from fluid to as great an extent as possible was from the outset recognised as all-important for reducing bulk and clearing the wind.
A prizefighter or waterman used to commence his training with a liberal dose of physic. ‘(he idea seems to have a stable origin, analogous to the principle ef physic balls for a hunter on being taken up from grass. The system was not amiss for men of mature years, who had probably been leading a life of self-indulgence since the time when they had last been in training, But when University crews began to put themselves under the care of professional trainers, those worthies used to treat these half-grown lads as they would some gin-sodden senior of forty, and would physic their insides before they set them to work. They would try to sweat them down to fiddle- strings, and were not happy unless they could show considerable reduction of weight in the scale, even with a lad who had not attained his full growth. Still, though many a young athlete naturally went amiss under this severe handling, there is no doubt that these professional trainers used to turn out their charges in very fine condition, on the average.
No trainer of horses would work a two-year-old on the same system that he would an aged horse; and the error of these old professional trainers Jay in their not realising the dif- ference in age between University men and the ordinary classes of professional athletes. In time University men began to think and to act for themselves in the matter of training. When college eights first began to row against each other, there were only three or four clubs which manned eights ; and these eights now and then were filled up with a waterman or two. (in these days few college crews would take an Oxford water- man at a gift—gué his carsmanship !) ‘These crews, when they began to adopt training, employed watermen as mentors. Before long there were more eights than watermen, and some crews could not obtain this assistance. ‘Ihe result was, a rule against employing professional tuition within a certain date of the race. This regulation threw University men upon their -
