Page:The Hamilton Spectator 1901 Boston Marathon coverage.jpg

Sporting Fred Hughson, William Davis and some of the Hamilton people who went to Boston to see the Marathon race have returned home. They do not speak in complimentary terms of the treatment the Canadians received at the hands of the Boston people. Little, if any, attention was shown to them, and they had to shift for themselves. The race is conducted under the auspices of the Boston Athletic club, a most exclusive organisation, and the door of the club house was shut against the friends of the Hamilton runners. The Boston people were particularly sore after the race, being unable to hide their disappointment. The boys say that if this is a sample of Boston hospitality they don't want any more of it.

Although the Boston sports thought highly of McDonald they wouldn't bet much money on him. Now they are trying to make excuses for the defeat of McDonald by alleging that he was drugged. A dispatch from Boston Bays: "McDonald was drugged," said Dr. J. S. Thompson, of East Cambridge, when asked if there was any truth in the rumor that Ronald J. McDonald, the Waltham runner, was obliged to quit in yesterday's Marathon run because he had been dosed.

The doctor said:

"I was called to the home of McDonald at 10 o'clock last evening, and on examining the sponge used in wiping the face of the runner I found a very strong odor of chloroform. That was seven hours after he had used the sponge, showing that the dose must have been a powerful one. I met McDonald on the road during the race, and gave him one-thirtieth of a grain of strychnine to strengthen his heart for his last five miles. I did not see him again until about 8 o'clock in the evening, when I was called upon to examine the sponge."

"What object was there in dosing the sponge," the doctor was asked. "The only reason I can see was that he was a dangerous man, and someone wanted to get him out of the race. I think the canteen of the soldier bicycle rider must have been tampered with at Ashland, and the drug inserted there,"

A reporter talked with McDonald at his home. He said:

"It was an awful dose. I am sure that there was something in the sponge used which affected me and put me out of the race. I remember crossing the twenty-mile line, and then I became unconscious. When I came to at my home I asked for the sponge, and I smelled some kind of a drug-chloroform-or something like it. My throat and stomach burned terribly.

"I had run about nineteen miles without desiring anything to refresh me. Then I took the sponge given to me by my brother, which was supposed to have been dipped only in water carried by one of the soldier assistants along the course, and took two sups from it. I next met Dr. Thompson, and he gave me some pills as a stimulant. After that I again drank from the sponge, and then I lost consciousness. I was confident of winning the race. My stomach was strong, and I was feeling well. When I was forced to drop out Caffery was only a minute and a half ahead of me, and I felt sure that I could overtake him in the last five miles."

A better excuse than this will have to be found for McDonald's defeat.

Jack Caffery and his friends are returning home via New York and will not be here until 8 o'clock Wednesday night. A meeting of St. Patrick's Athletic club was held yesterday afternoon, when arrangements were made for the champion's reception.

Hughson and Davis will also be invited to take part. If they got a chilly reception at Boston the Hamilton people will endeavor to make amends by giving them a warm welcome home.

It is proposed to make the reception a general and to invite other athletic clubs and organisations to take part.

H. Lovering, H. Warnick, C. Casey, G. Robbins, A. Burke, C. Robertson, C. Shields, sr., and James A. Cox were appointed a reception committee. This committee will wait on the reception committee of the City council to-night and ask its co-operation.

Another dispatch from Boston says:

John Bowles, who prepared George McDonald for the Marathon race yesterday, says that the latter's collapse, a after leading for fifteen miles, was the work of a band of professional bettors, who drugged the athlete so as to accomplish their end. A doctor gave McDonald a pill, but instead of stimulating the runner it brought his sudden collapse. Dr. Thompson, who looked after the runner, denies that a pill did the work, but says that some one handed the runner a sponge saturated with chloroform. He said that he examined the sponge that was tossed into the carriage that conveyed McDonald to his home after he dropped out McDonald collapsed, because the Hamilton runners made the pace too fast for him.