Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-02-23

varieties Of sports and many of the crack Ath-
ietes in America-who BY the way. are the
crack athletes of the world nowadays-are
OF Irish parentage. The love of the people
over there for sport is as natural and honest 90
tneir love for fresh air. They do not drink
beer, smoke very little, and the smooth roads
OF Ireland offer them q splendid opportunity
Ior running and walking. Before the trouble
came upon Ireland, the people showed their
Iondness for sport Of all sort by trudging
from one end of the country 70 the
other for any athletic event. Many Of
the peasants would walk Is or 20 miles
simply to watch the horses and hounds
of some notable hunt. Now they will walk 50
miles to break up a hunt if possible. The
young Irish boys are good runners. Some
tlme ago they adopted the English style of
running. but am. glad to that the Ameri-
has taken good hold. Some of the feetost
runners that L have ever seen in Ireland and
England now run in the American fashion
that Is, with the arms hanging free and the
mead forward, good deal as an Indian runs.
THE CONVENTIONAL ENGLISH STYLE
OF running is to throw the shoulders very far
back, stick the elbows close to the
sides, pump the arms up and down, keeping
time with the stride and throwing the leg very
far forward. In England the amateur athletes
crop up at every possible point Every little
village has its barriers, its cricket and foot
pail teams, and there are contests going on
constantly. The boys are a straight-limbed,
ruddy-faced, clear-eyed lot of youngsters,
who speak without affectation and are delight
fully modest and unconventional. 1t is a won
derful thing to me that they develope after
they are ~ or % years old into the stiff awk-
ward, surly and even insoent men that one
meets so often in London. Every facility is
offered the boys in England for indulging in
athletics. The most crusty and grabbed of
ahnnkaanara wI1 fh,t
snare toward purchasing cup or
prize OF some sort for the boys to struggle for,
and it is really remarkable to see the number
OF people who turn out at an athletic meeting in
some OF the large towns outside of London.
Athletic games in many Of the big manufac-
turing cities like Birmingham prove thousand
times more exciting and interesting to the
people than circus or a race meeting in
America.
PUBLIc INTEREST.
They number spectators by the thousand
over there where we count them BY the hun
dreds. A crowd of ten thousand people any,
where in England at an athletic meeting is by
no means unusual, though the runners may not
be champions, and there may be nothing more
interesting than series of walking and rum
ming matches between men who have merely To-
calreputations. What have admired most about
the English and Irish boys is the careful man.
ner in which they look after themselves. They
will toddle off to bed early, no matter what the
attractions may be. get up betimes and take a
5-mlle spin, wrapped up in sweaters and heavy
coats. return and take a cold bath and sit down
to breakfast, without feeling that they have
done anything out of the ordinary way. When
they smoke at all it is simply to take a short
pull at a briarwood pipe, and as a rule nothing
on earth can coax an English boy into touching
malt drinks or smoking cigarettes. They look fur
ther ahead than our own boys. The trouble in
America, as far as my observation goes, and have
been more or less associated with athletics for
a number of years, seems to be that the boys
and young men take up athletics merely in the
way OF fad. They train themselves violently
and severely with some definite purpose in
view, such as the l00-yard dash, or the high
jump, and if they fail to beat the record in
the course of a year they abandon athletics
altogether. Men are athletes in Ireland and
England until they forty odd years of
age. That is the one advantage of cricket,
by the way, over base ball, and it is the real
reason of the permanent popularity of the
game in Great Britain. A man can play cricket
until he is fifty years of age, but nobody can
play base ball nowadays unless he is a we'll
trained athlete, with youth, strength and lots Of
activity to back him up. But then had rather
see one game of ball than thousand games of
cricket This is, as far as my observation goes,
the usual preference in America.
BLAKELY HALL.