These last three events have been going on in the centre of the ground, while the long walking race is being held on the track. Next comes the Steeplechase, an event which did not appear in the championship programme until 1879. Two countrymen - Harrison from Reading, and Dudman from Basingstoke - oppose Painter, the best representative of the metropolis. There are four circuits, over hurdles, mounds, and a water-jump, to complete the two miles. This contest also introduced a surprise, as Dudman and Painter, making a race between them, ran each other off their legs 600 yards from home; and Harrison, who had seemed out of it, sailed by them as if standing still, and won anyhow. The last race of the day, however, produced another fine performance. Six of the best metropolitan cross-country runners had to meet E. D. Rogers, of Portsmouth, a runner who was little known until he made a good show in the Southern Counties Cross-Country Championship at Sandown Park in the early spring. Rogers is a stiff, ungainly runner, but apparently with tremendous strength; and, taking the lead from the start, he lurched over the ground at a great pace, completing his first mile in 4 min. 50 1/5 sec. and the second in 9 min. 50 2/5 sec, in itself a very fine performance.

By this time he had the race at his mercy, having run W. H. Coad - the best Londoner - off his legs. In the third mile, in 15 min. 25 3/5 sec, Rogers did little more than keep his lead, and he finally won with great ease in 21 min. 1 4/5 sec, not in itself a first-class performance, but the winner's two miles showed of what stuff he was made. So ended a great day's racing; and as the winners came up to receive their prizes it was only natural that most of them should have received a hearty welcome from the crowd.

The day's sport was remarkable in itself for more than one reason. For one thing, the average of merit shown by the winners was greater than had ever been seen before at a single meeting. The Hundred in 10 seconds; the Hurdles in 16 seconds; the Quarter in 49 4/5 seconds; the Half in 1 min. 59 sec.; the Mile in 4 min. 25 2/5 sec.: no such performances had ever before been done together upon one day by amateurs. But the meeting was also significant for another reason, though whether for good or evil to the sport it is hard to say. In the early days of the championship sports, from 1866 onwards, the majority of the events were carried off by the University athletes; and for the first ten years the struggle was between the 'Varsity runners and the old Public School men, the gentlemen amateurs from London and elsewhere who came forward to try conclusions with the Inter-'Varsity runners. Of later years, since the championship in 1880 was altered from the spring to the summer, fewer of the 'Varsity runners have competed, partly, no doubt, because it is awkward to train in the summer terms at Oxford or Cambridge, but partly, too, from the fact that the 'Varsity cracks are often not good enough to meet the highly trained and seasoned athletes who are the pick of the amateurs of the present day.

At the championship of 1886 it became clear that the supremacy of the path had passed away for the present from the metropolitan to the provincial runners. The difference between the old style of London athlete, or the 'Varsity athlete, and the modern athlete from the provinces is not one of locality nor yet of degree; it is a difference of class, of which we shall have to speak again; but the Stamford Bridge championship of 1886 shows that, until another development takes place, three-quarters of our amateur champions will be drawn from the masses.