The " international " boat-race between Oxford and Harvard has
been fixed for four o'clock on Wednesday, the 25th inst. The race excites an extraordinary interest, more especially since it has been discovered that the race is to be a race, and not a walk over. At first, the worthy public was quite certain that the Americans could not row, that they used their arms and the English their bodies, that they could not " stay," that their oars dipped too deep, that, in short, they were beaten before they had begun. Careful observation has, however, greatly diminished this security, until-at last it is acknowledged, with an odd kind of grunt, that the Americans are wonderfully fast "for a spurt," and that if they can only hold out victory over them may be a real triumph. We have no opinion to offer on racing of any kind ; but having been pulled many thousands of miles by men who pull with the arms only, never "laying themselves" to the oar at all, we rather doubt the want of staying power attributed to such rowers. They would kill Englishmen in a race of fifty miles.
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