Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1888 — THE TUG OF WAR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE TUG OF WAR.

An Exciting Game that Calls for Great Strength and Endurance. / Interesting Chat with an Ex-Mem-ber of a College Team. Among all the sports of summer or winter, in-doors or out-doors, there is none that excites more popular interest, when it can be seen, than the tug of war, and there is hardly one that calls lor more strength and endurance than this game. It has experienced a peculiar evolution from a crude unrecognized game played by country boys, to one of those sports which take their places legitimately among organized pastimes by reason of their rules and systematic way of going about it It is a distinct feature to-day of college and regimental exercises, and the greatest emulation is aroused between the different institutions which are represented by tug-of-war teams. Although the sport calls particularly for strength of a peculiar kind, it is nevertheless necessary, to accomplish the best results in it, to utilize the brain to a considerable extent. People who have not indulged in sports frequently fail to recognize the influence of the mind upon success in a game, and do not think for a moment that there is any mental stimulus or training or exercise called for in it. Nevertheless it does exist to a great degree, and none the less in the muscular exercise known as the tug of war. The team has to be controlled and directed by a captain, and that captain has to exercise his mind in the keenest way, has to be on the alert to watch his opponents, and has to know a great deal about the distribution of force in order to do his work well. How this comes about may best be told in the words of a well-

known member of a tug-of-war team, Mr. Charles Morrill, formerly of the Dartmouth College team. He says of it: “In a well-contested tug of war weight does not count as much as is “ordinarily supposed; brawn and muscle, a good staying power, with coolness agd a shrewd anchor, are what Js required. The exercise has advanced a. great deal during recent years under the fostering influence of college athletes and regimental gymnasts. In the old days the method was a rough, irregular sport, wherein men caught hold of one end of a rope and tried to pull along a similar crowd of men who held on to the other end. Now, there" are very few places where the tug of war is pulled, that the game consists in dragging the other side at all. There are several ways of playing it, three of which may be considered as the most important, and in none of those three does the element of pulling the other crowd enter into it. It is now the aim of those who pull in the tug of war to get the rope away from their opponents, and not to drag them about Before taking up the American style of playing, I will describe the method recently adopted in Great Britain. There the Amateur Athletic Association has lately“drawn up a new code of rules to regulate contests of this nature. They are not all of them new, but they show the difference between the English and the American styles of the game. They prescribe first an equal number of competitors, so that the sides may be evenly balanced ; that the rope shall be long enough to allow a pull of twelve feet, and have twelve feet slack at each end, while four feet is allowed for each pull Sr. The rope must not be less than-four inches in circumference, and shall have no knots or anything which can - assist one in retaining one’s grip on it.

“A tape must be fastened to the center of the rope, and at six feet on each side of this center tape a side tape must also be fastened. “A center line shall be marked on the ground, and at six feet on either side of it two lines shall be made parallel to the center line. At the start the rope must be taut, and the center tape over the center line, the competitors being outside the side lines.

“The signal to start shall be by word of mouth. During no part of the pull shall the foot of a competitor be allowed to go beyond the center line. The pull shall be won when one side shall have pul’ed the side line of their opponents over their own side line. “No competitor shall wear boots or shoes with any projecting nails, springs or prints of any kind, nor shall a competitor be allowed to make a hole in the ground with his feet, or any other way. before the start. No competitor shall willfully touch the ground with any part of his person but his feet. If the teams have a weight limit each member of the team must be weighed before the contest. The tug shall be won by two out of three pulls. “Those who are familiar with the ■Mibod of playing this game in colleges

and regimental gymnasiums will see that these rules are npt followed closely here. In our games we only have one tape upon the rope, which is fastened exactly at the center, and the sidetapes and side-lines are not much used. And it will be noticed, too, that according to the English rule, the contestanri stand during the trial, and if they should lie down or touch the ground with any part of their body ex-

cept their feet, the other side could claim ‘foul.’ With us, on the contrary, in both our styles of playing, the contestants lie down upon the ground at the very start, and it is a signal that they are beaten if they are pulled up from that position. “The two methods of pulling in this country may be termed for convenience the ‘farmer’s pull’ or ‘cleat’ pull. The farmer’s pull is practiced at Dartmouth CoPege very successfully. There they do not pull upon a board or indoors, but upon the turf. A hole is dug in the ground for each competitor. It is in the shape of a right-angled triangle. The competitor is almost seated in this hole, his foot being braced against its perpendicular wall. This, of course, gives the strongest kind of purchase for the puller. “The strain in a tug of war contest really comes upon the whole body, but the muscles of the back are perhaps those which are most immediately in use in it. The hands have to grip the rope very hard in order that it shall not slip through, but there will be no danger that it will slip through if the muscles of the body are strong enough to prevent the other side from pulling harder. The muscles of the legs are of course very important in this exercise as upon them comes a great measure of the strain in bracing against the wall of dirt. The defeat or victory in this kind of pull is reckoned by the tape upon the rope, which originally is placed directly over a middle line between the two teams, and if it is pulled more than an inch to one side or the other during the time allowed for the contest the victory is won. This recalls another essential difference between the English style and the American. The English rules do not mention any time for the endurance of a pull. The old style of tugging on this side the water allowed an hour; if during that time one side or the other was not pulled a good distance actually along the ground the contest was considered a draw. The improvements of

to-day necessitate the exercise of so much more strength and strain upon the pullers that it is usual to limit the time of the pull to from four to ten minutes, five being the ordinarily accepted duration. In one of the best contests on record, the team representing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pulled the crack Harvard team five inches only. This was very soon after the Harvard bad won in a tug-of-war against a team from the Seventh Regiment of New York. “The Harvard team tugs upon the third style which I purpose describing. A long board, plain and a yard or three and a half feet broad, is made of sufficient length to allow eight men to recline on it, with a space of a few feet between the two teams. Four men constitute a team. The one at the further end is called the anchor. The men are usually stripped to the waist, without any head-gear, with heavy shoes, and a leather pad is worn on the upper arm over which the rope passes. Trousers or knee-breeches are worn as the player’s caprice suggests, though the latter offers some little advantage, or at least comfort. The rope’s length is about that indicated in the English rules. The end of it is passed once around the waist of the anchor, which is protected by a strong leather belt, and is caught in a slip-knot in front of him. The anchor is not necessarily the captain of the team, but he is the one who directs the tugging during the contest, and upon whose skill much of the success of the team depends. • The captain may occupy any one of the four positions, but he usually takes the one just in front of the anchor, where he can advise with the anchor in case of necessity. The men, when they lie upon the plank, have their feet braced against cleats, and the rope is generally passed between the knees of each one, and the hands clasped about it just back of the knees. The contest is begun with both teams standing by their cleats; the anchor stands in such a way that he can sit

down at once, and the others, with one foot braced against the cleat and the hands in the rope, are prepared to fall at full length the moment the pistol shot is heard. The starter stands at the center line with the pistol in hand, his feet upon the tape around the rope, pressing it to the floor. This insures a fair start, but after the pistol shot his foot is raised, and the side that gets down quickest may therefore get an advantageous start. For the first few minutes after the drop there is always a tremendous strain on each side, each team hoping to get an advantage over the other from any confusion that may have resulted from the sudden drop. The anchor maintains a sitting posture during the entire game, unless, indeed, the strain from the opposing team is so strong as to bring him and his associates off the cleats. This does not often hanpen. After the first few seconds of strain, the anchor generally gives the word to his men to hold hard, and for a few seconds they actually rest on the cleats, for, excepting under a strong heave, the anchor himself is capable of holding the rope against an ordinary pull from the opposing side. When the anchor thinks that he sees an oppprtunity of pulling them off their cleats, or wishes to pull the tape over as far as possible, he gives the word to heave, and the men on his side straighten their legs and tug for all they’re worth, while the anchor leans forward ready to gather in the slack in case they get the advantage, and if the other side happens to pull the stronger and the rope seems to be going that way, the anchor has to loosen the slip-knot in front of him and let it go a moment, in order

to prevent his men from being pulled over their. -cleats. If he should not let it go, such an event would be almost sure to happen, and it is, therefore, plain that a great deal of responsibility rests upon the anchor, who must be a man,pf the coolest nerve as well as of giant strength. One of the things which the team in a tug-of-war contest has to practice to attain is simultaneous action. If the four men drop to the plank at the pistol-shot, at exactly the same instant, they are almost sure t<j get aD advantage over the other team, and when the word is given to heave by the anchor, if they all pull at -exactly the same instant, the same result* ’ bound to follow. It usually happens, therefore, that the best trained team will win, and weight does not count as much as might be expected. ’’The limit of weight in a team is variable. In the Seventh Regiment it is six hundred and sixty pounds, allowing an average weight of one hundred and sixty-five pounds for each man. The anchor is in almost constant consultation with his men during the contest. He advises them by a quiet word just previous to any order that he proposes to give. “Concerning weight, I remember a contest pulled in lbß6 at Dartmouth. There was a fat team, each one of whom tipped the beam at over two hundred. The contest was pulled on the ‘ farmer’s ’ system, with holes in the ground, and the fat team were fairly pulled out of their holes by light weights whose combined avoirdupois was not more than six hundred and fifty pounds.

• “Gymnasium-made muscle does not tell so much in a tug-of-war contest as might be expected. A man whose biceps are developed from Indian clubs and ring work may not have the vigor of tough natural "strength. Foot-ball players always .make good tug-of-war men, and rowing is one of the best exercises that can be indulged to fit one’s self by training for a contest. “The Dartmouth style of digging holes for the foot and large enough for

the whole lower part of the body, for sometimes they are two and a half feet deep, makes their tug of war a very tough strain. This competition is of not much use as an exercise; it is more directed to exhibiting than acquiring strength, and is rough, hard, trying work; but it is also a very manly sport, and will doubtless continue to hold its well established if somewhat subordinate position in the realms of sport.”

Eating mince pies just before going to bed has been a custom of one man. of 93 in Maine.

THE DARTMOUTH STYLE.

THE ANCHOR.

PULLED OFF THE CLEATS.

TAKING TIME AND UMPIRING.

DEFEATED.