the day,
And to his team he whistled time away."

People are getting more fond of physical exercise than they were. We may
almost ask--Are we returned back to the days of the Iliad and the
Odyssey? The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange greet Tom Sayers as if he
were an emperor, and, it is said, peers and clergymen think it right to
assist at a "mill." We have heard so much about muscular
Christianity--so much stress has been laid upon the adjective--that we
seem in danger of forgetting the Christianity altogether. Undoubtedly
our fathers are to blame in some respect for this. Good Christians,
thinking more of the next world than of this, merchants, and tradesmen,
and even poor clerks, hastening to be rich, scholars aiming at fame, and
mothers of a frugal turn, have set themselves against out-door life and
out-door fun, and have done with sports and pastimes--as Rowland Hill
said the pious had done with the tunes--_i.e._ let the devil have all the
good ones. In vain you war with nature, she will have her revenge, the
heart is true to its old instincts. Man is what he was when the Greek
pitched his tent by the side of the much-sounding sea, and before the
walls of Troy; when Alexander sighed for fresh worlds to conquer; when
the young Hannibal vowed deathless hate to Rome; when the rude ballad of
"Chevy Chase," sung in baronial hall, stirred men as if it were the sound
of a trumpet; when Nelson swept the seas, and when Wellington shattered
the mighty hosts of France. Thus is it old physical sports and pastimes
never die, and perhaps nowhere are they more encouraged and practised
than by the population of our cities and towns.

The other day some considerable interest was excited in the peculiar
circles given to the study of _Bell's Life_, by the fact that Jem Pudney
was to run Jem Rowan for 50 pounds a-side, at the White Lion, Hackney
Wick. The winner was to have the Champion's Cup. Far and near had
sounded and resounded the name of Pudney the swift-footed--how he had
distanced all his competitors--how he had done eleven miles under the
hour--were facts patent to all sporting England; but against him was this
melancholy reality, that he was getting old--he was verging on
thirty-two. However, when, after a weary pilgrimage through mud, and
sleet, and rain, we found ourselves arrived at the classic spot. The
betting was very much in Pudney's favour. The race was to have commenced
at five, but it did not beg