DONALD DINNIE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 226, 24 September 1907, Page 6

DONALD DINNIE.

A WONDERFUL CAREER

STILL HALE AND HEARTY

The last' edition of the Glasgow Weekly Mail to hajjd has* an article on Dinnie, and this is what that paper says:— A figure of peculiarly outstanding and striking personality passes along the street in a well-known centne of the city of Glasgow, and as he stalks majestically and with easy, graceful mien wayfarers turn round and admire the great, fine man clad in loose-fitting cloak, with legs encased in the tartan hose, wearing the strongly-made but neat-fitting Highland brogues or shoes, and with an old-fashioned shas-crv head covering, in shape somewhat resembling a Kilmarnock bonnet. The pose of the figure is natural, but indicative of great power and agility. There is an earnest but pleasant look on the face, and the keen grey eyes are alert and full of healthy life and vigour. The figure is that of the great athlete, Donald Dinnie, Scotland's accompuished and skilful man of muscle, power, sinew, and agility, whose name and fame have been sung wherever oft the face of the globe the people admire deeds of daring, power and manly accomplishment. That man has earned greater fame and performed deeds of physical prowess such as have never been recorded of any one individual history of human litheness, muscularity, and derringdo. Donald Dinnie is now in the seventieth year of his age, and for upwards of half a century has been winning the highest laurels in all parts of the world and in every branch of athletics against the most famous of athletes that the world has known. Our Scottish hero is a native of Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, by the side of the Dee. He stands 6ffc lin, and scales 2201b# He measures 49in round the chest, his biceps, when in his teens measured 16|in in circumference, the calf of his leg 17-J-in, and his thigh 26£ in. In course of his journeyings throughout Australia, America, Canada, etc., he has gained his laurels not only by his powers in putting the stone, throwing the hammer, tnrbwjpg the weight, tossing the caber,, but at wrestling in its several methods—lrish, Scottish, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, Devonshire and Cornwall, catch-as-catch-can, and the more classic Grseco-Roman, as well as the Irish and collar and elbow styles. No 20 athletes who ev,er lived have had such a career of victory and applause, and withal so chequered or so full of the changes of fortune and the vicissitudes of life, as the hero of these lines, who still-at his advanced age is a splendid specimen of the grand old Scot. His achievements are matters of history. Dinnie surely made his mark in his own country, but it is doubtful whether, much as he was praised and worshipped in the

United /Kingdom, he was ever so popular or achieved such distinction as in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. He has earned in a clay at sports "meetings as much as £300 and £400. He has had hotels and restaurants. In Melbourne he kept a stud of horses for racing purposes, and his hostelry was the centre to which all sporting matches were incepted and ratified. The money made was laid out pn the purchase of property, which was. at that time booming in the Victorian capital, <but later the inevitable slump came, and with it went Donald's accumulations and savings of years, at a time of life, too, when the athlete was no longer the young giant. Dinnie was too independent to accept of any offers of assistance. He preferred the sturdy Scottish independence, and resolved ere all his money was done to face the world and retrieve to the best extent possible. He left the Australias, where he had, as he thought, settled down to pass the remainder of his days in comfort, and made has way to the Old Country, where now he seems to be once more the old Donald Dinnie, minus the power, the sinew, the muscle, the youth and agility of the long ago. • *