rudiments of swing, and as a natural result they can never be expected hereafter to progress beyond mediocrity.
Now, if there were prizes offered for rising professionals, subject to the condition that sliding seats should not be used, these tiros would have some chance of being induced to study the art of using the body for swing, and of mastering this all- important feature in oarsmanship, before they ventured to fly so high as to race upon slides,
Twenty and more years ago there was a class of match making on the Thames which is now obsolete. This was to row in what were called ‘old-fashioned’ wager boats, i.e. the lightest form of wherry which used to be built before H. Clasper established outriggers. The keelless boat requires a sharp catch up at the beginning to get the best pace out of it, and it also requires more ‘sitting’ to keep it on an even keel, (If it is not on an even keel, the hands do not grip the water evenly, and power thereby is wasted.) It was because this fact used to be realised in those days better than now, that so many rough scullers were matched in ‘old-fashioned * boats, rather than in ‘best and best’ boats, as the fastest built craft were usually styled in the articles of matches. It would do good if this quon- dam practice of matching duffers on even terms in steady old- fashioned craft could be re-introduced on the Thames.
Another incident has tended greatly to the deterioration of professional rowing, and this is the lapse of professional regattas, Certain gentlemen connected with the University and the leading Thames boat clubs used formerly to get up an annual summer regatta for the benefit of professional oarsmen. In the ‘forties’ a somewhat similar regatta had also existed for a time, but it had consisted of amateur competitions as well as of professional, This earlier regatta faded away when its chief trophy, the ‘Gold Cup’ for amateur eight oars, was won thrice in succession by, and became the property of, the ‘Thames Club." (That Thames Club is now extinct, and must not be confounded with the well-known ‘Thames Rowing Club’ of the present day.) Some of the members of the Thames crew
