The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-10-12

With an unassailable record of Ave hum
dred and five miles, Murphy, the Hsver-
straw boy, retired from the track yesterday
evening two hours before the expiration of
the one hundred and forty-two hours of the
race, and with practically six hours to
spare. The determination of his train
ers, or managers-for he already boasts
board of them-to keep down his rec
ord. it is safe to say, alone prevented
him from equalling or passing the five hun
dred and twenty-three miles and fraction
of Rowell. That is the disagreeable feature
of all these races, where the man is simply
an animal in the hands of his managers.
Between the Murphy club" and Murphy
it was not Ego as you please" but ''go as
we want you to-" The bright-eyed, clean
limbed little Celt who carried off the
O'Leary belt fairly earned his honors, how
ever, and it will be the public wish
that he gets his full share of the profits. He
was ''dark horse" and was all but ex-
Guided from long list Of competitors,
headed, in the Judgment of the manager of
the race, by BlowerBrown with his "record"
of five hundred and forty-two miles, and
with such other formidable pedestrians
as Grassland and McLeavy. But the
early days of the week saw the ia
vorites fall by the wayside, and the
list of the fallen increased daily until yes
terday, when only eleven of the original
thirty-fve were left. Among these, how
ever, nine Of them closed with records that
can compare favorably with the COMPETE
tors similarly placed in any race that has
yet taken place. The fact is, the spread Of
the walking mania has shown that
the endurance necessary to the COM
pletion of these great feats is not so
limited to one or two ''wonders" as was
imagined few years ago. The newcomers,
too, have the advantage of the painfully
won experience of predecessors such as
OLeary, Weston, Rowell and Brown.
These races illustrate strikingly how far
will-power can dominate muscle. There
being certain point at which q man must
succumb, it is interesting to observe how
long the will can keep the machine in
motion when the muscles from head to
heel are pleading for rest. To compare
poor old gray-headed Curran, plodding
around the track in exquisite agony, his
joints almost audibly breaking, with the
tall negro Pierce, who, eating ravenously and
in prime bodily condition, could only be
kept on the truck by the Legrees of his
management making little inferno of his
resting hut, was instructive to the unsen-
timental Psychologist.
Yet the race had it's humors. There was
the tall and grim Californian with his great
infallible carbon system, whose ambition
was foiled after few hours march by such
q deplorable bat small circumstance as find
ing his hut door looked and his trainer miss
ing. There was tho African who unused on
the quaint destiny that found him walking
six days for some unknown object in
hopeless race and only anxious to be
let stop, and there was the natty
tailor Mckee who found refuge from the
scorn of the audience in the knowledge that
he would win prize by his needle that he
could never hope to win on his 'pins"
alone. But there Is another comical
thought-namely, the ease with which 10
many poor plodders found hackers. Does
it mean that the time is coming when man
shall say, not as Colonel Sellers. ~ own
pig" and be proud, but shall say, ~ own
O pedestrian" and be happyP Some
twenty-five hackers in the late match can
answer this question.