Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Distance Runs and Distance Runners 327 cesses here. The story of his races during that tour is merely a description of the various ways in which an invincible scratch man mows down the fields that are strung out against him. Here we find him giving the English champion, Cowie, eight yards' start in the quarter and beating him in 48f seconds; there he runs a half-mile and a quarter-mile race over a grass course in the same afternoon, capturing the latter in 49J seconds. Local star wager that the stranger cannot give them such-and-such a handi– cap, as for example, this vVidner runner who brags that Meyers can't beat him with thirty-five yards' start in the half mile. Meyers shrugs his shoulders, first ploughs through two rugged fields from scratch, and wins a half and a quarter, then tells the Widner challenger to take his distance. There are twenty other entries. Meyers passes them all, one by one, including the thirty-five– yard man, has a clear field at the seven-hundred– forty-yard mark, and wins in a romp, eight yards to the good, in I minute 5 7f seconds, over a rough grass course. At Smithport we find the Mayor pre– senting him the prize with a congratulatory speech; at Manchester he wins a quarter in 49t seconds with a broken shoe; at the Blackley Cricket Club's games, in the same city, he wins a half, on a grass track, in I minute 56 4 seconds, jumps into a cab, and is driven six miles to another track, where he