SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



since gone by his name. He also presented 

 three twenty-five guinea cups for competition 

 by light, middle, and heavy weights. These 

 were boxed for annually at the Old Lillie 

 Bridge grounds at Fulham, under the auspices 

 of the Amateur Athletic Association. In 

 1882 the cups mysteriously disappeared, and 

 the newly-formed Amateur Boxing Association 

 took over the title of ehampionships for their 

 meetings. These were first held at St. 

 James's Hall, then at Clerkenwell, and more 

 recently, to accommodate the numerous spec- 

 tators, they have been held at the Alexandra 

 Palace. Competitors are divided into five 

 classes : Bantam weights, 8 st. 4 Ib. and under; 

 feather, 9 st. and under ; light, 10 St. and 

 under ; middle, 1 1 st. 4 Ib. and under ; heavy, 

 any weight. A ten-guinea silver cup is pre- 

 sented to the winner in each weight. 



Amateur boxing clubs were never more 



numerous in London than at the pre- 

 sent time, some of the better known being 

 the Polytechnic, the Lynn, the Columbia, 

 St. Bride's Institute, Belsize, the Eton Mission, 

 Gainsford, and the German Gymnasium. 



The art is also scientifically taught by quali- 

 fied professors at the great public schools, 

 Harrow, Highgate, and St. Paul's. The stu- 

 dents annually compete in the Public School 

 championships, and those from St. Paul's have 

 received from their instructor, Professor 

 Driscoll, such a sound grounding in the gram- 

 mar of the art, that they have been remarkably 

 successful. To the famous amateurs men- 

 tioned above should be added the name of 

 Canon J. J. McCormick, D.D., of St. James', 

 Piccadilly, the Cambridge double ' blue,' who 

 in his university days could hold his own with 

 the scientific Langham and other leading 

 professionals. 



THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF LONDON, 1908 



The year 1908 is memorable in the annals 

 both of Middlesex and of British sport, for 

 the celebration of the Olympic Games of 

 London the fourth of a series of similar cele- 

 brations, which was initiated by the Games of 

 Athens 1 in 1896, and followed by those of 

 Paris 2 in 1900, and of St. Louis in the 

 United States in 1904.' Owing to the large 

 number of entries from twenty-one foreign 



1 See as to the Greek Games, The Olympic Games, 

 B.C. 776 to A.D. 1896, by Sp. P. Lambros and 

 N. C. Politis, Professor at the University of Athens, 

 published with the sanction and under the patron- 

 age of the Central Committee of Athens. Trans- 

 lated from the Greek by C. A. In addition to 

 the learned historical description of the ancient 

 games and the details of the Athens celebration, 

 this work contains, in Part II, an account by M. le 

 Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the prime mover in 

 their revival, of the origin and organization of the 

 modern Olympic Games. 



' An interesting account of the French Games 

 will be found in an article by Baron Pierre de 

 Coubertin, on 'The Olympian Games,' in the 

 North American Review for June 1900, p. 753 et 

 seq.; full records of the results are given in The 

 Olympic Games of London, published by The Sporting 

 Life, at p. 234, which also gives those of the 

 Athens Games. 



* Full details of the American Games are given 

 in The History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 

 and the St. Louis World's Fair, 1904, by Mark 

 Bennett, chap, xvi, 565-73. See, too, as to records 

 of the results, The Olympic Games of London, above 

 cited, 234. 



countries, as well as those of British competitors, 

 amounting in all to some 3,000, the London 

 celebration was by far the largest athletic 

 gathering of which there is any record ; 4 and 

 as the programme comprised over 100 events 

 in connexion with no less than twenty dif- 

 ferent forms of sport, it also supplied the 

 most comprehensive test of international 

 athletic proficiency which has, probably, ever 

 yet been provided. 5 In addition to this, the 

 historical interest of the Games as the revi- 

 val in modern form, after an interval of over 

 1,500 years, of the famous Greek athletic 

 festival was enhanced by the fact that, as the 

 next eighteen celebrations will take place, at 

 intervals of four years, in other countries, 

 nearly three-quarters of a century must elapse 

 before they can again be held in these islands. 6 



4 The Times article on ' The Games of London,' 

 IJ3 July 1908, p. 1 8. 



6 Ibid, and cf. an article on ' The Olympic 

 Games,' by a Member of the British Olympic 

 Committee, in Bailey's Magazine of Sports and 

 Pastimes, Sept. 1908, p. 215 et seq. 



' It was originally proposed that the games of 

 1908 should be held in Rome, and those of 1912 

 and 1916 probably in Berlin and Stockholm respec- 

 tively, but, owing to the inability of the Italian 

 representation on the International Olympic Com- 

 mittee to accept this offer, application was made 

 through Lord Desborough who had been present 

 at the Athens Games in 1896 as one of the British 

 referees to Great Britain. The Times article on 

 ' The Games of London,' 1 8 July, p. 1 8. 



295 



