The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

72 ATHLETIC SPORTS OF SCOTLAND. An athlete can only improve so far, and by the time he is giving start to all others at a particular distance he probably cannot improve more,while scores of men with pretty long starts may be able to improve, not only between handicaps, but between the time the starts are given out and the raceitself, thus making a win for the best man impossible. But it is for the bestmen at each event that our great annual gatherings are primarily intended, and it is this that renders prizes won at them not only a source of gain, but ofglory. There is no glory whatever in a first prize won from a long start. A child, a cripple, a grand­ father orgrandmother could win a race if they get start enough. How comes it then that at such a representative gathering as Inverness, where there is practically no betting, the races are handicapped ?This brings us to the secondreason forhandi­ capping, namely, to make races hard run and exciting at the finish. Before handicapping the entries were few, and as the few who entered knew each others merits, they did not try very hard to beat each other, and if pretty evenlymatched divided the money by preconcerted arrangement. There is no doubt but that the practice of competitors "standing in," as it is called, and dividing the money has done much to discredit many branches of athletic sports, and running in particular, and no one can blame theCommittee of Management at Inverness for t y. ing to put down such unsportsmanlike and unmanly tactics. But to substitute handicaps for level races was a very poor device. In the first place the prizes generally fall to comparatively poor runners, while first-class men often getnothing. In the second place theprizes are just about as often dividedbefore the final in the handicaps as they werein the levelraces, andthe order of the finish arranged before thestart. The chiefdifference is that there aremore " in the swim." What is wanted is a system by which all prizes shall be awarded according to the merit of the competitors' performances, and at the same time ensure that each man will do hisbest. Take for example amile race. Four