Rugby Days. 55 



of Hodson's Horse ; Sir Richard Temple, 

 who was Finance Minister of India under 

 Lord Lawrence, and is now a distinguished 

 M.P. ; and Henry Dixon. The last named 

 was not very popular with his schoolfellows 

 from his disinclination to join in their games 

 and sports, but they could not refrain from re- 

 specting him, when, in order to avoid being 

 incessantly badgered to join in " big side 

 runs," which he detested, he jumped a gate 

 nearly six feet in height, opposite Price's 

 house, and said he would run as often as they 

 pleased if any boy in the school would follow 

 him over that gate. Until quite lately it was 

 still shown with pride under the name of 

 11 Dixon's gate " — a name which it bore ever 

 since he cleared it, backwards and forwards, 

 on many occasions. The approach to it from 

 the Barby Road was uphill, and even in recent 

 days, when the records of Mr. M. J. Brooks 

 of Oxford University, who cleared six feet two 

 and a-half inches in 1876 ; of Mr. P. Davin, 

 who cleared six feet two and three-quarter 

 inches at Carrick-on-Suir in Ireland in 1880; 

 and of Mr. W. Byrd-Page, who cleared six 

 feet four inches in America in the same year, 



