4 APRIL 1863, Page 12

THE UNIVERSITY BOAT-RACE.

THE treat which comes but once a year to bid oarsmen is past for 1863. To say that we had our usual yearly treat on Saturday last, the 28th of March, would not be true, for the race qua race was over in the first half-mile. But, after all, there are many things bides the race which go to make up the charm of that day. There are hands to be grasped which we never find within our own nowadays, except somewhere between Putney and Chis- wick about Easter time ; old faces of rivals and comrades to be greeted—some of them, by our troth, beginning to grizzle about the beard—behind and against whom we strove before the down had yet stiffened into actual hair on our respective chins ; old memories to be revived which, while they hurt no one, do us good, both on their grave and gay sides. What memories have not two sides? Would we care that they should have only one ?

But instead of getting sentimental, let us stick to our text, and cull out such facts as are noteworthy with regard to the last race between the two Universities. In the first place, a feat in rowing has been performed by Mr. Hoare, the stroke of the Oxford crew, and Captain of the O.U.B.C., which stands quite by itself in the annals of the river—this is the third year he has rowed stroke of the Oxford boat, and on each occasion he has won, and won easily—most easily in this his third year. Not only has this feat never been performed before, but we venture to prophesy that it will not be performed again in our time, and no man who knows what a combination of qualities it takes to make a really first-rate stroke will be likely to dispute our vaticination. The old theory was, and there is a good deal of truth in it, that most University strokes fall off more or lass, at any rate after their second year. Run- ning through all the best men we remember—and our memory ranges over nearly a quarter of a century—we can only name two men who seemed to us, as strokes, to be as good as ever in their third year. These two were Fletcher Menzies at Oxford, and Jack Hall (we trust he will pardon the familiarity, should he happen upon this article) at Cambridge ; and Alenzies, though he made and trained his crew, was disabled by illness from pulling in his third year, both at Henley and in London ; and Hall, though to our mind his stroke had not fallen off, was beaten in his third year. Any man who has pluck, strength, and a sound chest, can make himself a good oar if he will persevere ; but not one man in a hundred will turn out a really great stroke, let him work ever so hard. It is worth while, then, to look well at such a man as Mr. Hoare, when you come across him, and to consider wherein his supreme excellence lies. To our mind, his coolness and judgment are his strongest points, and in the he has never been surpassed in the Universities. His quiet start gives his crew a steadiness in their rowing which is invaluable when the first spurt is over, and the superb way in which he gradually calls on them, quickening almost imperceptibly from thirty -seven to forty-two strokes in the minute, is beyond all praise. Then he has accepted the old Oxford tradition of the long stroke, which approves itself more and more to our minds every year, as the true method of perfect rowing. If, in twelve seconds, you can take something like the same water in nine strokes which your adversaries take in ten, you will do it with proportionally less fatigue, and must win in a long race.

Out of the boats there was very little to choose between the crews. If anything, the light blues looked rather the more likely of the two. Though weighing less than the Oxford men, they were, we should say, the more powerful, and, in appearance at least, as well trained. The trial race with the eight picked water- men, which Oxford rowed on the Wednesday, was not a judicious experiment, and might have had serious consequences. As it was. they were overdone by it and never looked so well after it ; and, but for it, Mr. Morrison would not have had his arm in a sling on the morning of the race. It does not do to call upon men for two such efforts within so short a time ; indeed, we think that for the last four or five days before a race, a steady swing over the course is all that should be required, and for the last twenty-four hours the more quiet the men are kept the better.

The Cambridge men would have done better if they had not spent so much of their last precious days in practising starts. They were made unsteady by it, and in a long race the advantage gained by the start is very questionable. Possibly at Henley it may be good policy to do all you know at first, but we have never seen good to come of it over the London course.

They lost the toss for choice of sides, which, in the half gale of wind from the N.W. which was blowing, made at least a boat's length in their disfavour. Then they had changed their boat only a few days before the race, discarding one expressly built for them by the Salters, and taking to a new boat of Searle's. This, too, was against them ; and they were not so well steered as the Oxford men.

But, had all these things been otherwise, with choice of sides, a perfect boat, and the best coxswain that ever handled tiller, they could not have won— could scarcely, indeed, have made a good

race of it. Now this ought not to be. True, one boat only can win, and when you have a stroke of real genius, like Mr. Hoare—

great strokes being nearly as scarce as great poets—the odds are that he will bring his boat first past the post. But, making all just allowances, the University race ought never to be a hollow affair. The same stuff goes to the making of the men at both places, the numbers are not far from equal, and, for rowing purpos there is scarcely a pin to choose between the Cam and the Tsis. We cannot help, therefore, feeling somewhat aggrieved when we do not see a good race. The feeling of an old oarsman is much like that of Queen Dido—" Tros Tyriusve mihi mak discrimine habetur." Of course, we like to see our own old colours showing in front ; but we would far rather see them one boat's length ahead than ten, and every year our jealousy for the reputation of both the Universities increases, and we become more cosmopolitan, desiring before all things to Bee good form and good work in both boats. It causes searchings of heart to all of us when there is anything like a marked inferiority in the work of either alma mater, and we are all interested in ascertaining the cause and endeavouring to find a remedy.

Now, with respect to the Cambridge crew of this year, if all we hear be true, the cause is not fax to seek. They have relied upon the judgment of several men, one at least a non-resident, in select- ing the crew, and have trained under their direction. This has been proved over and over again to be a fatal mistake. How- ever good a judge of rowing a man may be, unless he is actually living and pulling with the crew, watching every man so as to know well his strong and weak points, he is not fit to be the cap- tain of a racing boat. Besides, each generation of man has its own methods, and habits, and peculiarities, and to manage them well you must have one of themselves. Advice is all very well; let a captain take in all he can get, turn it over in his own mind, and put it side by side with the facts under his nose. On many points it may be of much help to him ; but, so sure as he leans on another man—more surely if he leans on several other men—he will not turn out a first-class crew. A University cap-

tain ought to eschew "old parties" as decidedly as Louis Napo- leon does ; and as we are old parties ourselves, the advice is at least

disintereated. We cannot agree with the majority of the corres- pondents of the Times since the race, that the Cambridge crew were inferior to the Oxford as raw material. We have seldom seen a more dangerous-looking set of men get into a boat. They were run away from, not because they were weaker in muscle, constitution, or courage than their opponents, but because their method and form had been so altered and tinkered under different hands, that it had never had time to steady itself, and they started from Mortlake on the morning of the race a raw crew.

There is one matter which grows more serious every year, and that is, the difficulty of seeing the race. The steamers really behaved well for them on Saturday last, consequently not half their eager freights saw twenty consecutive strokes of the rowing. As we returned from Putney, pondering many things, it occurred to us that the time is come for going back to the old course, to or from Westminster Bridge. The steamers twenty years ago drove the racing crews up above Putney, but now they have followed them on to the new ground, and are a greater nuisance than before, inasmuch as the river is narrower. Could not a course be marked out in the broader water lower down, and kept clear altogether from steamers, which would have far more room than at present, even if excluded from one half of the river ? If something cannot be done, it will be soon impossible to see the race at all, for the crowd of spectators nearly doubles in each succeeding year, and the accommodation gets worse and worse. It is not rougher off Lambeth than in the Hammersmith reach, and the lower course offers twice as many good stationary points from which the race might be seen. We commend this suggestion to the consideration of the authorities of the University boat-clubs.