Stevens County tribune. (Morris, Minn.) 1877-1880, 1879-03-20
Walking MatcheS----BrutGL Torture o
Women.
New York Nation,

The sport of long-distance and consecu-
tive period walking has within the past few
months become popular athletic entertain
ment. Weston is now engaged in attempt
ing to perform the nearly impossible feat of
walking 1000 miles in ], ZOO hours over Eng
lish country roads, while female pedestrian
has in this country lately accomplished 2, 700
miles in ZOO consecutive quarter hours
over a sawdust course, and several other
women are now trying to beat her by doing
5000 miles in 5000 quarter hours. The
Saturday Recieac calls attention to the fact
that these tests of endurance have been i'm
ported into England from this country, and
charitably suggests that, inasmuch as they
began to become popular in the United
States at about the time of the enfranchise-
ment of the negro, one fact may explain the
other; the negro no longer being available
for the qualification of our inhumanity and
cruelty. we have developed the new fern of
pedestrianism to supply us with a sort of
public ''nigger,'' whose bodily sufferings
and anguish we may get the same
pleasure from that we used to get
from the writings of the African
under the lash. Unfortunately for this in
genious suggestion, the new sport was in
vented, or at any rate has been chiefly de-
We fear that nothing short of an Unborn
love of cruel amusements will explain the
phenomenon. There is inthe spectacle it
self absolutely nothing of the slightest in
terest. In almost all other sports there is
some rivalry, some struggle, or an exhibition
of the human form brought to high pitch
of muscular perfection; in this there is
nothing but woman, dressed in short skirts,
her legs incased in some kind of worsted
hose, walking monotously round a sawdust
ellpse, about which sit number of stolid
spectators, who every now and then break out,
apparently without rhyme or reason,
into frantic applause. After walking round
a certain number of times she gees off into
a room, where she falls asleep.
After a certain number of days of this her
feet begin to swell and become painful;
later on she begins, it is said, to see visions,
and walks round in a sort of dream, like
those which people dying of hunger and
thirst have; at any rate, she can barely stand
upright, and has to be forced up to her
work. When she finally leaves the track, she
is in condition which makes continuous
medical attendance q necessity to save her
life. We confess we cannot see why such
brutal exhibitions as this should be allowed
in civilized community. It is nothing
more nor less than public trial by slow
torture, which does not advance athletic
sports in the least; for the actual walking
done in these sawdust rings is not, as
walking, good for anything. Three
Thousand quarter miles in 1000
quarter hours is at the
rate of twenty-four miles in twenty four
hours, which, with regular intervals of sleep,
anybody can no. 1t is, in fact, in q new
form, a revival of the medieval fortuna of
preventing person from getting his sleep
for long time. It is UNNECESSARILY below
prize-fghting, bull-fghting, and number
of other cruel sports which the police nova
days break up. The cruel part of it is, that
the test lasts SO long time that the gate
money taken In reaches large sum, and
woman may, if she can accomplish the feat,
earn small fortune. The subject is one
which those who are interested in woman's
rights, and in the prevention of cruelty,
might look into with advantage. F