The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

114 ATHLETIC SPORTS OF SCOTLAND. himself all-roundchampion athlete of the world could be drawn up only by the leading athletes of every nation of the world or their accreditedrepresentatives. For one athlete in one corner of the world to draw up a list of feats to suit himself, issuea challenge in a few papers that nine-tenths of the athletes in the world never see or hear of, and then dub himself champion athlete of the world, is, if meant as a joke, not very funny, if meant seriously,it is ridiculous. How littleneed there is for any athlete to think he will lose credit by taking nonotice of such challenges is seen by comparing the challenge of a like nature issuedby D. C. Ross in 1882 with M'Hardy's of 1890. Ross's contained18 events, M'Hardy's contains 12—they agree in 5 events, they differ in twenty ! At the same time that M'Hardy's challenge is before theworld, D. C,Ross is again on h'nd saying, " I will bet him (C. M'Hardy) £200 to ^100 I will defeat him in an athletic contest as per championship rules, all events to be governed by the recognised rules of the world." Readers may wonder what are the " championship rules" and " the recognised rules of the world "which Ross mentions. They aresimply whatever rules D. C. Ross thinks likely to be most serviceable to himself and most against the athlete he is challenging at the time. To make matters still more complicated, while M'Hardy and Ross are both in Australia loudly proclaiming themselves champion athletes of th world, E. Kneebone, an Australian athlete, who has on more than one occasion defeated M 'Hardy, recently inan all -round contest againstD. C. Ross, when there remainedonly the caber contest to be decided, andKneebone was half a point ahead, Ross refusedto continue the conteston the firstavailable day— in short, backed out of it when likely to be defeated. The result is that Kneebone has announced himself as champion athlete of Australia andAmerica. There are at least ascore of English-speaking athletes, not to speak offoreigners, who, if they followed the tactics of M'Hardy, Ross, and Kneebone, could claim to be champion athletes of the world with just as much.