The Cruise of the Branwen

THE OLYMPIC GAMES any one country, divided as it is into various sections under their respective captains, should acknowledge one distinguished amateur as their head and athletic representative on the spot; and he should be accompanied by another official representative selected by the Foreign Office (as was the case with Lord Desborough and Mr. Bosanquet at Athens), to direct and organise all the necessary social obligations and pleasures of which Greek courtesy and hospitality have set a standard that it will always be difficult to equal. The only addition necessary to complete the organisation would be a trained and paid servant, of intelligence and resource, who would have sufficient general knowledge of medicine, surgery, and massage to be of real assistance in case of injury or illness, and sufficient technical all-round knowledge of athletics to be of help during the last days of training and the actual moment of contest. These suggestions would apply with as much force to Englishmen who met at home their visitors from abroad as to any English teams which contend in future in Olympic Games · elsewhere, and I am glad to think that the most of them have been practically carried out in the organisation of the Lo.ndon Games of 1908. It sounds at first as if the meetings at Athens would secure a unity of place• and a just com– parison of records which would prove a pre– ponderant advantage, and eventually eliminate the necessity of any similar meetings elsewhere. 100