northern sculler, in a sort of trial match ; but this was only a feeler before trying conclusions with Elliott. The two met on the Tyne on June 16, and Elliott was simply ‘never in it.’ Hanlan led him, played with him, and beat him as he liked.
It did not require any very deep knowledge of oarsmanship to enable a spectator to observe the vast difference which existed between his style and that of such men as Boyd or Elliott, Hanlan used his slide concurrently with swing, carrying his body well back, with straight arms long past the perpendi- cular, hefore he attempted to row the stroke in by bending the arms. His superiority was manifest, and yet our British (pro- fessional) scullers seemed wedded to this vicious trick of pre- mature slide and no swing, and doggedly declined to recognise the maxim
Fas est et ab hoste doceri.
At that rate the two best British scullers were, in the writer’s opinion, two amateurs—viz., Mr. Frank Playford, holder of the Wingfield Sculls, and Mr. T, C. Edwardes-Moss, twice winner of the Diamonds at Henley. Either of these gentlemen could have made a terrible example of the best British professionals, could amateur etiquette have admitted a match between the two classes, The only time that these gentlemen met, Mr. Playford proved the winner, over the Wingfield course. A sort of line as to relative merit between amateur and professional talent is gained by recalling Mr, Edwardes-Moss’s victory for the Diamond Sculls in 1878. In that year he met an American, Lee, then self-styled an amateur, bat who now openly practises a8 a professional, and who is quite in the first flight of that class in America, He could probably beat any English professional of to-day, or at least make a close fight with our best man. When the two met at Henley Mr. Ndwardes-Moss was by no means in trim to uphold the honour of British seulling. He had gane through three commemoration balls at Oxford about ten days before the regatta. He had only an old sculling boat, some- what screwed and limp, He had lent her freely to Eton and Windsor friends during the preceding summer, not anticipating
