Jack Levitt. 1 7 



question of the difference between amateurs and professionals 

 has now no further interest to me, so I can afford to laugh 

 at it. In art, literature, and science there is no distinction 

 between the two. The amateur actor, the amateur photo- 

 grapher, the amateur cricketer, or the amateur athlete who 

 thinks he is socially superior to his professional rivals, because 

 he is an amateur according to certain arbitrary rules, either 

 values his social position — generally, a miserably poor one at 

 best — more than his art, or by deliberately sailing under false 

 colours tries to make more money out of it than he could do 

 as a professional. The instances at hand are so numerous 

 that mention of some would be invidious to others. When 

 Sir John Astley and Captain Machell used to run, it was 

 rightly considered that amateur peds. might contest money 

 matches against each other, so long as they ' found ' their own 

 coin ; just as an amateur billiard player of the present day 

 would incur no social ban on account of having a bet on a 

 game. 



What villanies have been perpetrated on the cinder path ! 

 When I was ' cramming,' as a boy, in Dublin for the army, 

 I entered for a 1 50 yards handicap, which had been organised 

 by Jack Levitt, the old ten-mile champion. Being unknown, 

 I got 14 yards start and won easily. When I came next day 

 to run in the second round, I found that I had been put back 

 10 yards, and that a very smart Englishman who had run 

 the previous day in faultless style and had won his heat in 

 a trot, had been moved forward the same distance. I lost, 

 and thought no more about the affair, until about a couple 

 of years afterwards I found myself in the Bow Running 

 Grounds, looking at the decision of a sprint handicap. 

 Thinking that I had seen on some previous occasion the scratch 

 man, who was giving long starts to the other professionals, 

 I asked one of my running acquaintances who he was. 

 ' That's So-and-So,' he replied ; ' he is about an even-timer 

 and is a great pall of Jack Levitt.' And then I went away 

 proud and happy with the consciousness that at least one 



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