The New York Herald Newspaper, July 16, 1874, Page 10

2 THE COLLEGE OAR The Great Contest at Saratoga To-Day. WHO WILL BE VICTORS? The Hopes, the Fears and the Prospect at the Last Moment. PREVIOUS INTERCOLLEGIATE RACES Comprehensive Review of Past Struggles and Triumphs. THE FIRST BARGE AND SHELL. Only One Fatal Accident and | tre Harvara university. They were going to pail How It Occurred. FAMOUS STROKE OARSMEN. The Gradual Changes and Improvements in Rowing, Boats and Time. The Rowing Association ef American Colleges. SARATOGA---SPRINGFIELD --- WORCESTER, Their Good and Baa Harvard University, was telegraphed at Cambridge cae inquiring, “Could he build a new boat and deliver | Points Compared. | her here oy tonight? He said “Yes,” and as I rode back from the lake this evening she Saratoga Likely to Prove the Amer- ican Putney to Mortlake. THE CREWS OF '74. Their Colleges, Records, Weights, Ages and Classes. RULES OF TO-DAYS REGATTA. THE FINAL PREPARATIONS. Saratoga SPRINGS, July 14, 1874. To-night the finishing touches of the crews are going on, and Trinity has finishea one of her men—her starboard stroke, Hooper—effectually. ‘What atled him is easy to understand. He did not know how torow. So his captain sent him home and putin his place Mr. 0. O, Bulkley, I believe, of Lebanon, N. H., of the class of 1876, and who weighs about 150 pounds. If the real ground of excom- municating Hooper was that he did not know how to row, and there is little doubs of it, 1t would, if justice were done all round, be risky for some other of Trinity’s men. They have a very bad habit of scraping the lower edge of the oar along the water as they reach out to recover. It can do no possible good,and really does mucn harm, for the friction si®ws the progress very noticeably, splashes water and looks badly, A little more care in feathering high would soon re- move the defect, but it 1s too late now to hope for any change. THE LAST IN THE RACE, Por men interested in that end of the race there 1 mucn lIlvely talk as to whether Trinity or Princeton will snatch away from Williams the honor whicn she right fully earned last year of coming in last Princeton works more smoothly than Trinity buat bas not the power, though, | think, unless Trinity can go mach faster than she looked to this afternoon, Princeton will provavly beat her, and Williams beat them both. Princeton, by the way, went apparently over the course and her time was taken as abont 20m. 10s., allowing say a minute for the ripple on the water. Her performance has hardly iiled with consternation the hearts of the saucy Wesieyans or tae Fish Creek boating men of Yale. It was very LIVELY ON THE LAKE, and while most of the specuiators were off at the ball match the crews were oui, as they ought to be. Princeton, a8 we have said, pulled down from Snake Hill on time, Yale was dodging about here and there, now pulling @ little piece, then stopping and a few words irom Cook would skip along over the water, and then off they would go again. They certainly are getting their heads back betier every day and rowing more as Oxford used to, One of their num- ber (No. 3) encases his head in a white handker- chief, and as the others do not wear one you can single him out from afar. Cook pulls his oar finely through the water, and has much dasn in his work. There is no man in the boat whose work is very faulty. Litwe bad points are scattered here and there, but taken as a whole they row undeni- ably well and the boat just spins along over the water. strokes a minute the boat has more tume to travel between strokes, so that the distance between the swirls thrown off from the oars is greater than it used to be in the old days of torty-oda to the min- ute. Acwmally the ALB UNIVERSITY CREW do not look as large as their own Freshmen, but then the Freshmen are a noticeably burly set and have the plumpness one may have at nineteen, vhat you must wait It Yale can row that erect, strong back and legstroke all over the three miles she will stand a good chance of winning, , but to hold one’s self up so high and stiff must be no play ona hot afternoon, after you have done it but without the toughnes: for until you are twenty-three. over two whole miles, Their boat seemed to hold them up easily and to ride over the water rather than through it, The man inthe boat whom you ‘will notice occasionally a little out of swing is No, 3, pat it is not much, John Bigiin told me that he did not like their rowing, but then he puts bis blade in still in the old way, and has none of toe weat shore, @ littie above Moon's, shoots out from a raft this “extra English.” Now over on whigi is pretty weil under water @ racing six- oared outrigger, every man in it brown as @ nut, There are the two fellows I saw yesterday swing along the road in their flannels, bareheaded and with their sleeves rolled up. Among them is one of the toughest men on this lake shore, and as handy In the boat as you would wish to see a man, for the boat BELONGS 70 THR WESLBYANS, Gnd that is Gustia, theiy cheesy stroke. He ig bak | Harvara, perhaps, to drop aspare pound of beef, As they never rise above thirty-four ‘The time she takes to pass you and get away down to Moon’s seems hardly & minute, and yet the distance would make @ hole in haifa mile, NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1874.-REGATTA EDITION. about five reet eight inches tn height, yet ne nas the splendid round muscles of the gentlemen you often see in statuary galleries, very lightly clad, and all poised to throw the discus. As they turn their ship about and make off past my boat and Up the lake Eustis nods pleasantly, and as he saw 1 Was studying his stroke, remarks, ‘How ts this for English?” Well, | have seen Englishmen do severa! kinds of rowing, bus I should say it was More like Reuforth’s than Gulston’s, and more like the old Harvard stroke of the past few years than either. Indeed, this probably suggests where he learned It, “Boys, going up, now, dip light; keep ner right on her keel,” he cried out, as she passed Rams- dul’s Point and made of up the lake. But what is this a little way off on tne right? A single scull shell. it has shot out, almost unobserved, as I was looking at the others. It goes along with the crew, keeping at an easy distance. The dark, tough, wiry man, neatly clad in white boating cos- tume and swinging her lightly along is Fred Sinzer, Wesleyans’ trainer last year. But what 1s he doing here now? lor PROFESSIONAL TRAINERS are not allowed any more. Well, as he goes up along with his old pupils and one of them hails him as “Fred.,” it somehow looks as if he guessed he would not count this one. They have gone up to Snake Hill to the starting line, meaning to come down on time; butit was getting into the even- ing, and as wey Cid not come | took the last stage for Saratuga Springs. But meanwhile there was abundant other interesting work going on all around. Dartmouth did not show, nor Cornell nor Columbia; bus a little while before the Wesleyans headed for Snake Hill a six had left the raft above them and preceded them up the lake. Half an hour before these another stx-oared crew had gone up and were waiting forthe latter. The frst was the Freshman crew of Brown and the latter over the course together; in other words, to race over the whole three miles, Brown had stripped | foritand their backs well upheld their name. kept on their “sweaters” or heavy flannel shirts. As they came along down in easy lead the cheery call of their captain of ‘“Now1” “nowP? “now! at the commencement of the stroke, mean- ing that was the time in which he wanted the weight thrown on, coal be heard almosta mile. The Brown boys were pulling with plenty of piuck dud energy. For vicious jerking try No.4 of this Brown crew, but No. 6 was doing some- thing wrong, his left arm being crooked outward as if he was airaid to use it, while the stroke car was whittling off both ends of his stroke as it they were not worth anything. 4 NEW BOAT FOE HARVARD, The new man of the Harvard crew is behaving better, and the old boat slid along quite well. | Speaking of the boat, a great surprise has come to-night. The twist of whico I told you in the Har- vard boat could do nothing but harm in a race; so |, OD Friday last Blaikie, the English boat builder to passed me going down. No outriggers were on her, but she looked like @ good one. still it | 1s tteklisn work, this relying on 9 new boat which | can be 80 little tried, and a boat, too, builtin two aays, I should feel uneasy about to-morrow morn- fag on this score, but they hope to try her and will settie whether she will do, yet it is @ comfort to know that in a emergency a boat can, if neces wary, be turned out in two days. THE GRAND STAND READY. The water was quiet to-day and fine for the rowers, Busy preparation goes on all about the and Dartmouth, and the last Willtams, Trinity and Princeton, Guesswork merely, 1am aware; but the guesses Of those who have been on the ground for days, and watching, Many of them, with a | pooket earnestness, is worth more than those at’ a distance, unable to judge at all, The order in the*! grouping, supposing the division is correct, is somewhat thas :— PLACE PRINCETON LAST. Her light appearance, her brief experience, the numerous faults in her work, and, more than all, the 20:10 or more she needed or seemed to yes terday to cover the distance, and thia wnen the condition of the water could not, at the outside, bave made over sixty seconds difference, all point to this, for her, unwelcome, though not altogether unlooked-lor result, Then, as to TRINITY, she ts rough at best, and has been all along, and now this change of men so dangerously near the crisis, added to her loss of part of the headway of every stroke by the scraping of ber oars on the Water on the recovery, as I mentioned yesterday, and her general lack of uniformity, make tt likely that, although her men are among the heaviest and probably strongest on the lake, they will hardly be better than eight in the counting off at the finish; and then WILLIAMS, Sympathy she has abundant—more widespread, perhaps, than any other; for ifa man is going to do muct rowing it is hard to have to prepare without any water todo it on, and then with a stroke oar 80 unquestionably strong and good, and men who plainly cannot back him up, but who all seem to have done the best,they could, why, you cannot help liking them and wishing they may whip every crew save your own. Dartmouth and Cornell look too strong for her, and Dartmouth has been going too fast with her short old fash- toned forty-five stroke, and occasional forty-eizht, to make her defeat likely by either of the three already described. Still, if Williams succeeds in putting any other bost behind her’s, save those of ‘Trinity and Princeton, it looks as ifit would be DABTMOUTH’S. Her men hardly see the importance of straight backs, and, though built broad and bony, like the Wards, they have yet to learn how to barely cover their blades and then haul Itke alocomotive. The ague, too, gives one or two of them a shake, or did when up st home, and I hope he will courteously ‘Walt this time till after the race is over. CORNELL fgsaid to claim to be thirty per cent better than last year; but though if true this would have made her formidable for the front boats to-day, | yet I neither thiuk it is nor that there is much doubt that Columbia has im- proved enongh more yet to keep her surely @head of her. King, the stroke, 1s a good man, and so is Ostrom, bow; but the others are all new, and although large and strong and weil off for legs, there is @ lack of the ease and dash which evidence long experience, and are usually, indeed, nearly always found with good work, They are training up rather than down, I hear, and will, if not No. 5 at the finish, be better rather than worse. COLUMBIA has been as difficult to see this year as Yale Was last. From all accounts she has improved more within twelve months than any other of all these crews. The three of ber old men she keeps were probably the strongest three, and the new ones do their work so well that no group here to-day talks about the winners withont mentioning Columbia in pretty close connection. Averaging heavier tnan Yale, pulling a stroke she learned not from one of her own men, who went to England on pur- pose, but from an English rowing man who was over in this country and took hold to show them how, they have seen to the muscular part shore. The grand stand has been erected on a, held firm against the force of the water of the | lake by a strong bulkhead, for the lower seat ts just above the beach and 6,000 people will be there when the whole is full. THE COLLEGIANS GATHERING. night as I remember it ever being on the eve of Worcester or Springfleld. Yale is here in great | force, and Harvard, notwithstanding the broken } bridge on the Albany road, is almost if not quite | as universally represented. The President looks | | fat and comfortable and would make tough work | of the English stroke or it would with him in a | very fow minutes, Wall stteet and Broadway | faces are almost as plentiful as at home. Old oarsmen are here—Lyman, of the Harvard inter- national four; Wilbur Bacon, of Yale, and many | lesser lights. The interest in the foot races is beyond all expectation, and they are ireely and | kindly spoken of on all sides, JUDGES FOR THE FOOT RACES. At the meeting held this morning at the Grand | Union, P. Chandler in the chair, H. W. Webb, Sec- retary, the following judges were elected to officiate at the foot races:—A. L. Devin, Harvard; 8. H. Olive, Wesleyan; G. M. Speir, Columbia, and Delancey Nicoll, Princeton. A filth judge is to be 4 elected from Cornell at the next meeting. The | entries for the toot races to the present time are | ‘these :—One mile running race—S. A. Reed, Colum- bia; B. Copeland, Sornell; David Paton, Princeton; J. H. Vandeventer, Princeton; E. T. Herrick, Har- vard; A. B. Elis, Harvard; &, B. Curtis, Harvard; c M. Marsh, Wesleyan. The 100 yards running race—A. L. Rieves, Harvard; H. C. Beach, Prince- of basis of earth underlaid with thick trees, and Is | It ts as bustling and fail of burly burly here to- | the great race and not two nights before at | | first two miles than in the last one. their work until they have got into and, with the imported stroke, make thetr boat travel very fast and keep her going, too. Whether she can get out of the. second trio into the first—for no one has had the temerity to place her lower down—that seems the problem, though more than one man can be easily found who believes the frst colors across the line | to-morrow evening will be biue and white inter- mingled. One thing is sure, that Columbia, Yale aud Harvard pull a stroke io MOST RESPECTS QUITE SIMILAR; in other words, their various versions of that | stroke called “the English,” while Wesleyan does not and does not pretend to. But then neither do the Wards, neither did Renforth’s crew or the Thames men, and yet London, Cambridge or Oxford would hardly keep even with, | much less beat either. Yale approached nearest | the Oxford stroke I saw, in high and dignified pre- | cision; but they do say that before they reach the home mile they and this precision part company; | but, for the matter of that, one man, for instance, of the Harvards is said to row better during the In the matter of dash there 18 a deal of ease in Harvard’s work, while, though Cook, of Yale, has quite as much, his men are, perhaps, & little behind him. The Wes- Jeyans look to me more litne and active than either the men of Yale or Harvard, the latter being something new for her—a trifie heavy this year—and their 17m. 2%s., their fast private time, is saia to need an addition of twenty- five or more seconds in order to make it correct, as they stopped a little short of the finish line. If this be true, then, in private practive YALE HAS GONE THE PASTEST, but not mucb, for Harvard was within ten seconds ton; David Paton, Princeton; RB W. Van! of ner, if not five; but again, Harvard had up to Boskerck, Columbia; E, H. Herrick, Mar | 14.) sicnta marvel of aquatic handiwork—a new vero; 1 0, eedy, Harvard; % Martines, | boat, built between Friday night of last week and | Columbia; G. C. Webb, Yale; J. W. Whitney, | Monday night of this, These craft are Wesleyan. Three mile running race—T. J. Good ‘so frail thas it usually takes about a | win, Columbia; E. L. Pnilitps, Cornell; Allen Mar- week to get quite at home in quand, Princeton;-A. B. Nevin, Yale; J. W. Woit- | mney, Wesleyan; E. H, Herrick, Harvard. Seven H. Hubbell, Williams; P. T. Toompason, Columbia; | J. E. Eustis, Wesleyan; H. C. Heermans, Wesleyan; G. OG Griswold, Columbia; C. Eager, Dartmouth; | 7. G@. Lee, Princeton. If the day is fine tt willbea beantifal sight to witness all these fresh, hale young fellows stripped and hard at it; and nothing else this week, save the University boat race, be- gins to promise to equal It in interest, W. B. THE EVE OF BATTLE. SaraTooa SpRiNGs, July 15, 1874. Ever since day broke there has been a hum and buzz of voices almost all over Saratoga that tells of some unwonted excitement now close at hand, The enormous hotels are packed to overflowing and transferring guests by the hundred to the | many and upusually roomy and comfortabie board- | ing place abounds. The crowd exceeds all expec- hotel registers show the longest list Of arrivals on gress Hall half an nour ago, the Yale men, packing the great piazza apd the broad sidewalk in front, looked like an army, and bine ribbon was there by the mile. Every train brings large reinforce- ments, and the despatches say that Albany is coming up several thousand strong. Every item | about the crews ts snatched up as if it were a dia- | mond, The bal) Matches are well enough, and you | may see those any day; but 4 great boat race comes bat once a year. CHANGES AT THR LAST HOUR. Sadden changes are making in the crews. AsI wrote you yesterday, “Hooper, No. 4 of Trinity, gives way to Bulkley, and now Williams is un- easy and unseating Norton of the bow—a very hazardous experiment at this Jate hour, and sifting Washburre from No. 4 to bow, aud in No, 43 place patting Hubbell. The latter is said to be six feet and an inch in | height, weighing 175 pounds, and the improved speed of the boat shows that the change is ap- | parently a wise ome, making all Williams hopeful. mile walking match—J. -H. Southard, Cornell; C. | ing houses witn which this respectable old water- | tations, the local press saying that yesterday's | record for one day in Saratoga, and ostimate places | the number of strangers here at 15,000. Over at Con- | | them, but if Harvard’s men can before bedtime to- | night get the hang of her to their liking, and she | 48 all rignt, I snould say that their chance of win- | ning was good, for a new boat has not yet had | time to soak ap the fifteen or twenty pounds of | | water which all shells manage to absorb after a | very little while, and they float somehow very | ughtly. For a sharp dash at the send off] rather expect to HEAR FROM WESLEYAN, while Harvard, who got the best of the lead last year at Springfield, may again be at her oid tricks. I heard Cartis, the famous amateur single scailer, Say that he had, I think this season, practised over | 1,000 starts, There he has the secret of avoidance of | | flurry in the beginning of a boat race, and of almost | everything else for that matter, I rather incline | to the notion that part of Sinzer’s errand up the course last evening with the Wesleyans was to | practise them on a few starts, but it 1s rather lave | in the day to begin now, though they are-nearly all at it. | Ir there is a great surprise in store for us to-mor- | row in the matter of brilliantly improving her rank | | as placed above 1 should think it would come from Columbia. My other two enigmas are Dartmouth and Cornell. Shouid either crowd up into the front ranks it would be more remarkable than it Colum- bia did. The bolter trom the rear guard, if there be one, will, I judge, be Williams; but, aside from fouls and accidents, I should think her getting into the first three a simple impossibility. the excellent London correspondent of the New York Tribune, had an oar in either her or her com- panion, the Undine. The Harvard boat, the famous old Oneida, managed then, as ever since, to draw liberally on Boston's oldest families, jor there were @ Curtis, a Paine, a Dwight, a Livermore,a Wil- lard and @ Miles, all Boston men or frem the im- mediate vicinity, Little idea had they then of the Tace we see to-day. The race was, as to-day, straightaway, bat not three miles, only two, and Harvard won it by two lengths, Three years elapsed, and then, on the Connecticut at Spring- fled, came ‘THE RACE OF 1855. This time Yale challenged Harvard, and hac two stx-oars, the Neretd and the Nautilus, each longer than the eights already mentioned, each betng just forty feet and nine inches. Obio and Tennessee, Canada and the Bermuda Islands, had each 8 man there. Harvard sent two rivals—an eight-oar, forty feet long, and a fobtroar, thirty-eigut—the former cailed the Iris, the latter the Y. Y. The race was from Springfield down rivera mile and @ half and back, and in twenty-two minutes—excel- lent time, considering the ark they rowed in— Harvard came home the winner, beating the Neretd two minutes, the Nautilus three, and her own four-oar, the Y. ¥., three seconds, after de- ducting the allowance of eleven seconds to the oar. Harvard here, too, had some men worthy of note—Benjamin Crowninshield and John Homans, of Boston, and an Elliott and a Parkman, both from »avannah—while in the four Baltimore and Charleston each had an Erving, men whose prowess isnot yet forgotten, and in the bow sat Alexander Agassiz. This year, too, Mr. Smalley stood judge for Yale. Yalo’s stroke is described as “convulsive and quick,’? while Harvard “showed much more skill and ‘coolness in handling the oars.” A pair of silver-mounted black walnut sculls—rather an humble affair they would make nowudays—were the prize in 1852, and this year it wasa set of silk colors from the citizens of Springfield. The wind was light, the water smooth and it rained some—a habit not entirely forgotten on race days. In the evening after the race three of the Y. Y. men and three of those from the Iris rowed over the course in the Yale boat, the Neretd, in 2im. 45s. or in 15 seconds Jess than the winning boat, thus demon- strating that the Yale men could not complain of their boat. ON THE 26TH OF MAY, 1858, at Harvard’s invitation, Yale, Brown and Trinity met Harvard at New Haven (Dartmouth and Co- lumpia, though invited, not appearing), and fixed on @ three mile race, allowing any kind of boats to enter, giving twelve seconds per oar to the smaller ones, Friday, July 23, was the time set for the race and Springfield the place, but on the Saturday even- ing previous, while the crow were practising on the river, their boat was run down by anotner craft and overturned and the stroke oarsman, George E. Dunbam, was drowned. This melancholy event—the only fatal accident, we believe, in the whole record—combined with the non-arrival of American college racing crews from Brown and Trinity, broke up the race, No arrangement was made for another meeting until February 23, 1859, when delegates from Harvard, Yale, Trinity and Brown met at Providence, R. I, and decided to adopt substantially the plans of the preceding year, The place above was changed, and on the afternoon of the 26TH OF JULY, 1859, at Lake Quinsigamond, near Worcester, took place the first college race on that water, which has since become so well known to all younger Ameri- cans, This year also marked a& new era in college boat racing, for now for the first time were actual dona fide shell boats used in one of these contests, and a great sensation they made among the oarsmen, Harvard had one, @ six-oar, built by McKay, of pine, 40 feet long and about 26 inches wide, while nowadays they add 10 feet to the length and reduce the width to 20 imches and even less, pretty narrow craft, one would think, in which to intrast six men. Yale also had one 45 feet 5inches long, and from the same builder. Harvard also entered a six-oared crew in the lapstreak Avon, and Brown made her It is too bad that one of the pioneer colleges in these races has not of late years developed sum- cient boating spirit to come and take her chances again. The race was over the regular three mile track, or rataer mile and a half out and re- turn. Harvard made the then best time or 19m. 18s., beating Yale over 800 leet and by exactiy 60 seconds, the Avon by Im. 55s. and the Brown boat by 5m. 228. The day was cloudy, and the gusty east wind biew the light Brown boat over toward been so far behind at the close. ON TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1860, at not far from five o’ciock in the afternoon, Har- vard, Yale and Brown again met on the same course. The preceding year both Yale and Brown carried coxswains, while Harvard did without, and the same was true this year a The boat of the latter was 40 fect long and 27 inches wide, while Yale’s was eight feet longer and four inches nar- rower. Brown, eager to beata light boat, suc- ceeded, but she weighed only 120 pounds, and shipped 80 much water as to throw her out of the race. Harvard went away hard at the start, took @ decided lead over Yale, while the latter was equally polite to Brown. In this order they went away to the stake, rounded, and Harvard now for a fourth time came home the winner in the good time of 18m. 538., Yale taking 19m. 5s.and Brown 2im. 15s. Both this year and the one before Harvard's stroke oarsman was the famous Caspar Crowninsbiela; there rowed in the single scull race the man who guished, and most deservedly distinguished, oars- disheartening deteat how at last to win. During the next three years the terrible civil war en- grossed all thoughts, and these friendly naval bat- tles were deferred until towards its close. AFTER THE WAH, in response to a challenge trom Yale, Harvard day, July 29, 1864, on the same Worcester course, met o fair and complete defeat at the bands of her plucky rival, the latter cover- ing the distance in 19m. 1s. to Harvard’s 19m. 438, Harvard had the larger and really a very power- ful crew, and for tois unwelcome result had no one to blame but herself. Proper coaching and training might not have made her win; but they conqueror, and they should have. defeated crew was without strongest man who ever rowed in a Harvard boat. The boats had now lengthened out to 49 and 49 feet and had narrowed to 21 inches, McKay still built for Yale, but Harvard aow tried Eiliott. As in 1860 the weather was bright and the water smooth, 80 that it will be seen that the time of the winning crew was not so good as that of the former year. This victory wrought up an interest among the Yale menin boating the like of which was never before known, torions crew changed but one man, and all the One of the | Atall events, if the weather to-morrow 1s nearly as favorable as it is to-day there will be, thanks to the gatnering of several tough crews and thanks | | almost equally to the superb enterprise and liber- | ality of the people of Saratoga, as represented by | energy. In the whole annals of American aquatics, probably, no other crew ever improved in phy- sique faster, if as fast, as this same '64 crew of Yale. They had an exacting captain, who had | their association, a magnificent race, and one, {M | jeq them to one victory, and who worked with all many ways, far outstripping apy that has gone be- | the might of a resolute, determined man to bring | fore. Ww. Be THE FIRST COLLEGE RACE, cameramen On a clear, warm August afternoon in 1852, two | miles below the littie village of Centre Harbor, on | perhaps the prettiest littie lake in New England, | certainly in New Hampshire, there lay three boats | in line. Barges they were called then, and un- | doubtedly would be now, being each some three them to another. Rowing weights bad gradually crept into the gymnasium, training was not con- | fined to four weeks of the year, but spread over Mity-two, and the men at last were fitted out with boats and oars which were good for something. They knew, too, that the enemy was weak, or at least light, for the last Harvard crew—the heaviest Harvard ever had—was broken up. So, when on the afternoon of the 28th day of JULY, 1865, | Hubbell is also entered for the seven-mile walking | feet beam, the shortest thirty ana the longest less | both crews backed up to the line, ready for the | maten of Friday, and is doubtless in good condt- | tion, I think Williams believes that she is going | College, one from Harvard, and each was manned | fouls and accidents, tox upon the victors, Yale | | by a crew of eight and a coxswain. At the beim of | | to make sure work of Princeton, and almost | equally sure of Trinity, while she is aching to show than forty ieet in length. Two hailed from Yale the Yale barge, Halcyon, sat Richara Waite, of start, it needed no great discernment, barring was heavier by sixteen pounds a man, yet rowed | in the lighter boat. Both crews were in good con- that either Dartmoutn or Cornell may also have to | Toledo, a son, we suppose, of the Captain of tho | dition, save that one Harvard man was slightly give Way; Jor, a8 the feeling goes here, the ‘STERS OF THE MORROW will be three—the first bunch holding Wesleyan, Yala and Harvard; the second Calambia, Cornell eight who now Sits, novon eight benches, butone, | | and that the Supreme bench of the United States. | It has been rumored too, though the records are | excoadinaly tmnertect, that Gearze W. Smalley, indisposed, and among the iriends of both party | feeling was intense. The Harvard crew looked, | and really were, overmatched, but they had asa (olass crew been fast the year before, and their maiden effort in another lapstreak, the Atalanta. | the west bank, which accounts for her having | while, a singular coincidence, on the day following | was afterwards to become Yale’s most distin. | map, the man who taught her after incessant and | again came forward, and on the afternoon of Fri- | could have narrowed the gap between her and her | much doubt the | Her vic- | coming winter and spring worked with tireless | friends stood manfully by them. The weather was again clear and warm; there was no wind and the lake was calm and quiet, The banks were alive with spectators, and the iriends of Yale mus- tered in notably greater numbers by far than were ever known before, For the first minute after the word the two boats stayed well together, but when off the grand stand, some 800 feet up the shore, Yale spurted and drew away from her antagonist, until shortly she was clear, No time was wasted by elther in getting to the stake. Yale rounded well ahead ana somewhat increased her lead down the homestretch, coming in an easy winner, beating her opponent by over 100 yards, Worces- ter has seen many a wild night, but few, and especially of the wearers of the blue, will quickly forget the roar and din that far into that Priday— Jor this Thursday business ts an innovation of very nt date—made the old town howl, while out of sight. and mimi, im farmer Prenciss’ house, away off by the lake, sat six sad mortaia, gloomy and dejected, ‘THR TTR TURNED, Twice now had the proud old red flag of Harvard to come down. Twice in a series of college re- gattas which had hetped much to keep her name favorably before the public had she come to know defeat—a new and painiul knowledge, one she be- Heved in in the abstract; but when race day came around—well, she would like to watt a year. However, something must be done, A crew was got together and set at wdrx, though there was no terrible eagerness to join it, New rowing boata were built and used somewhat, <A few of the men did a fair winter’s work and when they got théir boat down in the spring managed to get 4@ fatr pace on her. They worked along, learning what they couid of tho enemy, doing whatever they thought would help them make a good race, though to win—so long was it since they had Known what that word meant—seemed impos- sible, The time drew near. The men of Yaie were coming up Mhiftartous and triumphant and in unprecedented numbers to see their favor- ites score a thira victory. Why? Well, shehad won the last two years and of course woul! thts Hav- ing a different crew, that made no difference; she Was sure to win. Betting was ali her way. In- deed, to find a man anywhere about wearing a red ribbon wasa task. They had ail stayed at home. Again Yale had the heavier crew and the lighter boat, and as she shot out from under the Little causeway and drew up to the line it seemed as if every male in Worcester county was a Yale man, 80 tumultuous was the welcome, Six almost sul_ len looking fellows from Harvard soon showed alongside, and as the two boats took their posi- tions the rain, which had been waiting for them, began to fall. They swung steadily away, Har- vard, perhaps, having @ little the best or it at the send-off, At the grand stand tt was apparently an even thing, and ail the betting was one way—$3,000 to $709 on Yale finding no takers. So they swung of up the lake, away beyond the point and out of sight. Ten min- utes of suspense, and something 1s coming down, Ittsacrew ahead easily of another; but whict was which ? Somebody called out Harvard, and then the way one Elihu Yale was invoked for the next few minutes was a caution; bit, like Mr. Baal of old, he did not respond worth acent. His children came gradually home, the gap between them and the front boat being about 400 feet, and the flags went back to Cambridge to an alcove of old Harvard—about fit, by the way, to stow broomsin, the éravocrs OF 1867. ‘Now ft was Yale’s turn to work, and, looking a whole year ahead, she went at it right manfully, By greatly superior strength, with a wretched stroke, she had beaten in 1865, but the next year, when in size and weight her rivals were about a match, the dejects of the stroke stood out gtar- ingiy. And yet, in all the work of preparing for the conflict of 1867, when, If possible, she must win back the lost colors, she seemed to see no need of ny change of stroke. Relying on the fact that all but one of the winning Harvard crew of 1866 had graduated, instead of working, as many men would have done in like case, and leaving no stone un- vurned she took things moderateiy, and when the year’s work was done and the last practice pull finished, and the crew in racing costume came out | and took their position, two light sat in the bow, almost too light for the wear and tear of three long, hot miles, and the enemy were four pounds heavier per man, Still. weight is not the only element of victory. So Harvard thought, too, and she seemed | to think it so long before that she deemed it es- sential to take that weight and work it, and she did it faith‘uily and sensibly, and now when she comes alongside unsparing praise awaits her, where the year before no man knew or cared for her—till the race was over. Robert M. Clark, of Boston, perhaps the fastest gentleman sculier America ever saw, Stood on as referee. The day broke squally, and fitful dashes of rain made good water dubious. But suddenly, justin the nick of time, the wind lulled, the waves dropped and the | twocrews got away, both going fast. Harvard | already began to have the best of it. In her stern sat one of the most remarkable oarsmen that Har- vard ever knew. Never a powerful man, | when in his best condition he could go | like @ greyhound. But he was caprictous, and this would, to the dismay of his friends, crop out at just the ugliest of all moments— those right before a race—and his poor crew would have to lug him where often he, m other moods, would have been doing more than his sixth. One of the first freshmen, if not the very first, that Harvard ever let sit in a university crew, and that in 1866, now he was rowing stroke, and so he was the next year, and in 1869 went out to Europe stroke and captain of the most famous amateur | four-oared crew this country, if not any other, ever saw. This time he was all ngbt, and all the way up that lake, under the welcome shade of oid Wigwam, aud on, on to the stake, he and his crew walked away from their antagonists, already tired and faint, struggling aiong with a stroke lack!ng reach, lacking length, lacking vim through the water, indeed almost everything that is sure to be found in the stroke which knows how to win. Harvard | #8 around and off before her rivais even get to the stake, and so she goes away down the take, line, she compictes the distance in 18m. 12%3,, the FASTEST AMATEUR TIME then on record. minute and eleven seconds behind, a matter of less. the name of raceboats. Hickey had built Yale’s | 49 feet long and 22 inches wide, while Harvard’s, from Elliott, was 53 feet by 20 inches. Her 66 | crew had the narrowest boat of her length ever seen on our waters, being 57 feet long—longer | than many English eights, such as Oxford and Cambridge use between Putney and Mortiake— and but 19 inches Wide. But she was heavy and unwieldy, and the 67 men used her to practise in, disrespectfully calling her the “old elephant.’ THE-UNIVERSITY CREWS OF 1868. seemed fast getting back into her own ways. | What would she do in the coming season, the sum- mer of 1563? Letit be noted here to her credit that in all her dark days—first waen she knew not what victory was, and afterwards, when it seemed to have wholly deserted her and gone forever, when she was put to @ test more severe even than the nine long gloomy years between 1860 and 1670 when Cambridge every time had to succumb to Oxford, for then Cambriage had trom bygone years @ record but part of the time, Yale could not boast this—let it be noted that she never said “back down.” Faults she might have, did have, but giving up in despair, aa three colleges seem to have done this year, was certainly nut one of them. She went home, kept three of the best of her old crew, added the famous “Maine lumberman’? and two others, and again gamely buckled down to it, if possible, to wipe out the unpleasant rec- ollections of the last two years. Dennis Leary, one of the famous professional crew of the Big- lins, Was called in as trainer, The work was gone at now in a way that began to lodk dangerous for her elated rival, and when she came up to the race there Was a confidence so widespread that many @ blue ribbon which had not been seen at Worcester since '66 was aired again. But two days before the race there came a damper that in the minds of all calm men—very fast as Yale bad in practice men | widening the gap every second, She pullsevery | stroke; she pulls until, swinging in across the | And where is her rival? A whole | twenty-five boat lengths, or 1,000 feet, more or | Now at last both crews had craits worthy of | And now Yale, having twice suffered defeat, | Provea nerself, faster than ever before—made tre defeat of Yale again as certain a8 anything human could well be. The year odefore she had needed 19m, 2338, to cover the distance, while her rival, as above, did it in 18m, 123s, It was now admitted tnat Yale had in private justified the belief thas Harvard must better that time, very fast as it was, or Yale would win. But the citizens of Worcester hag thrown open aset of races on Wednesday, two days preceding the day of the University race, and inthe One tor ix oars bad offered a tempting purse, Six persons from the Hudson, all calling thenisetves Ward, though one was named really Raymond, thought they would come over and take a shy at that prize. Now was Yale’s opportunity, for Har- vard had entered this race and so would show her hand. Well, so she did; for, with a bright, clear day and water caim asa mirror, she made with the champion crew of the world a terrific race all ,the way to the stake, at one time seeming to have actually gained a perceptible lead. The Wards, turning just ahead, came down with Harvard almost on their all the way, and shot in @ winner in 17m. 40%s., the fastest three mile time in @ turning race on record, while Harvard was but twelve and a half seconds later. Whatever Yale might do with 18m, 12%8., 17m. 638. Was clearly beyond her, an@ fast as the race of Friday promised to be—for there is little doubt that on that day the fastest crews bota Harvard and Yale ever had turned oat— unless unforeseen acctdent occurred the former Must win. The day drew on, cloudy and threaten- ing again, but just when the race was called it fell dead calm. Harvard drew the inside, and both got away at the word. They went up the lake at & prodigious rate, but Harvard had won the lead and meant never to let it go. In 8m. 158. she was, at the stake, and forty seconds later came her rival Yale made the better turn and gained a little, bug Harvard made it up promptly and swinging aowm the lake at forty-four to the minute gained tem seconds more, finishing fifty seconds ahead, in five seconds better than Wednesday—namely, in 17m. 483;8. This was @ great advance over the old time of 1855, and even the time of the fast crews since the war was far behind it. And it was this marked improvement more than any other one cause that encouraged the SENDING A CREW 10 ENGLAND the following year. An accurate comparison of the best time made by the fastest Oxford and Camoridge crews with those of the oarsmen of this country was, owing to the difference in cure rents, in number of men, in their carrying a cox= swain and ours not, a thing very difficult to make. ‘The English seemed much the faster, the four miles and three fariongs between Putney and Mortlake, on the Thames, for instance, having been once done in 19m. 50s., while here three miles in 17m. 40s, was the minimam, at which rate, if the pace. could be matntainea, it would require 25m. 45a. The discrepancy between their time and ours was great, and though the swift tides of the Thames and the additional number of rowers in a boat there—they having eight to our six—were considered, yet the Harvard crew had done so well chat it was concluded to try. So both Oxford and Cambridge were challenged, and the former, then the winning English crew of those days—though Cambridge has beaten her eves sinoe—accepted, but Cambridge declined for no good alleged reason, a wholesome-respect for the American crew having seemingly a good deal todo with it, Meanwhile some changes in the Harvar® crew forced them to go without two of their bess men, thus weakening thetr chances materially. But, nothing daunted, they pushed on, made up @ four-oared crew, broke 1n.a coxswain, set thei boat fully at work, and sailed for Europe. Reach= ing Putney on the 2ist of July they went at-once ta work learning the many treacherous eddies an@ currents of the Thames. When Oxford arrived hes Men seemed soft and less wiry than the Harvard, but they were buiky and hardy, and fitter to carry | Weight, while they had no new citmate to increase | thelr risks, Havard went tothe score in indif- | ferent condition, and Oxford looking uncommonly well, THE ENGLISH-1MERICAN BACH. Soon after four o’clock on the afternoon of Ate | qust 27, im the presence of a vast multitude of spectators, estimated by some at 1,000,000 an@® | upwards, they took the starting word promptly | and went away, Harvard fast snd Oxford slower. | The former was goon leading bya quarter of a | length, then halt, then drew clear and at one tima | in the first mite was actually a length anda halg ahead. Instead of, after the English fashion, going directly in front and sending back on to the Ox- ford’s bow the wash from forty strokes a mtnute,, she drew sharply off to her side and from that mo- ment her antagonist began to overtake her and never after did she regain the-opportnnity at thas moment thrown away. At Hammersmith Bridge, @ mile and three-quarters out, Harvard was still leading, but not by much, and in less than another minute they were side by side, and the next minute Oxford showed in front. This was of Chiswick Eyot, or Island, the spos where many & crew first in the first half were last in the last. In less than two minutes the Englial boat drew clear and passed Barnes’ Bridge, half q mile or more from the end, three lengths aheach At Hammersmith Bridge the strongest man uw either boat, number threa of the Harvard, gave out, and the stroke, then overstramed and em goodend. Far as Oxford was ahead at Barnes’, af the actual finish at Mortlake she led by but half t¢ three quarters of a lengtn clear, shougy a@ boat with @ man and woman in if had gotten across Oxtord’s track, causing her to fall off. It was @ race that did noth sides much credit, and the vanquished especially had it most generously awarded them for the hard fight they bad made against long odds, their owg lack of condition being the longest of all, If theiz tivals would come over bere, go through the heat of an American summer and try conclusions to morrow with the winner of to-day’s race it would help them to @ fairer conclusion as to the dificul- ties Harvard had to encounter, Coming s0 close to winning and under such odds told among the rowing men all over this land and boat club@ sprung up in many @ place which had never evem seen a wherry. In practical boating knowledge Harvard jearned many a valuable point, not the | least among which, for instance, betng the fact that some one outside of the crew should do the coaching, not the busy bow oarsman. Indeed, | her old time rival, Yale, thought she had gotten ao much good that she too must needs send @ man to England, and, as is well known, thia same Mr. Cook, who to-day sets her stroke, picked up many a wrinkle from that passionate devotee to amateur rowing—Captain Guiston, of | the London Rowing Clab, Meanwhile, while Har- | vard’s chosen sons were striving for laurels across the seas, the men she left behind were not idle, Now that the best of the enemy were out of the way Yale could afford to be magnanimous in THE HOM RAOB OF 1869, It had been the custom to confine the crews to the undergraduate departments, in other words, te the colleges only, thus barring out, for instance, | the students of divinity, law, medicine and science, and so actually making the term ‘“‘univer- sity’ in their case @ misnomer. But now Harvard | asked the trifling favor that she be permitted, as her strong men were away, to take one man from | the law school. “Certainly,” said Yale, thinking | that now, at least, she would be even, and that one man could do no harm. She had, moreover, four of her best men from the last year’s crew and two tough new ones, while two of the four had been on two university crewa and one had been on three, this making him, by the way, probably the only man who ever rowed four years running in an American unt. versity crew. So she could afford to be generous, and Mr. Hay came into the Harvard boat, and he did his work so well that at once, after the race, he went to England, reaching there tn time to row bow in the international four agaiast Uxtord, Ine deed, there were other well known names in thia | Same stay-at-home six—Grinnell Willis, a son of the author, and an excellent oar; Francis O. Lyman, who also went to England, pulling No 2 over there, and Theopalius Parsons, a near rela tive and namesake of @ man to whom all lawyers, at least, need no introduction, and a man, it may be added in passing, who took a keen interest in all this boating and especially in the English race. Now at last Yale would be | hausted, dtd bis all and did it gamely, but to ne: eee