a dragging hill.  At this point it was anybody’s game, a dollar on Rossius and two half-dollars on the member of the feathery tribe.  When five miles were called, the men were still shoulder to shoulder.  At about six miles The Gasper put on a tremendous spirt to leave the men behind and establish himself at the turning-point at the entrance of the village.  He afterwards declared that he received a mental knock-downer on taking his station and facing about, to find Bright Chanticleer close in upon him, and Rossius steaming up like a locomotive.  The Bantam rounded first; Rossius rounded wide; and from that moment the Bantam steadily shot ahead.  Though both were breathed at the town, the Bantam quickly got his bellows into obedient condition, and blew away like an orderly blacksmith in full work.  The forcing-pumps of Rossius likewise proved themselves tough and true, and warranted first-rate, but he fell off in pace; whereas the Bantam pegged away with his little drumsticks, as if he saw his wives and a peck of barley waiting for him at the family perch.  Continually gaining upon him of Ross, Chanticleer gradually drew ahead within a very few yards of half a mile, finally doing the whole distance in two hours and forty-eight minutes.  Ross had ceased to compete three miles short of the winning-post, but bravely walked it out and came in seven minutes later.

    REMARKS.

“The difficulties under which this plucky match was walked can only be appreciated by those who were on the ground.  To the excessive rigor of the icy blast and the depth and state of the snow must be added the constant scattering of the latter into the air and into the eyes of the men, while heads of hair, beards, eyelashes, and eyebrows were frozen into icicles.  To breathe at all, in such a rarefied and disturbed atmosphere, was not easy; but to breathe up to the required mark was genuine, slogging, ding-dong, hard labor.  That both competitors were game to the backbone, doing what they did under such conditions, was evident to all; but to his gameness the courageous Bantam added unexpected endurance and (like the sailor’s watch that did three hours to the cathedral clock’s one) unexpected powers of going when wound up.  The knowing eye could not fail to detect considerable disparity between the lads; Chanticleer being, as Mrs. Cratchit said of Tiny Tim, ‘very light to carry,’ and Rossius promising fair to attain the rotundity of the Anonymous Cove in the Epigram:—­

    And when he walks the streets the paviors cry,
    “God bless you, sir!”—­and lay their rammers by.