Under the rule of the A. A.A. the thrower has only room for a couple of turns in his circle of 9 feet, and is bound to keep himself and his weapon under proper control, as if he 'follow' his hammer outside the circle he loses his throw. For the last ten years most of the championships have been won by Irishmen. One of these, Dr. W. J. M. Barry, is credited with the record under these rules, having thrown 134 feet 7 inches, a magnificent performance. The received record for a standing throw is 99 ft. 7 in., which was thrown by C. A. J. Queckberner at New York, though I have been informed that a Scotchman, K. Whitton, has covered over 100 feet with a standing throw. It is difficult to settle records with so many varying rules.

Another pastime which is very popular in Scotland, but has never found favour in England, is that of ' tossing the caber.' It is an interesting sport which combines both strength and skill. The caber is a beam or small tree, or trunk of a tree, heavier at one end than the other. The athlete holds this perpendicularly, with the small end downwards, balancing it in his hands against his chest. He then 'tosses' it so as to make it fall on the big end. The usual performance at show meetings is to bring out a caber so big that none of the competitors can toss it clean over. A piece is then sawn off, and another round is tried. If more than one of the men toss it clean over, the farthest toss and the straightest fall mark the winner.

Another sport which is less frequent at athletic meetings than was the case a dozen years ago is that of throwing the cricket balk The secret of a good throw is, as all cricketers are aware, to keep all the joints of the arm loose until the throw is taken, and then to stiffen at once with a simultaneous jerk the muscles of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. The Oxford cricketer, W. H. Game, has we believe thrown the farthest distance on record, something over 127 yards with a good strong wind behind him; and the Etonian, W. F. Forbes, is credited with having done some magnificent throws while he was still a schoolboy. It is a pity that so fine a sport, which ought to attract the entries of many cricketers, is being allowed to fall out of the programme at open meetings.

Yet another sport, not often practised, but very popular with spectators, is pole jumping. A pole of from 10 to 12 feet in height, shod with one or in some cases three iron spikes, is used, and is grasped with palms facing each other, one hand above the other, that hand being uppermost which is on the opposite side to the foot from which the spring is-taken. As a rule, the lower hand is placed upon the pole a little below the height of the bar which the jumper is about to clear. A short run is then taken, the pole planted firmly in the ground, and the holder makes his spring. When the pole reaches the perpendicular, the jumper, who holds his body perfectly rigid, by strength of back, arms, and wrist swings himself horizontally over the bar, throwing the pole back behind him so as not to knock down the bar with it. The skilful jumper often raises his body some way above his hands, and so clears a height which at first seems impossible. Of course the high-jumper has a great advantage at this sport, as his first spring is a great deal higher than that of any ordinary novice attempting the sport, and it is an almost invariable rule that the good pole-jumper is a fine performer at a high jump, as is the case with Ray, the ex-champion.

A friend has told .us that he once saw a small acrobat at a circus clear far greater heights by the simple process of clambering up the pole like a monkey as soon as it was poised, and then dropping over the bar; but we have always felt inclined to believe that this story was on a par with that other, of an Indian juggler who threw a rope up in the air and then climbed up it and disappeared. Something, however, of the trick suggested is employed by Ray, who shifts his hands up the bar when his pole is poised in the air. The sport certainly gives scope to fine athletic qualities, as the pole-jumper must be a high-jumper, and also agile enough to raise his body by help of the pole over the bar. The pole-jumper is thus usually a light-weight, but this is not the case with Ray, who is a well-shaped man of decidedly heavy build. His success is no doubt partly due to the effect of an athletic tradition, as he comes from Ulverston, a place which has produced many fine pole-jumpers, one of whom was E. Woodburn, the champion of 1874, who probably ranks next in order of merit after Ray and Stones. We believe that the Ulverston lads are often to be seen after their day's work practising pole-jumping on the cinder heaps which are so conspicuous an ornament of that flourishing town.

Half over.

Half over.

Well over.

Well over.

Broad jumping with poles, which has been practised for centuries in the fen countries for reasons of utility, has never been adopted at athletic meetings, which is somewhat strange, as it would be a fine branch of legitimate sport. There are one or two other games or sports which occasionally find a place in an athletic programme. In country meetings especially the spectators often like the introduction of the comic element, and this taste is provided for in different ways. 'Three-legged races,' or as they are sometimes called, 'Siamese Twin' races, are competitions between pairs of men running stride by stride with the left leg of one runner tied to the right leg of the other. If they fail to keep in stride the pair necessarily tumble over. Then there is the 'sack race,' in which every competitor gets inside a sack, which is tied round his neck, and some shuffle while others bound towards the winning-post. Of late years, however, the place of these two old-fashioned sports has been taken by what is known as the 'tug of war,' which is the dignified title given to a pulling match, in which teams of equal numbers pull against each other.

This is really one of the oldest of English sports, and long before it was cultivated as a regular sport was played at schools under the title of 'French and English,' and even, we believe, forms part of a nursery game known as 'Oranges and Lemons,' a somewhat mysterious title, of which we have been unable to discover the origin. Quite tecently the Athletic Association, at the urgent request of many club committees, have framed a special rule for the tug of war, as disputes were frequently arising as to the right of competitors to dig holes in the ground, or to sit down during the pull to prevent themselves being pulled over. The present rule, which is printed later on amongst the other competition rules of the A.A.A., obliges the competitors to keep on their feet and prevents them making holes in the ground before the start. There is no doubt that the sport is a highly popular one, and there is equally little doubt that combination is most important for success. The experienced team does not attempt to shift ground, but pulls in the rope by a series of tugs, taking the time from the leader.

One of the strangest of the athletic competitions we have ever seen is the tug of war as practised in the United States. There the opposing teams sit down, facing each other, in two pits filled with soft earth, and pull sitting, getting into a dreadful mess during the process. The hindmost man of each team wears a broad belt with iron bars on it, and, directly an inch of rope is pulled away from the other side, this hind-man (called 'the anchor') whips the rope round the bars to prevent its being pulled away again. After five minutes or so the miry opponents are told to desist, and usually one side is found to have won by a few inches. We must confess to thinking the English tug of war a better test of skill and pluck than the American game.1

Dropping.

Dropping.

Tug of War.

Tug of War.

1 I believe that the 'pit of soft earth' has now been dispensed with, and that the combatants sit facing each other on a board, their heels pushing against a 'cross-piece' or 'stretcher.' The principle is the same: the men never move from their positions; they strive to pull the rope away from their antagonists.