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majority of vates of the small clubs in the ter of executive. At that date Kingston was the only other club (except those of the U.B.C's.) which was up ta Grand Challenge form, like the L.R.C. Since that date there has been an expansion of other strong clubs, and, as a necessary corollary, a gradual decay of minor ones. ‘Thames has grown to be a worthy rival of London, and has done much to raise the standard of oarsmanship. Leander has been revived, and Twickenham, which at one time {in the sixties) was quite a smal{ local club, now comes out also in Grand Challenge form. ‘This club have not yet actually landed the great prize, but they have more than once heen good enough to win it, had they been fortunate enough to draw the best station. Besides these clubs, there has been the Molesey Club, which in 1875 and 1876 was capable of making the best crews gallop at Henley, and won the Senior fours at sundry minor Thames regatias later in the season. Its later absence from Henley is due to the retirement from active oarsmanship of Mr. H. Chinnery and oihers, whose personal energies alone sufficed to combat the difficulty of distance from London, Meantime, clubs like the Ariel, Corsair West London, Ino, and others haye become ‘fine by degrees and beautifully less,’ until they expired of inanition, There are, and always will be, sundry ambitious second-class oarsmen who regret the extinction of societies of this sort, and who recall with regret the pot-hunting for junior prizes which sometimes fell in their way. But when we recollect that clubs of this stamp were conspicuously absent from the winning roll, and usually even from the competition in senior races in minor Thames regattas, we fail to see wherein rowing science suffers by their absorption. Junior oarsmen obtain far better instruction in the ranks of the crack clubs than they could hope to find in the small-fry institutions, and they have found this out. When men have nyatriculated as oarsmen im weak clubs, they constantly contract insidious faults of style, the result of being put to race in light boats before they have mastered the first principles of oarsmanship. If such men subsequently aspire to join the better clubs, they have a worse chance of attaining a seat in a first or even a second crew than if they had joined the big club at the outset, and had been carefully taught in tubs till they were fairly proficient. ‘They have to be ‘untaught’ from a bad style before they can be moulded in a good one. The Thames cup eights at Ilenley are of a higher order now than they were seven

or eight years ago, and we are inclined to ascribe this fact to the