HE WHO RUNS

Plodding wearily past newspaper boys whose Advertisers already announced his victory, past a multitude whose cheers celebrated the extenuation of a legend, Clarence De Mar, the aged printer, chased by a number of Scandinavians, an up Exeter Street yesterday afternoon to better his previous records in the Boston Marathon by eight seconds. Outdistanced by not outsung by the extensive corn cure conducted by promoter Pyle, this local run has swelled recently and rapidly of an institution, and is one of the few from an endurance stunt to the dignity Boston institutions to escape the obloquy of the enlightened. And if, eight seconds in this instance seems as short as the twenty six miles seem long, they gain added significance in the fact that this year's race was the criterion of choice for the Olympics. The race, indeed, is so influenced by this, by what it reenacts, and by the nationalities that run in it, that it is peculiarly suited to the Athens of America.

Of course, the Americana hunters who make their own gentility dubious by an inordinant desire to assert the vulgarity of mob pleasures, can and do challenge the intelligence of endurance contests. The rival show, put on by local patriots, which sent Dawes and Revere over their courses again, was much better costumed and much less attended. It is admitted that a man might be as dull as the Man Who Knew Coolidge, and still run a good Marathon. But ad these indictments carefully weighed still present no valid reason why a person should not stroll across Boston Common at the first appearance of the tulips and the Swan-boats; wander through the vaunted architecture of Copley Square; mingle with a good natured, entertaining holiday crowd against a rope and before a policeman; gaze with awe at series of exhausted men who have run twenty-six miles for glory: and not, having done all this, enjoy it immensely.