•NIMROD.' 



Charles James Apperley 



I AM sure that all educated English sportsmen, who 

 have dipped into that monumental work The National 

 Dictionary of Biography, will have shared my feelings of 

 surprise and indignation on finding that two such 

 familiar names as those of Charles James Apperley, 

 ' Nimrod,' and Henry Hall Dixon, ' The Druid,' are absent 

 from that Valhalla of British worthies. The reason is 

 said to be that the first editor, Mr Leslie Stephen, had no 

 sympathy with sport. And yet I seem to remember the 

 time when' Leslie Stephen's name was associated with 

 sporting feats of a kind almost as eccentric as those of 

 Jack Mytton. Trinity Hall men used to tell of his en- 

 thusiastic interest in their First Boat, and how he dashed 

 into the Cam almost up to his neck to offer his frantic 

 congratulations to the crew when they won the goal of 

 their ambition and wrested from First Trinity the head- 

 ship of the river. And who that saw it will ever forget 

 that memorable afternoon at Fenner's, when the lean and 

 wiry Don matched himself to walk two miles whilst 

 Cadman of Peterhouse ran three, and when, in his excite- 

 ment, ,the former shed his scanty garments till the 

 spectators trembled lest he should breast the tape in 

 puris naturalibus ! In later years Mr Leslie Stephen 



