Бг Every Saturday, MODERN ECCENTRICS. David and Blizzard, and for conspiring to sink the Shooting Star, and part of her crew, off the coast of Labrador. A Liverpool paper, a few months ago, mentioned that a bushranger of the same name had been shot in an encounter with the mounted police. As the name is not a common one, the bushranger and the mate were probably the same persons. The firm tried the quartermaster with another vessel, and he acquitted himself well; and as for Ritson, he is now the most respected captain in their service. MODERN ECCENTRICS. 66 SCORES, nay hundreds of volumes, have been the oddities of character which mangathered upon kind, in all ages, have presented to the observant writer who loves to "shoot folly as it flies." Voltaire has said, " Every country has its foolish notions..... Let us not laugh at any people"; but it would be difficult to find any age which has not its curiosities of character to be laughed at and turned to still better account; for, of whatever period we write, something may be done in the way of ridicule Diogenes towards turning the popular opinion. owes much of his celebrity to his contempt of comfort, by living in a tub, and his oddity of manner. Orator Henley preached from his "gilt tub," in Clare Market, and thus earned commemoration in the Dunciad: — beckoned one of his friends to accompany him. The No great cause was ever inaugurated with more eccentric or more genuine fervor than the advocacy "Here goes, in the name of God!" of temperance principles by Father Mathew, the Capuchin friar. said the Father, on the 10th of April, 1838, when he pledged his name in the cause of temperance, and together with the Protestant priest, Charles Duncombe, the Unitarian philanthropist, Richard Dowden, and the stout Quaker, William Martin, publicly inaugurated a movement at Cork destined in a few years to count its converts by millions, and to spread its influence as far as the English language pulsive temperament of the Irish was acted upon was spoken. In this good work, the habitually imfor the purest and most beneficial of purposes; and one element of its success lay in the unselfishness of A distil"Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain, the Father, who was himself a serious sufferer by While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain; the results of his philanthropic exertions. O, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes, lery in the south of Ireland, belonging to his family, A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods! But Fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall, and from which he himself derived a large income, Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and haul." Eccentricity has its badge and characteristics by was shut up in consequence of the disuse of whiskey which it gains distinction and notoriety, and which, among the lower orders, occasioned by his preachin some cases, serve as a lure to real excellence. ing. But his "Riverance" was most unscrupulously The preaching of Rowland Hill is allowed to have tyrannized over by his servant John, a wizened old I must been excellent; but his great popularity was won bachelor, with a red nose, privately nourished by way, by his eccentric manner, and the many piquant | Bacchus; and he was only checked in his evil doOn one occasion there anecdotes and witticisms, and sallies of humor un-ings when the Father, more exasperated than usual, orthodox, with which, during his long ministry, he exclaimed, "John, if you go on in this interlarded his sermons. However, he thought the certainly leave this house." end justified the means; and certain it is that it was a frightful smack of whiskey pervading the pure drew very large congregations. The personal al- element which graced the board, which he accounted lusions to his wife, which Rowland Hill is related to for by saying he had placed the forbidden liquid, have used in the pulpit, were, however, fictious, with which he "cleaned his tins," in the jug by and at which Hill expressed great indignation. "It mistake. is an abominable untruth," he would exclaim; rogatory to my character as a Christian and a gentleman. They would make me out a bear." "de The temperance cause prospered; but Father it impossible to keep out of debt, which ever kept The hour of his deepest bitterMathew, through his eccentric love of giving, found ness was when, while publicly administering the The success of Edward Irving, the popular min- him in thraldom. ister of the National Scotch Church in London, was of a more mixed character. His sermons were not pledge in Dublin, he was arrested for the balance liked at first; and it was not until he was recog- of an account due to a medal manufacturer; the nized by Dr. Chalmers that Irving became popular. bailiff to whom the duty was intrusted kneeling But he was turned out of his church, and treated as down among the crowd, asking his blessing, and "There then quietly showing him the writ. This is one of a madman, and he died an outcast heretic. was no harm in the man," says a contemporary, the many anecdotes told by Mr. Maguire, in his "and what errors he entertained, or extravagances admirable "Life of Father Mathew," who, we learn he allowed, in connection with supposed miraculous from the same authority, at a large party, attempted gifts, were certain, in due time, to burn themselves to make a convert of Lord Brougham, who resisted, It was not so much the error of his doctrine, good-humoredly but resolutely, the efforts of his as the peculiarity of his manner, the torrent of his dangerous neighbor. "I drink very little wine," eloquence, his superlative want of tact, that pro- said Lord Brougham; "only half a glass at lunvoked his enemies and frightened his friends. The cheon, and two half-glasses at dinner; and though strength of his faith was wonderful. Once, when he my medical adviser told me I should increase the was called to the bedside of a dying man late at quantity, I refused to do so." "They are wrong, night, he went forth, but presently returned, and my lord, for advising you to increase the quantity, out. do; and you are wrong in taking the small quantity you | the perfect and inimitable art with which a dog but I have my hopes of you." And so, after a picks a bone." pleasant resistance on the part of the learned lord, Father Mathew invested his lordship with the silver medal and ribbon, the insignia and collar of the Order of the Bath. "Then I will keep it," said Lord Brougham, "and take it to the House, where I shall be sure to meet the old Lord the worse of liquor, and I will put it on him." Lord Brougham was as good as his word; for, on meeting the veteran peer, he said, "Lord I have a pres-habits. ent from Father Mathew for you," and passed the ribbon quietly over his neck. "Then I'll tell you what it is, Brougham, by I will keep sober for this day," said his lordship, who kept his word, to the great amusement of his friends. One of the most eccentric emblems set up in our time was the wood-cut of a gridiron, which for many years headed the Political Register of William Cobbett, as a sign of the political martyrdom which he avowed he was prepared to undergo, upon certain conditions. He often threatened to set up an iron gridiron over his publishing office in Bolt Court and Fleet Street, but did not carry his threat into execution. The gridiron will be recollected as one of the emblems of St. Lawrence, and we see it as a large gilt vane of one of the city churches dedicated to the saint. As he was broiled on a gridiron for refusing to give up the treasures of the church committed to his care, so Cobbett vowed that he would consent to be broiled upon a gridiron, in his Register, dated Long Island, on the 24th of September, 1819, wherein he wrote the well-known prophecy on Peel's Cash Payment Bill of that year as follows: "I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry their Bill into effect is impossible; and I say that if this Bill be carried into full effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron, and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans." On the hoisting of the gridiron in triumph, he wrote and published the fulfilment of his prophecy by the following statement: "Peel's Bill, together with the law about small notes, which last were in force when Peel's Bill was passed, these laws, all taken together, if they had gone into effect, would have put an end to all small notes on the first day of May, 1823; but to precede this blowing-up of the whole of the funding system, an act was passed, in the month of July, 1822, to prevent these laws, and especially that part of Peel's Bill which put an end to small Bank of England notes, from going into full effect; thus the system received a respite, but thus did the Parliament fulfil the above prophecy of September, 1819." A large sign gridiron was actually made for Mr. Cobbett. It was of dimensions sufficient for him to have lain thereon (he was six feet high); the implement was gilt, and we remember to have seen it displayed in the office window in Fleet Street; but it was never hoisted outside the office. It was long to be seen on the gable end of a building next Mr. Cobbett's house at Kensington. Cobbett possessed extraordinary native vigor of mind; but every portion of his history is marked by strange blunders. Shakespeare, the British Museum, antiquity, posterity, America, France, Germany, are, one and all, either wholly indifferent to him, or the objects of his bitter contempt. He absurdly designated the British Museum a" bundle of dead insects." When he had a subject that suited him, he is said to have handled it, not as an accomplished writer, but " with Eccentricity in men of science is not rare. The Hon. Henry Cavendish, who demonstrated, in 1781, the composition of water, was a remarkable instance. He was an excellent mathematician, electrician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, and as a chemist shot far ahead of his contemporaries. But he was a sort of methodical recluse, and an enormous fortune left him by his uncle did little to change his His shyness and aversion to society bordered on disease. To be looked at or addressed by a stranger seemed to give him positive pain, when he would dart away as if hurt. At Sir Joseph Banks's soirées he would stand for a long time on the landing, afraid to face the company. At one of these parties the titles and qualifications of Cavendish were formally recited when he was introduced to an Austrian gentleman. The Austrian became complimentary, saying his chief reason for coming to London was to see and converse with Cavendish, one of the greatest ornaments of the age, and one of the most illustrious philosophers that ever existed. Cavendish answered not a word, but stood with his eyes cast down, abashed, and in misery. At last, seeing an opening in the crowd, he flew to the door, nor did he stop till he reached his carriage and drove directly home. Any attempt to draw him into conversation was almost certain to fail, and Dr. Wollaston's recipe for treating with him usually answered best: "The way to talk to Cavendish is, never to look at him, but to talk as if it were into a vacancy, and then it is not unlikely you may set him going." Among the anecdotes which floated about it is related that Cavendish, the club Croesus, attended the meetings of the Royal Society Club with only money enough in his pocket to pay for his dinner; that he declined taking tavern soup, picked his teeth with a fork, invariably hung his hat upon the same peg, and always stuck his cane in his right boot. More apocryphal is the anecdote that one evening Cavendish observed a pretty girl looking out from an upper window on the opposite side of the street, watching the philosophers at dinner. She attracted notice, and one by one they got up, and mustered round the window to admire the fair one. Cavendish, who thought they were looking at the moon, bustled up to them in his odd way, and when he saw the real object of attraction, turned away intense disgust, and grunted out "Pshaw!" the more amorous conduct of his brother philosophers having horrified the woman-hating Cavendish. with If men were a trouble to him, women were his abhorrence. With his housekeeper he generally communicated with notes deposited on the hall-table. He would never see a female servant; and if an unlucky maid showed herself, she was instantly dismissed. To prevent inevitable encounters, he had a second staircase erected in his villa at Clapham. In all his habits he was punctiliously regular, even to his hanging his hat upon the same peg. From an unvarying walk he was, however, driven by being gazed at. Two ladies led a gentleman on his track, In order that he might obtain a sight of the philosopher. As he was getting over a stile he saw, to his horror, that he was being watched, and he never appeared in that path again. That he was not quite merciless to the sex, was proved by his saving a lady from the pursuit of a mad cow. Cavendish's town-house was near the British Museum, at the corner of Gower Street and Montague Place. Few visitors were admitted, and those who | the Royal Society Club," "patent that the money crossed the threshold reported that books and appa- thus passed over from uncle to nephew was a mere ratus were its chief furniture. He collected a large consequence of relationship, and not at all owing to library of scientific books, hired a house for its recep- any flowers or powers of conversation at the Royal tion in Dean Street, Soho, and kept a librarian. Society Club." When he wanted one of his own books, he went there as to a circulating library, and left a formal receipt for whatever he took away. Nearly the whole of his villa at Clapham was occupied as workshops; the upper rooms were an observatory, the drawing-room was a laboratory. On the lawn was a wooden stage, from which access could be had to a large tree, to the top of which Cavendish, in the course of his astronomical and meteorological observations, and electrical experiments, occasionally ascended. His apparatus was roughly constructed, but was always exact and accurate. His household was strangely managed. He received but little company, and the few guests were treated on all occasions to the same fare, a leg of mutton. One day, four scientific friends were to dine with him; when his housekeeper asked him what was to be got for dinner, Cavendish replied, "A leg of mutton.” "Sir, said she, "that will not be enough for five." "Well, then, get two," was the reply. Cavendish never changed the fashion or cut of his dress, so that his appearance in 1810, in a costume of sixty years previously, was odd, and drew upon him the attention which he so much disliked. His complexion was fair, his temperament nervous, and his voice squeaking; the only portrait that exists of him was sketched without his knowledge. Dr. George Wilson, who has left a clever memoir of Cavendish, says, "An intellectual head, thinking, a pair of wonderful acute eyes, observing, a pair of very skilful hands, experimenting or recording, are all that I realize in reading his memorials." It may take some readers by surprise to learn that there have been true believers in alchemy in our days. Dr. Price is commonly set down in popular journals as "the last of the alchemists"; he died in 1783, in his twenty-fifth year, by taking a draught of laurel-water rather than repeat his experiments before a committee of the Royal Society, on pain of expulsion. At the beginning of the present century, some persons of eminence in science thought favorably Cavendish extended his eccentric reception to his of alchemy. Professor Robison, writing to James own family. His heir, Lord George Cavendish, visit- Watt, February 11, 1800, says, "The analysis of ed him once a year, and was allowed an audience of alkalies and alkaline earth will presently lead, I but half an hour. His great income was allowed think, to the doctrine of a reciprocal convertibilto accumulate without attention. The bankersity of all things into all. ... and I expect to see where he kept his account, finding they had in hand alchemy revive, and be as universally studied as a balance of £80,000, apprised him of the same. The messenger was announced, and Cavendish, in great agitation, desired him to be sent up; and, as he entered the room, the ruffled philosopher cried, "What do you come here for? what do you want with me?" "Sir, I thought it proper to wait upon you, as we have a very large balance in hand of yours, and we wish your orders respecting it." "If it is any trouble to you, I will take it out of your hands. Do not come here to plague me!" "Not the least trouble to us, sir, not the least but we thought you might like some of it to be invested." "Well, well, what do you want to do?" "Perhaps you would like £40,000 invested." "Do so, do so! and don't come here to trouble me, or I'll remove it," was the churlish finale of the interview. Cavendish died in 1810, at the age of 78. He was then the largest holder of bank-stock in England. He owned £1,157,000 in different public funds; he had besides, freehold property of £8,000 a year, and a balance of £ 50,000 at his bankers. He was long a member of the Royal Society Club, and it was reported at his death that he had left a thumping legacy to Lord Beesborough, in gratitude for his lordship's piquant conversation at the club meetings; but no such reason can be found in the will lodged at Doctors' Commons. Therein, Cavendish names three of his club-mates, namely: Alexander Dalrymple, to receive £5,000, Dr. Hunter £5,000, and Sir Charles Blagden (coadjutor in the water question) £15,000. After certain other bequests, the will proceeds: "The remainder of the funds (nearly £100,000) to be divided: one sixth the Earl of Beesborough," while Lord George Henry Cavendish had two sixths, instead of one: "it is, therefore," says Admiral Smyth, in his " History of ever." Sir Walter Scott tells us that "about 1801, an adept lived, or rather starved, in the metropolis, in the person of the editor of an evening newspaper, who expected to compound the alkahest, if he could only keep his materials digested in his lamp-furnace for the space of seven years." Scott adds, in pleasant banter, "the lamp burnt brightly during six years, eleven months, and some odd days besides, and then unluckily it went out. Why it went out, the adept could never guess; but he was certain that if the flame could only have burnt to the end of the septenary cycle, his experiment must have succeeded." The last true believer in alchemy was not Dr. Price, but Peter Woulfe, the eminent chemist, and a fellow of the Royal Society, and who made experiments to show the nature of Mosaic gold. Little is known of Woulfe's private life. Sir Humphrey Davy states, that Woulfe used to affix written passages and inscriptions of recommendations of his processes to Providence. Woulfe lived many years in chambers in the oldest portion of Barnard's Inn, Holborn, where his rooms were so filled with furnaces and apparatus, that it was difficult to reach his fireside. Dr. Babington told Mr. Brande (the venerable chemist, who died last month) that he once put down his hat, and never could find it again, such was the confusion of boxes, packages, and parcels, that lay about the room. Woulfe's breakfast-hour was four in the morning; a few of his select friends were occasionally invited, and gained entrance by a secret signal, knocking a certain number of times at the inner-door of the chamber. He had long vainly searched for the Elixir, and attributed his repeated failures to the want of due preparation by pious and charitable acts. Whenever he wished to break an acquaintance, or felt himself offended, he resented that a man of wealth and position in the City of London, an adept in alchemy, was held in terrorem by an unprincipled person, who extorted from him considerable sums of money under threats of exposure, which would have affected his mercantile in the supposed injuries by sending a present to the five-and-thirty years since it came to our knowledge offender, and never seeing him afterwards. These presents sometimes consisted of an expensive chemical product or preparation. He had a heroic remedy for illness, which was a journey to Edinburgh and back by the mail-coach; and a cold, taken on one of these expeditions, terminated in inflamma-terests. tion of the lungs, of which he died in the year 1805. Of his last moments we received the following account from his executor, then treasurer of Barnard's Inn. By Woulfe's desire, his laundress shut up his chambers and left him, but returned at midnight, when Woulfe was still alive; next morning, how-tion of metals will be generally known and prac ever, she found him dead! his countenance was calm and serene, and apparently he had not moved from the position in his chair in which she had last left him. 66 Nevertheless, alchemy has, in the present day, its prophetic advocates, who predict what may be considered a return to its strangest belief. A Göttingen professor says, in the Annales de Chimie, No. 100, that in the nineteenth century the transmutatised. Every chemist and every artist will make gold; kitchen utensils will be of silver and even gold, which will contribute more than anything else to prolong life, poisoned at present by the oxide of copper, lead, and iron which we daily swallow with our food. Before all this takes place we shall, doubtless, have many additions to our MODERN ECCENTRICS. A GERMAN ATHLETIC FESTIVAL. THE great characteristic of the Germans, as a people, is their nationality. The love of the Fatherland is the ruling emotion which in everything nerves and inspires Germans to fresh endeavors; and this trait we find in them wherever they are, whether members of a small fraternity in a foreign land, or of a great nation in their own country. A German never forgets that he is a German, and that those of his nation, with whom he is thrown in contact, are his brethren. And it is in great measure, I think, this feeling which leads Germans to estab lish and maintain associations of all kinds; associ Twenty years after Woulfe's death, in 1825, there was living at the village of Lilley, between Luton and Hitchin, one Kellerman, an alchemist," who was believed by some of his neighbors to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone and the Universal Solvent. Here he had lived for twenty-three years, during fourteen of which he had pursued his alchemical researches with unremitting ardor, keeping eight assistants for superintending his crucibles, two at a time relieving each other every six hours; and he assured a visitor that he had exposed some preparations to intense heat for many months at a time, but that all except one crucible had burnt, and that, Kellerman said, contained the true "blacker than black," or "the powder of projection for producing gold." One of his assistants, however, protested that no gold had ever been found, and that no mercury had ever been fixed; adding that Kellerman could not have concealed it from his assistants, who frequently witnessed his severe disappoint-ations for the cultivation of music, of gymnastics, ment at the result of his most elaborate experiments. Kellerman's room was a realization of Teniers's alchemist; the floor was strewed with retorts, crucibles, alembics, jars, and bottles of various forms, intermingled with old books. He had been assured by some persons of kindred pursuits in London that they had made gold. He had studied the works of the ancient alchemists, and believed that he had discovered the key which they had kept secret, adding that he had pursued their system under the influence of new lights; and after suffering numerous disappointments, owing to the ambiguity with which they describe their processes, he had at length happily succeeded; had made gold, and could make as much more as he pleased, even to the extent of paying off the National Debt in the coin of the realm. Kellerman grew eloquent upon the merits of the old alchemists, but ridiculed the blunders and impertinent assumptions of modern chemists. He quoted Roger and Francis Bacon; Paracelsus, Boyle, and Boerhaave, and Woulfe (of Barnard's Inn) to rectify his pursuits. He alleged the Philosopher's Stone to be a mere phrase to deceive the vulgar; but he fully credited the silly story of Dee's finding the Elixir of Glastonbury, by which means Kelly for a long time lived in princely splendor. Here we must leave our village alchemist. Of late years there have been many revivals of alchemical pursuits. In 1850 there was printed in London a volume of considerable extent, entitled, "A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery," the work of a lady, by whom it has been suppressed; we have seen it described as "a learned and valuable book." By this circumstance we are reminded that some and various other pursuits; associations whose members are ever ready to obey the call of the parent association in the Fatherland, and to assemble from all parts of the world to do honor to one of the fêtes held by the parent society. An instance of this occurred last year, at the time of the Singers' Festival at Dresden, when upwards of thirty thousand Germans flocked from America, Australia, and other distant lands, to attend a festival which lasted but three days, many of them leaving Germany again as soon as the fête was over. I was never more struck with German enthusiasm than when, in the course of last long vacation, I was fortunate enough to be present at two German Turn Fests, or Athletic Festivals, the one at Darmstadt, the other at Freiburg. I think it may interest some of your readers, who are now looking forward to the third anniversary of our greatest English athletic meeting, to read even a brief account of what they can do, and are doing, in a similar way on the other side of the Channel, though much that I would gladly relate cannot be condensed into the space of so short a notice. These Festivals do not appear to be regularly held at the same towns, nor on any fixed days; but they take place annually, and are celebrated in turn at most of the principal towns in Germany. On these occasions about four acres of ground are spe cially enclosed, and gymnastic apparatus, of which more hereafter, are erected temporarily; for although there are always two or three gymnasiums in every German town, yet these would be quite inadequate to provide accommodation for the vast numbers who, as competitors or spectators, frequent these popular gatherings. It is worthy of note that any idea of gain or profit | presented incomparable advantages over the turf is quite foreign to these gatherings; the expense in- from which we learn to spring. The style of jumpcurred in preparing the ground is very great, and ing was decidedly bad; they all went at it too fast, the prizes are merely nominal, every one contend- and were very weak about the legs, having great ing out of pure love for the honor and glory of these difficulty in clearing the rope cleanly. They all contests. In many cases the victors are only crown- jumped fairly well up to four feet ten inches; but ed; in none are their rewards of any substantial few cleared the five feet. The best man in each value. The ground was circular, and surrounded company cleared about five feet two and a half by gayly decorated booths and tents, which provided inches, which may be considered equal to five feet for the refreshment of the wearied spectator or com- from the grass itself. There were very few "natupetitor, for I need not remark that the Germans do rally" good jumpers; all used more or less effort; nothing without beer. Round the circumference and what struck me very much was, that they all of an inner circle were arranged eight sets of ap-jumped exactly in the same style. This I afterparatus, each set consisting of two fixed parallel wards attributed to the fact that Germans always bars, about four feet out of the ground; a movable learn to jump or run, &c., in classes, several being horizontal bar, and apparatus for high jumping, and taught by the same master; and as every exercise that curious-looking machine familiar to every is performed by rule, the same rules prevail univerGerman, but comparatively strange to most Eng-sally, and lead to uniformity in style. lish athletes called the "horse," which consists of a padded body about four feet long, raised on four adjusting legs, with two ribs, a foot apart, running transversely across the body of the horse, each six inches from the centre. In the middle of the ground were erected poles and ropes for climbing, trapezes and ladders, among which were scattered rough blocks of unhewn stone, weights, and dumbbells. The festivals always commence on a Sunday, when those of the competitors who have already arrived at the town, march in procession to the largest available building, where they partake of a midday meal, and afterwards are addressed by one of the leading men of the fête. The Sunday afternoon is spent in practising for the coming struggle; for it is not until the Monday that the actual contests commence. By that time many more competitors and spectators have arrived, the town wears its holiday garb, the streets are thronged with crowds of holiday-makers, among whom the neat gray dress of the competitors is everywhere distinguishable. The ground itself is early beset by those who are anxious to secure the best places for witnessing the various contests. The best broad jumpers covered about seventeen feet and six inches, though very few sixteen feet fairly; there was a great want of that power about the hips and thighs so essential to excellence in this exercise, nor did they lift themselves enough at the commencement of the jump. In fact, I saw few, any, who could get well over fourteen feet of water, with a three feet hurdle on the take-off side of it. if From the broad-jumping we adjourned to putting the stone; and were surprised to find that they put a rough piece of stone, fresh from the quarry, which seemed to me to be much more unwieldy than the shot of weight with which we practise. Among the heavier men were some very fine putters, equal to any I have ever seen; they put a stone which, from a rough guess, must have been over nineteen pounds, from thirty-five to thirty-eight feet; but the winners in this class were, as a rule, large, powerful men, and not small men of great muscular development, as we not unfrequently see in competitions of the kind in England. The gymnastic feats on the bars and horse formed the next event; and we followed the squad we had watched all the day, and with whom we were now quite friendly, having drained cups of wine toThe proceedings commence by dividing the com-gether, and conversed as to the prospects of the sucpetitors into squads, or companies, of about twenty cess of each competitor. In these gymnastic feats or thirty members, each squad being then placed the judges first set a qualification exercise; one of under the command of three officially-appointed their number-in this case a well-knit, Englishjudges, who lead them away to that particular com- looking man-performing it with great grace and petition which they are directed or choose first to ease. This exercise was designed to test strength attempt. The programme included running high as well as activity, and all the competitors followed jump, running broad jump, putting the weight, exer- in turn, each doing his best, but one failed out of cises on the bars and horse, and foot-racing. I can- thirty. They all seemed thoroughly at home in not do better than take you, as I went myself, from these exercises; and the only distinction between one exercise to the other, and tell you in which they their feats was the degree of neatness and ease with seemed to equal, surpass, or fall short of our stand- which they were executed. After qualifying in this ard. But here I must note a feature peculiar to manner, each competitor was at liberty to perform these competitions, that every competitor who is two exercises of his own choosing, and were marked desirous of obtaining a prize must reach a certain by the judges according to their respective merits. standard in every exercise, so many points being It was very astonishing to me to see so many men, allowed for each, according to merit, and the win- of all weights and ages, adepts of this kind of exerners of the greatest number of points in the aggre- cises, which were remarkable as displaying great gate being declared victors. This system I believe strength in the muscles of the back and arms. might with advantage be introduced into England, these feats they would have as far surpassed any where individual excellence is much more highly set of Englishmen of equal numbers, as Englishmen valued and rewarded than general proficiency. would have excelled them in the running and jumpHere a man must be Cæsar aut nihil in every con- ing competitions. By far the greater number of test he undertakes; for the moderate performer in those who competed could perform easily feats a great many contests is quite unrecognized. which none but the most practised in England could achieve without great efforts. First, then, we looked on at the running high jump. The competitors jumped from a sloping board two feet square, and raised about two inches in front. This board had not much spring in it; but still it In The foot-racing, I must confess, much disappointed me; they ran two at a time, ninety-three yards out and ninety-three yards home, turning round two |