The Pedestrian's Record

32 the pedestrian's record. less violent exercise after a full meal. Whatever might have been the cause of death, it is impossible for us to diagnose the cause; it might have been heart disease or any other accident causing rupture in some vital organism of the body ; and because he dropped dead whilst running does not prove that men at that period were weaker than they are at the present day. Athletes run faster now, at any rate we presume so, because year by year records are broken, and the truth of the saying that there never was a good man who could not be beaten seems to be exemplified on the cinder-track. It is argued that this gradual increase of speed proves that little by little, from year to year, and from generation to generation, men have grown quicker in pace, and from deduction it is asserted that the moderns are swifter of foot than were the ancients ; but do runners or walkers present specimens of our strongest men ? Only a very few are possessed of powerful frames ; some of our fastest athletes are small of limb and slight of body, and it is supposed that having a light body they have little to carry, and consequently can "get along." It is the exception tosee men like the late W. Page Phillips and C. G. Wood toe the mark. J. M.Cowie has agood form in a small compass, and is a representative of a good little one ; but there are numerous fast runners, men who have beaten records, who possess neither fine form nor the strength which musthave been common to the athletes ofantiquity. These men of muscle were not met with on the running path, they showed their