The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-14

Mnae. Anterson's Triumph.
A month ago Nine. Anderson set herself
a task which few familiar with such work
believed it possible for any human being to
perform, and SO at first it attracted but lit
tie attention. But as time wore on, and
hour after hour and day after day she stuck
faithfully to her work aud as word came
OF her novel diet, setting at defiance all
training rules of the difficulty her attend
ants encountered in arousing her every few
minutes from her slumbers of the danger
OF her falling perhaps dead on the
track, and Of her brilliant but unap-
preciated record in England in this same
kind Of work, public opinion grew rapidly
in her favor. 1t is entirely safe to say that
when last night amid thunders of applause
she sped around her twenty-seven hun
dredth quarter and won in excellent
form, she accomplished the most remark
able pedestrian feat ever performed by
any woman, and indeed ranking high up
among the best efforts of the feetest-iooted
men. When Greek military matters grew
pressing and Pheidippides, bearer of de-
spatches, covered hundred and fifty-seven
miles in two days, all men wondered,
and the historian mentioned it in
glowing phrases. But O'Leary and
'Corkey" Vaughan and Weston nova
days would laugh at that trife, and even
the venerable Sport" would have given
Pheidippides a close race. When, nearly
a century ago, Captain Barclay as
tonished Europe by doing q thousand
miles in thousand hours, some
idea of the interest it aroused in Eng
land may be gathered from the
fact that the enormous sum of upward of
hundred thousand pounds is said to have
changed hands on the result, suggestive, by
the way, that heavy betting is no recent
thing among Britons. And if Bar
clay's physicians pronounced him good
for three weeks more of the same
work before stopping, it was going but
little further than Nine. Anderson's doctors
now do for her, and this, though hers has been
many times more difficult task than his.
Indeed, until Gales wonderful performance
in England, to do with not more than eight
minutes sleepat time and to keep it up for
whole month together, seemed q physical
impossibility. But even when little Gale
quarter-miles in as many quarter-hours, it
still seemed just as impossible, certainly
for any woman, to manage twenty-seven
hundred. But Anderson has done it, and
if her morning work yesterday was sugges-
lively slow the fact that the fastest quarter
Of the whole number was the very last of
all serves to give some idea Of what is in
this sturdy little woman.
The medical men find new and interest
ing problem in determining how to bring her
gradually back to a normal allowance of
sleep, and one with which she herself is far
more familiar than they. After a Turk
ish bath she was to retire, but to be
awakened every hour sufficiently to be
ure that she is thoroughly conscious, and
if she likes to partake of some nourish-
ment. Then she is to drop off again, and
to so continue until she wants no more.
In expressing willingness to match her.
self with O'Leary, if he will make the con-
test three weeks' one, instead OF his favorite
six days, she bespeaks most interest
ing struggle. 1t would be one in which
this determined woman, however far he
might leave her behind at first, would prob
ably cut out for him all he wanted to do
before the race was over. And if
O'Leary's gallantry will, as he has
announced, prevent him from rae
ing with woman, doubtless the
handsome receipts from months race
with him at Gilmore's Garden would tempt
Gale himself over here to see whether he
could not carry back to England the trophy
of the worlds championship which
O'Leary SO gracefully brought away.