An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY from a very large boiler stoked into the kitchen chimney, which gave an immense draught. Never afterwards did I get such heat in a greenhouse, and the result was extra– ordinary. I moved in on 22nd June, r878. My brother Frank came back from Canada, 9th July, and he and I and Bateman, on the 2nd and 6th August had a short yachting expedition up the Broads in the'' Warrior:, (Britcher). I had became very intimate this year with J. J. Bateman, of Birmingham, and on 27th July I went to the Birmingham Sports, and stayed at J. J. Bateman's father's, and on uth August we had a long (after dinner) walk of 32 miles from Selhurst. On the r7th August I heard a phonograph for the first time at the Crystal Palace. I tried "Bob Lowe's" lever machine bicycle, which Lawson of Brighton invented and sent me the idea. It was a very ingenious one, as it was most easy to mount, for all one had to do was to sit down on the saddle with one's ieft foot on the ground, press the uplifted right treadle, and ride off. It was worked by long levers on the back wheel, which was very high, and gave a great power going up hill, though there was more sway than was pleasant. Yet owing to the smallness of front wheel one could ride over brickbats with impunity if one held tight. There might have been a great future for it bad it been even .decently made, but its manufacture was about equal in finish to a servant's cheap iron bedstead, 1t took immense power to get along. Still properly made and fitted with pneumatic tyres, it would still be useful to an elderly man to whom the power of running and jumping into the saddle is gone. My autumn holiday I spent in a bicycle tour, 3rst August with S. B. Howlett (an uninteresting nephew of my old . friend) through Marshland, Wells, Cromer, &c., to Norwich ; one series of break downs back. On r6th November, I beat Sydenham Dixon who once held r½ mile record 9.30, in an 8-mile steeplechase in slow time (I had done 54.35) to the great surprise of him and his friends who thought me too old to train. As a matter of fact, Bateman who trained me, got me to the post as fit as I ever have been in my life, and I made a match in the short course with Ellis and Dixon, who forfeited as I did 32.33 on 14th October. ·