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

44 )!EN OF MUSCLE. jn the field predominates over all else. The amateur champion, of whom so much is made, sinks into jnsignifi– cance when compared to men like M'Rae, who have had to work hard during their entire life-time and yet have been champions; men who have met with many of fortune's buffets and few rewards. "Kenny" M'Rae has made better throws and has done better athletic feats under more trying circumstances than perhaps any other athlete that ever lived. Fancy, ye athletes who compete perhaps twice in a season, and have then been preparing for those two meet– ings and nothing else months before hand. You have been dieting yourselves, sleeping according to regulations, and have been nightly rubbed down with a formula specially adapted to your tender skin. Just think of "Kenny " M'Rae working hard in a distillery, and going straight from his work to the games, and there accomplishing feats with the caber, hammer, ball, etc., that have seldom been equalled by any man. Later on, when he left the making of whisky, instead of looking for an easy job during the winter, where he could retain his form ready for the games when the roses came again, he selected one of the worst callings an athlete could follow-a worker in a gaswork, with its heat and stifling gassy fumes. Here, indeed, was a delightful spot in which to train for the athletic field ! There was any amount of embrocation in the form of black and grimy sweat, and his diet would, of course, be carefully attended to by that paragon of trainers-the Edinburgh landlady. For thirteen years M'Rae was employed in different distilleries, that is from the age of eighteen until thirty-one, when he made his debut in the Edinburgh Gasworks, where he toiled during the long winter, attending the Highland gatherings in the summer, and returning to the smoke and grime in the fall. At the age of sixteen, while yet a farm servant, "Kenny" began to practise the national sport, but