The Cruise of the Branwen

THE OLYMPIC GAMES in perpetuating the organisation that will send out representative athletes from this country to take part in future Olympic meetings elsewhere. The spirit which has animated both the leaders of the Franco-British Exhibition and the Council in charge of the Olympic Games may be further estimated from the cordial understanding arrived at between the two as soon as each side realised what the programme of 1908 was to be. They promptly agreed to avoid the evils of competition by combining in one sensible plan, which would leave each party perfect freedom and yet mini– mise any possible loss to either. The enormous expanse of vacant ground at Shepherd's Bush, with its entrance inside the four-mile radius, made it possible to put the Games next door to the Exhibition, so that visitors to one might easily pass over to the other. The funds privately subscribed to the Exhibition authorities enabled them not only to put up the splendid buildings designed for their own purposes in showing the industrial development of France and her colonies, and of the British Empire, but also to erect the most magnificent athletic arena the world has ever seen, and to hand it over to the Olympic Council in return for a proportion of the gate– money. A more fortunate arrangement for the athletic credit of this country could hardly be imagined, under the circumstances, than that just described. But the expenses of the Olympic Games by no means end with the erection of an appropriate arena ; nor would a proportion of a fortnight's 14