May 1, 1886.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



229 



The Belt trial closed as the last number of Knowledge 

 ■nas going through the press. I am not anxious to adopt 

 the We-told-you-so style ; but as I was very roundly abused 

 by fully a hundred readers of Kxowledge for jwintiug out, 

 after the former Belt trial, that, let the merits of phvintiff 

 and defendant be what thej' might, the principles laid down 

 bv tlie judge and adopted by the jui'y were entirely unsound, 

 I may venture to dwell on the extreme probability now 

 indicated in favour of the belief that the decision of tlie jury 

 in the earlier trial was erroneous. For the principle at 

 issue was an important one. An artist has, perhaps, little 

 batter power than the non-artistic public to pronouuce what 

 is great or beautiful in his own art. Had that only been 

 asserted, no harm would have been done. The poet is often 

 a bad judge of poetry ; the painter a bad judge of pictures ; 

 and so on. But when it is a question of deciding on matters 

 belonging to technique or execution, the opinion of one 

 expert is worth that of a thousand who are not experts, and 

 if all the experts called on to pronounce an opinion on such 

 matters agi-ee, nothing but the lielief that they are dishonest 

 should prevent men of sense from accepting their opinion as 

 decisive. 



* * * 



I kegret much that s?rious illness, now lasting several 

 months, has pi'evented Jladame de Gottrau from continuing 

 the excellent series of papeis wliich she had commenced on 

 music and on art a short time since. I hope these papers 

 may shortly be resumed. In a few weeks I shall probably 

 have the pleasure of meeting their writer at Munich, and 

 arranging — if her health permits — for the completion of 

 both series. 



* * * 



Owixf; to the Easter arrangements, or misarrangements, 

 this number had to be unusually early in the printers' hands. 

 Odd that the passage of the sun across the equator and of 

 the moon in her monthly cjx-le, moving men in ancient 

 and semi-.savage days to spscial astronomical observances, 

 and so affecting the ceremonial arrangements of later days 

 should modify the movements of our printing establishments, 

 and the arrangements of publishing hou.ses, in this age, which 

 is about as free from sun-worship and moon-worship as it can 

 well be ! But when we think that because (primarily at 

 least) the planet Saturn seemed to old star-worshippers a 

 gloomy and melancholy god, our shops are closed now on 

 the day which has replaced his (and on his day among our 

 Jewish kinsfolk), scarcely any peculiarity of that kind can 

 seem very strange. 



* * * 



The University boat-race always brings out a crop of 

 absurdities in the newspapers ; but I think the last race 

 went beyond all others in this respect. Homo of the absur- 

 dities were not merely, as usual, imbecile, they were abso- 

 lutely idiotic. 



* * * 



I REMEMBER a veport of one of the finest races ever rowed 

 for the WingQeld Sculls, which struck me at the time as 

 the finest piece of nonsense I had ever read. The two men 

 were well matched ; they both sculled in splendid style from 

 start to finish ; and though both had done their best over 

 the course, neither was us?d up at the finish, for thej' were 

 both in first-rate condition. Each could certainly have 

 sculled five miles — ten minutes after the race was over — at 

 a pace which would have taken the he.irt out of any but a 

 first-class sculler in good training. In descril)ing this race, 

 the reporter of a leading newspaper discovered a number of 

 things which no oarsman would have found out. The race 

 was won by two lengths — A., let us say, being the winner, 

 and B. the loser — the whole race being stubbornly contested 

 throughout. But the reporter discovered, with his penny. 



a-lining eye, that B.'s left arm had " given way " after the 

 first three quarters of a mile. A little later B.'s right arm 

 followed suit. Presently, as if the loss of both arms were 

 not enough, B. went "all to pieces," and was '■ manifestly 

 powerless." In the meantime, to be strictly fair to botli 

 parties, the reporter observed that obviously A.'s left wrist 

 had " gone " (where he omitted to say), and the rest of the 

 race was rowed almost wholly with the right arm — a very 

 wondeifal performance indeed, which a Casamajor or a 

 Playford might have envied. Somehow the one-armed 

 sculler managed to get over the 4g miles in splendid time, 

 and the armle.ss sculler, all in pieces as he was, came in but 

 two lengths behind — and lengths are not long in a sculling 

 match. 



* * * 



The reports of the recent race are even funnier in some 

 respects than the marvellous descriptions given in former 

 years. The condescendingly explanatory tone employed by 

 the experienced sportsmen who wrote them is impressive 

 to begin with. Everyone (the Standard said in a leader) 

 who knows an^'thing about rowing will understand what 

 such a struggle meant. It was won by Cambridge, it 

 appears from this article, in the following unexpected way. 

 " When the struggle of the last few moments began, the 

 Cambridge crew, hitherto defeated (!) had gained what Ls 

 called " (so kind to explain) " their second wind " (! !) " and 

 upon the strength of that went in and won." Conceive the 

 condition of a crew which had rowed over four miles before 

 gaining what is called its second wind, and imagine what 

 sort of a crew C)xford must have had to be beaten by such a 

 lot. (I have not been in training for a quaiter of a cen- 

 tury, and am entitled to be " scant of breath " for other 

 reasons, yet I get " what is called " my second wind in 

 running up four or five flights of stairs, and in hard rowing 

 for a couple of hundred j^ards.) 



* * * 



I KNOW some men, esjiecially when out of condition, are 

 slow in getting their second wind. I remember bow a big man 

 in our Johnian four faded to get his second wind till a mile 

 of the one-and-a-half mile race had been rowed, and the race 

 was lost through the difference that made. But he was not 

 in good condition, and was constitutionally weak (though of 

 Herculean build above the knees), and was spitting blood 

 after the race ; so that case was exceptional. Every member 

 of a well-trained crew ought to have his .second wind before 

 the first quarter of a mile is covered. It is not a bad jilan, 

 by the way, for a crew to take a breather — running — just 

 before the start, so as to be already working the whole huigs 

 in the manner meant by "what is called the second wind." 



* * * 



To the reporter for the Echo, writing after the race, it 

 was "obvious," early, that Cambridge was by no means 

 beaten, entirely obvious "that it was anybody's race," and 

 "conspicuous that the Oxford men could no longer retain 

 the advantage of the station." Yet this clear-sighted 

 observer recognised that in the middle of the race the Cam- 

 bridge crew were " all abroad,'' — which the reporter might 

 have been, for any intelligent interest he can have taken in 

 the race. 



* * * 



So also the Daily Xeus reporter discovered tliat at one 

 part of the race the Cambridge crew were "within measu- 

 rable distance of going to pieces," but were saved, and the 

 race won at this stage, by the devotion of their stroke in 

 picking them up and pulling them together. Mr. Pitman 

 will appreciate the compliment, as will everyone who hns 

 ever rowed stroke in a race ; for if a stroke has to steady his 

 crew and save them from going to pieces, the chances are ten 



