Men of Muscle, and the Highland Games of Scotland, etc.

\VEIGHT LIFTING. T HIS chapter is also foreign to Highland games, but weight lifting has now become so popular that many will probably be interested in the methods herein described. Among the many different branches of athletics, that of weight-liftin 0 is less understood by the general public than almost any other kind of sport. In boxing and wrestling, when the competitors are opposed to each other, the average man can form a very fair opinion a to the relative merits of the combatants, but in the strong-man business the public are absolutely at sea, and often applaud feats which in many cases are inferior-that is, requiring less strength than others which only a strong man could perform, and which the general public pass without comment. But it is not the most showy feats which bring out a. man's strength to the full. ::Since the earliest times-even in Holy Writ we find the matter spoken of-strong men have figured on the pages of history, and it is therefore not surprising that in this age of athleticism the strong man cra:i::e, as it has been called, should take up so much public attention. It is only, how– ever, within recent years that men of strength have increased from the few instances of early times to the army of strong men, good and bad, who now make a profession of what used to be regarded as a phenomenon, and earn their living by the weight of their dumbbells, as it were. At the present moment there is not a town or village in England or Scot- 113 H