those muscles which are in use for the exercise in question, and it also prepares the internal organs of heart and lungs for the xtra strain which will be put upon them during the contest. All muscles tend to develop under exercise, and to dwindle under inaction, The right shoulder and arm of a nail-maker are often out of all proportion to the left; the fingers of a pianist develop activity with practice, or lose it if the instrument be discontinued.
‘Training is a thorough science, and it is much better under- stood in these days than when the writer was in active work ; and again, the trainers of his day were in their turn far ahead of those of the early years of amateur oarsmanship. l'rom the earliest recorded days of athletic contests, there seems to have been much faith pinned to beefsteaks. When Socrates rebukes ‘Thrasymachus, in the opening pages of Plato’s ‘ Republic,’ he speaks of beefsteaks as being the chief subject of interest to Polydamos, who seems to have been a champion of the J.R. of Athens of those days. ‘The beefsteak retains its prestige to the present day, but it is not the we plus ultra which it was in 1830.
The earliest amateur crews seem to have rowed in many instances without undergoing a course of training and of re~ duction of fat, But when important matches began to be made, the value of condition was appreciated. Prizefighters had then practical training Jonger than any other branch of athletics, and it was by no means uncommon for watermen, when matched by their patrons, to be placed under the super- vision of some mentor from the P.R. as regards their diet and exercise. But before long watermen began to take care of themselves in this respect. Vheir system of training did nat differ materially from that in vogue with the P.R. It consisted of hard work in thick clothing, early during the course of pre- paration, to reduce weight ; and a good deal of pedestrian exercise formed part of the day’s programme ; 2 material result of the association of the P.R. system of preparation. The diet was less yaried and liberal than in these days, but abstinence
