The University Boat-race was rowed as usual on Saturday, the
8th inst., the crews having the advantage of a day such as is seldom seen in England,—a perfect summer's day, without heat, on • which it was pleasant merely to be alive. The multitude were out in hundreds of thousands, but the race was an unusually poor one, Cambridge having the advantage almost the whole way, and finishing, according to some accounts, four lengths, and according to others, eight lengths ahead. The Cambridge rowing is declared by experts to have been admirable, though the boat was full of. new men, and the Oxford boat had in her 'six of the winners of last year. It is noted that betting on this race increases rapidly, and that the odds changed M a strange manner after the men had been seen on the Thames. That looks as if the professional bettors were beginning to attend to the race, a bad omen for the future. They can hardly bribe or drug the rowers, but they can make the race itself a mere nuisance, to the community.
