Robert Ranulph Marett

“ He was the "father" of paper-chasing, the name given to cross-country running when he introduced the sport, and it is interesting to recall the scorn with which he regarded paper-chasing into racing over closed circuits with the accompaniment of betting. "Some day," he wrote in the Badminton Library, "when the loathsomeness of the roping and betting has disgusted the better class of runners, a championship in which gentleman can take part without loss of self-respect will probably be again instituted on the old lines." ”

“ Rye, who was the founder of the Thames Hare and Hounds, the oldest English paper-chase club, and president to the day of his death, and who won the Seven Miles' Walking Championship 61 years ago, lived to see much of the evil of which he complained disappear, for cross-country sport to-day is unquestionably almost as healthy in spirit as when he instituted it over half a century ago. ”