Bredin on Running & Training

ro8 RUNNING AND TRAINING. so doing, profiting themselves often as much as ten times that amount from the increased gate that their presence attracted, were let off scot-free; and most unfair, when several of these secretaries themselves actually were allowed to sit in judgment on the runners whom they had induced to accept a small share of their large profits. Then the new professionalism burst forth, and the Amateur Athletic Association had a most desirable opportunity to get rid of many of its sham amateurs. What did they do? They actually, finding that large gates were attracted to pedestrianism, passed a rule that no amateur club could hold professional sports, obviously allowing the good that would have accrued to amateur athletics to be outweighed by the chances of a serious loss of gate money should the public be inclined to transfer a portion of its interest to professional running. Can an impartial reader imagine that such alaw would have come into existence had all the members of the A. A. A., or the greater portion of them, regarded amateur athletics in the same light as Mr. Montague Shearman must have done when he wrote the lines I have just quoted? I may add that the Scottish A. A. A. did not agree in this matter with their sister governing body. The result of this policy is that some leading amateur athletes are paid to run at amateur sports now, just as they were in r896, and probably will continue to do so as long as the Amateur Athletie Association remains in its present condition. One more quotation from "Badminton" before concluding these subjects. As all practical athletes are aware, the limit in value placed on prizes offered for handicaps is ten guineas . This, I believe, some