PEDESTRIAN1SM.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 275, 23 June 1888, Page 3

PEDESTRIANISM.

Says a Sydney paper received by la-^ mail :— ' The three-mile walk at Botany on Wednesday last created great excitement, and a little fostering- on the part of our athletic caterers will bring this sport up to the successful position it held a few years back. With the adveutof Sheffield handicaps walking almost died out in the metropolis, but that the old love for it i& st'll .smouldering was fully borne out by the great enthusiasm displayed by the laige crowd who were present. The race resulted in a match between the Paramatta walker, Brotherson, and the New Zealander, Morshead, the others not being in it, but through the first-named being right out ot condition he collapsed at 2,f miles, leaving Morshead to win easily.' We see from late American papers that D. A. Driecoll is out with a challenge to walk Joe Scott fifty miles for oOOdoI. a side. Our Wanganui contributor sends us the following : — The 30-mile walking match between Bowen and Ryan took place on Saturday, but did not attract much attention. The arrangements all through appeared to be loose, and the whole thing savoured more of a gate money affair than aught else. The track was too small, and jostling occurred in every round. There was no referee, judge, or timekeoper, and just as Bowen appeared to have made an end of the match by getting within a few laps of his man (to whom he had conceded five miles) he went off the track, presumably from the effects of a drink ; but made his appearance a little later on among the audience with a pipe in his mouth, smoking and looking as though nothing particular had occurred. Ryan walked in heavy boots — too heavy for a board track, and Bowen 1 had on light running shoes. In style Ryan was the fairest walker, Bowen's being a shufUing, ambling gaib, for whiqh he would have been cautioned scores of times had there been a referee. Ryan walked on till 10 o'clock, covering his 45 miles by one minute past the hour, the last two miles being done in seventeen minutes and a half. There was some talk of another challenge for from £50 to £100 a-side for a 50-mile match in a month or six weeks' time, and this challenge Bowen took up. A one-mile walking- match came off in the Domain on Saturday afternoon between A. Peat and E. McArtny, resulting in a victory for Peat by about 20 yards.