a non-jumper, and on 1st May, 1864, when under 21, got engaged to a friend of my sister's, a very amiable girl, but much older than myself, and the engage-