Outdoor Sports and Games — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Outdoor Sports and Games
John Stuart Mill · en
A tramping vacation of several days furnishes a fine opportunity to
see new scenes and to live economically, but near a city you may have
difficulty in persuading the farm-wife where you stop that you are not
a tramp who will burn the house in the night. If you intend to live by
the wayside, the surest way to inspire confidence is to show in
advance that you have money to pay for your accommodations. Also try
to avoid looking like a tramp, which is quite different from looking
like a tramper.
There seems to be a great difference of opinion on the question of how
fast one can walk. The popular idea is “four miles an hour” but any
one who has tried to cover a mile every fifteen minutes will testify
that such a rate of speed is more like a race than a walk and that it
will require great physical exertion to maintain it for any
considerable distance. An eighteen or twenty-mile walk is about all
the average boy should attempt in a day, and this is allowing the full
day for the task from early morning until sunset.
Short and frequent rests are much better than long stops, which have a
tendency to stiffen the muscles. The walker on a long tramp must pay
especial attention to the care of his feet. They should be bathed
frequently in cold water to which a little alum has been added. A
rough place or crease in the stocking will sometimes cause a very
painful blister.
Mountain climbing is a very interesting branch of walking. It is
sometimes very dangerous as well and in such cases should only be
attempted under the guidance of some one familiar with the
neighbourhood. For rough climbing our shoes should be provided with
iron hob nails. Steel nails often become very slippery and will cause
a bad fall on rocks.
Cross-country running and hare and hound chases are much more common
in England than in America. Our runners as a rule excel in the sprints
and short dashes, although in the recent Olympic sports we have shown
that our trained athletes are the equal of the world in nearly all
branches of sport.
In many of the English schools it is a regular part of the school work
for the teacher to organize hare and hound chases. The hares are given
a start of several minutes and leave a trail by means of bits of paper
or confetti, which they carry in a bag. In this kind of running the
object to be sought is not so much speed as endurance. An easy dog
trot with deep regular breathing will soon give us our second wind,
when we can keep on for a long distance.