At every meeting, however, there must be a certain number of handicaps, and for this it is indispensable that the handicappers chosen should be men up to their work. For the 'short limit' handicaps (which are such a success at the Civil Service meeting, and which we should like to see at every fixture, as they bring 'cracks' together, and yet prevent the same men from always winning) the handicapping has to be equally a matter of care and study, as a yard more or less may make or mar a good race; and there is little danger, when there are none but well-known men competing, of all calculations being upset by the appearance of a 'dark horse.' So far, indeed, has specialism proceeded in the athletic art that at many meetings there are different handicappers for the long and short races. The professed handicappers keep a book in which every man's performances are recorded, and their duties are certainly arduous, as to be exact in their calculations they have to get the best accounts of every event that has taken place in the country. It is not at all unusual for the athletes of one district to take journeys into other districts, while some of the semi-professional amateurs flit about all over the kingdom picking up prizes.

As soon as any athlete wins or is placed in a race his scale of start has to be reconsidered.

About a decade ago the amateurs thought they could borrow with advantage a system employed by handicappers of professional pedestrians of framing all the starts with reference to a fixed standard, and not with reference to the pace of the man who is the best of the entrants. Under this, which is known as the 'Sheffield system,' the standard fixed by the handicapper for 100 yards would be, say 10 sec, or for the quarter 50 sec, and each competitor would be handicapped according to the number of yards he would be outside 10 sec. or 50 sec, as the case might be. The result necessarily was that in nearly every case the best man in the handicap was not at 'scratch,' but at some yards start. The system, no doubt, had its advantages, for it saved the handicapper a good deal of trouble in readjusting all the starts for each race according to the further advantage, that the handicappers throughout the country-all adopted the same standards of merit for the imaginary scratch men, and it thus became very easy to handicap a stranger from another district, by simply finding out upon what mark his own local handicapper considered this stranger should be placed.

The Sheffield system, however, was swept away by the growing desire, both of the public and of the men them selves, to see 'bests on record' accomplished at meetings. Several instances occurred of the real scratch man in a handicap starting, under the 'Sheffield system,' with some yards from 'scratch' and winning the race with a performance which would have been a record had the whole distance been covered. The 'crack' who had done a record performance was thus deprived of the credit of it, as it was obviously impossible to establish a 'record' for 148 1/2 yards, 436 yards, or 596 yards, in cases where the scratch man had had a few yards start from the imaginary 'Sheffielder.' The Sheffield system was soon given up at Oxford - we believe it was never tried at Cambridge - and it was abandoned by the L.A.C. in 1877. At the present-day it is entirely unknown in the South, though sometimes employed elsewhere.

No meeting now is without an official time-keeper, and at some important gatherings, as we have seen, there are three such functionaries, all of whom time each race. There are, of course, many advantages in having each contest timed. The athletes themselves and the spectators like to know whether the races have been fast or slow; and for purposes of future handicapping, or of comparing the worthies of one period with those of another, timing is indispensable. Indispensable, however, though it may be for certain ends, timing is merely a means, and not in any way an end in itself: a fact the present generation of athletes - which has simply gone mad upon 'times' and 'records' - appears to have forgotten. By saying that the athlete of to-day considers timing an 'end' and not a means, we mean that he thinks it is a fine display of skill on his-part to cover so much ground in so little time, without taking.

There can be no question about the public fondness for a 'record.' A club which owns a ground of its own is rather inclined to give races at distances where there is a particularly good chance of lowering the existing record; and committees of clubs giving sports frequently advertise in the sporting papers that such and such runners will compete, and that it is confidently expected that 'the record will be lowered,' etc. To such an appeal spectators never fail to respond by attending in large numbers. For the manufacturers of bicycles or the owners of running-grounds which are let to the public, we can quite see the advantages of promoting records with a view to bold advertisement; but amongst athletes and others, the present writer is heretical enough to believe that the worshipping of records is idolatrous, and inconsistent with the creed of the true sportsman.

But before we go into this question at any length there is something more to be said as to the practice and difficulties of timing.

'Timing' in foot-races requires even more care than 'timing' in other sporting contests, for a mistake of a fifth of a second may make all the difference between a good or an ordinary performance. To ensure accuracy of timing there must not only be a good watch, but a person who knows how to hold it. In most stop-watches the watch is started by a simple pressure of the thumb or forefinger upon a knob or pin which removes the catch and puts the works in motion again. To drop for the moment the fact that some watches start quicker than others, the apparently simple process by which the man who holds the watch sets it going is not so simple as it seems, and there are plenty of opportunities for differences to arise between one timekeeper and another. If, say in a hundred yards race, the timekeeper waits for the sound of the pistol to start his watch, he himself standing at the winning-post, about 1/10 of a second elapses before the sound reaches him. It he takes the start from the motions of the body, it is a most difficult question, when the men are upon tip-toe at the mark, to know which motion of any one of them is a motion made after the pistol is fired.