The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

3° ATHLETIC SPORTS OF SCOTLAND. thigh, and by supportinghimself on the long handle of the light weight, that Sandow managed to perform his feats. Just so, but Sandow used these aids quite openly, there wasno concealment or trickery, and whatever aid Sandow got from these methods, M'Cann could have got the same if he had been strong enough otherwise, which he knew he wasnot. Two methods of testing strength have now been reviewed at some length: (i) lifting weights from the ground without regard to the height raised; (2) lifting weights from the ground to stretch of arm above the head. In both methods the strength of the athlete is determined by weight lifted, and can be accu­ rately set down in pounds avoirdupois, thereby enabling the claims of rival athletes, who are contemporary, to be definitely settled, and alsoenabling the performance ofany athlete to be handed down to posterity. We now come to a third test, equally trustworthy when properly looked after, in which the amount of strength an athlete is capable of putting forth is tested and proved not by the amount of pounds moved, but by the distance certain weights can be thrown by certain methods. This is the test usedat our Scottish games in the well-known feats of stone-putting and hammer andweight-throwing. It is common to underrate these feats as tests of strength, and to attribute length of throws to the quality variously called can, knack, skill, or art. Now this abstract quality of skill never sent stone, hammer, or weight the millionth part of an inch. It is the amount of strength pure and simple which the athlete applies to the object thrown which determines the distance it will go. The skill is the art of concentrating the strength in on sudden effort, and applying it properly. One often hears the remark that a certain athlete has plenty of strength to beat his opponents, but wants skill. Why does he not use his strength then ? He cannot, you are told ; then the less said about his strength the better. If a man has the requisite strength in his body and cannot use it, it is as absurd to say he has strength enough to beathis opponents as to say that a manwho has the