This hierarchy of coat-wearers doubtless causes wonderment to the astonished stranger, but those who, from experience in other parts of the kingdom, know how soon a genuine sport can be corrupted by greed and money-making considerations, cannot see anything but good in a system which makes the chief distinction something which cannot possibly foster any undesirable quality except perhaps a little harmless vanity.

To return to our athletes then, the Oxford or Cambridge runner looks forward, as the supreme goal of his ambition, to the right to wear a blue coat or cap. Only the winners of the nine events which are included in the programme of the Inter-University meeting are awarded this honour, and those who run as 'second' or 'third' strings in London only hold the 'half-blue' - that is, they can wear blue trimming upon their jerseys and knickerbockers when running, but may not sport the blue coat or cap. With the conclusion of the University sports the athletic season closes at the Universities, and the ground is handed over to cricket until the following October.

It remains to speak of the organisation and management of the University athletic clubs. Generations of undergraduates come and go, and the President of one year is not in residence the next year. Neither at Oxford nor Cambridge then could the clubs be placed upon a sound and lasting basis without the assistance of some permanent official. Luckily for both Cambridge and Oxford, they have been fortunate in this respect in obtaining permanent treasurers. At Oxford, the old athlete, C. N. Jackson, tutor of Hertford College, has long and ably managed the business concerns of the O.U. A.C., while at Cambridge the popular Dean of Jesus, the Rev. E. H. Morgan, has long held a similar position with his club. With the exception, however, of the permanent treasurerships, the remaining offices of the University clubs are entirely managed by the undergraduates themselves. At the beginning of every October term at Oxford (and we believe at Cambridge a term earlier) a general meeting of the representatives of the college athletic clubs is called. One man attends from each college to give the vote of those he represents.

At this general meeting a president, secretary, and four other committee-men are chosen from amongst the athletes who will not have passed their fourth year of residence before the next Inter-'Varsity sports, and will therefore still be eligible to compete against Cambridge. The president, secretary, treasurer, and committee manage the club affairs, fix the dates of sports, and choose the representatives for the Inter-'Varsity contests. The Oxford and Cambridge meeting in London is managed jointly by the committees of both clubs, each of them deriving a substantial addition to its income from the 'gate money' taken from the large crowd of old University men and others who never fail to attend the 'Inter-'Varsity Sports.'

To pass from the Universities to London. Here we find one club based almost upon the same lines as the University clubs, and, like them, doing excellent work in promoting the growth of a healthy amateurism in the metropolis, although of late years it has had far greater difficulties to contend with than are ever likely to befall the University clubs. The London Athletic Club was founded in 1863 under another title, but in 1866 took its present name. Like the Oxford and Cambridge clubs it first held its sports at the old Beaufort House Ground, and then moved in 1869 to the new ground of the A.A.C. at Lillie Bridge, where its meetings were held until 1876, and it has now been for ten years upon its own ground at Stamford Bridge. The Amateur Athletic Club, which started with great prospects and seemed even more permanent than the L.A.C. in 1869, when it opened its ground at Lillie Bridge as the head-quarters of English amateur athletics, gradually died a natural death, and now does not even exist in name. Up to 1880 the L.A.C. had an unbroken career of success, and, in fact, really became rather overgrown.

The business of a club carried on by unpaid officials naturally must fall into the hands of one or two energetic men who carry it on with little interference from the rest of the committee. It can hardly be disputed that the method in which the membership of the L.A.C. was for several years thrown open to many who neither had any connection with nor took an interest in athletic pursuits, tended to dissipate the esprit de corps which is so vital to the well-being and success of a club. The rising generation of athletes began to betake themselves to the less important paper-chasing clubs, and even when they belonged to the L.A.C. as well as to other bodies most frequently ran under the names and colours of the smaller institutions to which they belonged. Such a sign might have warned the committee of the L.A.C. that the club was ceasing to cohere as it should. However, all went prosperously until about the year 1880, when that rapid popularisation of sport began which, as we have seen before, has tended in some measure to withdraw the support of the paying classes from athletics to other pastimes.

The business of attending to a large ground and pavilions and keeping them in order is expensive, and little assistance can now be obtained from gate-money. The result was that when the L.A.C., in the autumn of 1883, suddenly lost its managing directors there was a debt of 1,000l. to be cleared off, as well as a ground, which was acquired under very onerous conditions, to be carried on. It speaks much for the vitality of the old club that it has stood the shock and still keeps its place at the head of the London athletic organisations. Last year, when the members subscribed a sufficient sum to clear off the greater part of the debt, the club was reorganised and registered (with leave to omit the word 'Limited') as a company under the Companies Acts, with a liability limited to a small guarantee by each member. It is not too much to say of the L.A.C. that in times gone past it collected, formed, and brought out all the athletic capabilities of the metropolis; and it would have been a bad day for genuine amateurism had the club failed to weather the storm of 1883.