Hammer-throwing is a sport which in its present form has come to us from over the Border, although the 'hurling of the bar or sledge' was, as we have already seen, one of the sports of merry England. Since the introduction of the sport into modern athletic meetings, the weight of the hammer has always been the same as that of the weight used in weight-putting, viz.

16 lb.; but the rules as to length of handie, the length of run allowed, and measurement still vary. The original rules, followed both at the championship meeting and the Oxford and Cambridge sports, allowed the hammer-thrower to use a hammer of any length, to take as much run as he liked, and throw from any place he liked, the judge marking the place where the thrower had his front foot at the moment when the hammer left his hands. The measurement was then taken in a straight line from the thrower's foot to the pitch of the hammer. At the championship meeting after 1875 a 3-ft. 6-in. hammer and a 7-foot run without follow alone were allowed, although at the Oxford and Cambridge sports the old rules went on until 1881, and even now the Oxford and Cambridge rule is different to that used at the championship meeting. In America, and at some Scottish meetings, the hammer is thrown standing, without a run at all. The rule of the Athletic Association, however, which was used at the championships until 1886, and followed at nearly all the places in England where the sport is practised at all, ran as follows: 'The hammer shall be thrown from within a circle of 7 feet in diameter. The head of the hammer shall be of iron, and spherical, and the handle shall be of wood.

The head and handle shall weigh together 16 lb. The total length of the hammer shall not be more than 4 feet.' In 1887 the circle was enlarged from 7 feet to 9 feet. We must confess to thinking that the limited run, short hammer, and no follow make hammer-throwing a fairer, prettier, and more skilful sport than the original form of the competition.

The main point to learn in throwing the hammer is to get as much impetus as is possible upon the body by rapidly spinning round, the arms being held perfectly rigid with the hammer grasped in the hands. At the moment when the greatest impetus is obtained, the hammer is let go, an extra push being given at the last moment by a jerk of the whole body. 'No actual arm-work is used at all, the strain falling mainly upon the back and loins; indeed, one or two famous hammer-throwers, like W. Lawrence of the O.U.A.C., have only used one arm to hold the hammer. The hammer is swung round, when once the thrower has begun his spin, at right angles to the body in its vertical position, and the arm and handle thus act as one and the same lever. A very slight grasp of mechanical principles will show that the hammer-head is, as it were, attached to the circumference of a revolving circle, the motive power being supplied by the spinning human body at the centre. At the moment of leaving go, the centrifugal force causes the hammer to fly off in a straight line. It follows that the hammer will fly farthest when the greatest momentum, i.e. weight and speed combined, can be produced.

It is therefore obvious that, where an unlimited run is allowed, the heaviest man, provided he can acquire enough skill to spin round fast without falling over, must inevitably be able to throw the hammer farthest. Height also will be a great advantage, as it will enable a larger handle to be used, and the weight starting from a higher point, will travel farther before touching the ground. Under the old system, when the art had been brought to the highest degree of perfection, the spectator could hardly help arriving at the conclusion that one athletic sport at least had passed the line which divides the sublime from the ridiculous. Three or four heavy men would come out, wielding what looked like a poker of 5 feet in length, and would spin round five or six times like teetotums with almost inconceivable rapidity, after which the missile would hurtle forth north, south, east, or west, no man knowing in which direction it would be likely to fly off. As a result, not only was the sport dangerous to spectators, but it came with many of them to be considered as the comical element of the meeting. Dangerous we say it was to spectators.

On one occasion an Oxford athlete neatly picked off a college scout, who, however, escaped with a broken arm; but the unfortunate judges were almost in peril of their lives at each throw, being somewhat in the same enviable position as we have recently been told is the engineer who fires a big gun on one of her Majesty's ironclads. With unskilful performers also there was even more comedy and more chance of a tragedy, as they had absolutely no control over their weapon, and in their efforts to spin round rapidly found often that, instead of having thrown the hammer, the hammer had thrown them.

Throwing hammer.

Hammer-throwing was introduced into the Oxford and Cambridge programme in 1866, and has always since been cultivated both at Oxford and Cambridge. It has, however, never taken root at any other athletic centre in England, and the championships have, with one exception (when a Londoner beat the Cambridge winner by 6 inches, with a very poor throw), been won either by University men or by Scotchmen or Irishmen. The sport is very popular in Scotland, and has also taken firm root in Ireland.

In 1873 an Oxford man, S. S. Brown (known as 'Hammer Brown,' to distinguish him from numerous other Browns of the same college), eclipsed all previous performances by throwing over 120 feet; but in the succeeding year another and a greater hammer-thrower appeared at Cambridge in the person of G. H. Hales. Hales was an immensely tall man, 6 ft. 4 in. or so, we should say, and practised hammer-throwing more assiduously probably than any one has ever done before or since. For some years he was continually making records and then eclipsing them with better ones, his final performance being 138 ft. 3 in. in 1876. He used a handle of very great length with a leaden head, and certainly was a magnificent exponent of the science, spinning round many times with great rapidity, and being able on nearly every occasion to throw the hammer where he wished, which was not the case with some of the preceding champions, who threw very erratically.