The Pedestrian's Record

the pedestrian's record. 113 liable than athletes ; it little matters what class of sport they represent, whether it be boating, running, or jumping, the man who subjects his body to severe exertion brings it within the area of likely to occur cardiac injury. Runners, especially sprinters, have been the greatest sufferers ; it is the pace that kills, and it is the pace at top speed from start to finish that makes the sprinter's task so much more exacting than that of the long-distance runner. The quarter and 600 yards are the two, we may say, most injury-inflicting courses, because the training neces­ sary for such races puts to the strain every muscle and sinew of the body, excites the respiration, and imposes rapid and laborious action on the heart and circulation. Certainly training prepares the system generally for the strain imposed upon it, and inures the cardiac organization to withstand the ill effects of unnatural exertion ; but a line must be drawn somewhere, and Nature at times draws it very early in the athlete's career by causing the rupture of one more or less important blood-vessel, or injury to the heart itself. These accidents are easily accounted for, although some assert that the stronger and better trained the man the less liable he should be to mis­ haps of this kind. No doubt; and so he is if thoroughly trained. But, unfortunately, men will run without having sufficiently prepared their bodies for the fray ; and even if they have, then sometimes a string or two of the looo-chord harp will snap, and in some instances of an irremediable nature, in so far as I