SOME MEMORABLE MATCHES 309 



Hastings Doyle, a professor of poetry, if not 

 exactly a poet (who is supposed to have many 

 qualities in excess), to have been * run in one 

 minute four seconds and a half.' If so, there 

 is small need to doubt the ' mile in a minute ' 

 formerly ascribed to Flying Childers, and we 

 must have sadly degenerated in these days 

 (when, nevertheless, we are accused, as already 

 observed, of sacrificing everything to speed). But 

 it is very likely that the ' timer ' put figures in a 

 form intended to express i minute 41 or 42 seconds 

 (something like i minute 4<4), and thus a mistake 

 arose. 



A.D. 1773 : On August 14 took place one of 

 those cruel matches which make one's blood boil, 

 but which, somehow or other, seem to repeat 

 themselves, generation after generation, as soon 

 as the speed and endurance of horses are allowed 

 to become subjects of a wager or of a contest 

 for a prize or for distinction. Mr. Thomas 

 Walker and Captain Hay matched, the former a 

 gelding, the latter a mare, to run (in Dick 

 Turpin and Black Bess fashion, without the 

 highwayman's excuse) from London to York 

 (198 miles about), for a bet. Mr. Walker rode 



