fact that amateurs are taught, and are willing to be taught, from first principles : whereas our professionals nowadays are little better than self-taught. Rowing and sculling require scientific instruction more than ever on slides. In old days the tain business of a professional oarsman was to carry passengers in his boat; the calling produced a large following, and out of these some few were good oarsmen and took to boat-racing as well as to mere plying for hire. Here there was a natural nursery for professional racing oarsmen. ‘he disuse of the wherry for lacomotion destroyed this nursery ; we have already shown that our later professionals are as a rule neither London watermen nor Tyne keelmen, They are a medley lot by trade ; a chimney-sweep, a collier, a coal-heaver, a miner, a cabman, &e,, all swell the ranks. Such men as these take to the water simply for what they can make out of it, by racing on it, Their one ambition is to race, and to run before they can de- cently walk, Hence they do not go through the school of fixed-seat rowing before they graduate on sliders, and they have no instructors, nor will they listen to advice.
Amateurs, on the other hand, belong as a rule to clubs ; and all clubs of any prestige coach their juniors carefully, and lay down rules for their improvement. Two very usual club rules are, that juniors shall not begin by racing in keelless crank boats, but in steady ‘tub ’-built craft. No such control exists over junior professionals ; if a bricklayer’s apprentice takes to the water in spare hours, and begins to fancy himself as an oarsman, he will probably find friends who will back him for a small stake against some brother hobbledehoy. Each of these aspirants will thus endeavour to use the speediest boat and appliances that he can obtain. Unfortunately it so happens that sliding seats give so much extra power that even bad sliding á la Boyd produces more pace than good fixed-seat rowing. The result of this is, that, however little a tiro may know of rowing, he will, in a day or two, get more pace on a slide than if he adhered to a fixed seat. So the two cripples race each other on slides, before they have acquired the barest
