The right hand grasps it above the head, thumb uppermost, while the left hand holds it, thumb down, as high as the waist. The pole is grasped higher up in proportion to the distance to be cleared, beginning with small ones and slowly increasing the length of pole, till it can be taken by the very end.
This becomes still more necessary in the high pole leap, where eleven feet and an inch have been cleared in England. To take such a leap requires at least a thirteen-foot pole.
In pole-leaping the weight of the body on the pole is sustained by the arms, and the whole office of the legs is to enable the body to go high enough to carry the pole to a perpendicular. The hight leaped is only limited by the possible length of pole carried.
Pole-leaping is coming into fashion but slowly in America; the best records being nearly a foot behind those of England, where there is more practice of the kind. For a sportsman in the country, pole-leaping is a very valuable accomplishment, as it would save him many a ducking in ditches and climb over fences.
In the chapter on athletic meetings will be found all the rules that govern leaping contests for prizes, to which we refer the reader.
[BICYCLING.]
The sport of Bicycling is one that has come into rapid favor in this country since the advent of the English riders, who have accomplished a thousand miles a week; and the only drawback to its universal adoption is the first cost of the machines. When that is reduced, as it will be, to about fifty dollars, payable in installments like sewing machines, the bicycle will become a favorite with the whole American population as it is in England with the majority of middle class young men.
Even now the fever is spreading rapidly thanks chiefly to the efforts of Mr. Wentworth Rollins, the present king of bicyclists in America. He sells machines to people he can trust on installments and has a large stock of goods on hand which he sells below the usual prices to beginners.
The pioneers of bicycling in the United States were the Pope Manufacturing Company, who started factories and schools in the cities of Boston and San Francisco, where the fever started almost at the same time, but since that period bicycling has spread to most of the large cities, and has training schools in all.