Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1886 — Getting Down to Weight. [ARTICLE]

Getting Down to Weight.

College students enter into their athletic contests with an enthusiasm that is refreshing, and “Featherweight,” in the Boston Globe, an interesting story about the preparation of the technology students. At their games the juniors won the tug-of-war, and thereby hangs a tale. When the four men who were to represent the class of ’B7 began to pull together it was found that they were weighed twenty-four pounds over the limit—six hundred pounds. This, too, was when they all supposed to be in the pink of condition; but they must take oft* those twenty-four pounds of extra weight, and and every expedient known by the athlete to reduce weight was resorted to. In fact, they went through a course of training that would put to the blush a prize-fighter preparing for a battle in the ring. Finally, on the night before the eventful day, they were again weighed, and, to their consternation, they were still too heavy by one and a half pounds. They were not going to give it up then, so they decided to refrain from any more food until they had been accepted by the officials on the following day. The time for the official weighing found each one fearfully hungry, but when they stepped on the scales and found that they weighed but 599 75-100 pounds and were eligible to pull, they thought no more of eating, but went to work on the cleats just a quarter of a pound under weight. When they had won their first heat they suddenly disappeared, but showed up in time for the last pull. The “sophs” were to be their opponents, and they demanded that the juniors be weighed over again, but the referee said no. The 87 men had been weighed and accepted once, and as they had pulled one heat they were eligible to pull again. Now, the juniors had precisely this view of the matter, and as they were decidedly hungry after winning once, they slipped out and broke their fasting. The sophomores discovered the clever trick of their elders, but the only satisfaction they could get out of it was that perhaps they could be as smart another year.

It is said that Mrs. G. L. Lorillard intends to follow the example of the Duchess Montrose in England and keep a racing-stable. She has permitted her trainer to make engagements for her horses under the name of “The Locusts Stables.