1 48 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ROWING. 



THE records of the last eighteen boat-races between Cam- 

 bridge and Oxford indicate clearly enough the existence of 

 a difference of style in the rowing of the two universities, 

 a circumstance quite as plainly suggested by the five suc- 

 cessive victories of Cambridge in the years 1870-74, as by 

 the nine successive victories of Oxford which preceded them. 

 For it is, or should be, known that the victories of Cam- 

 bridge only began when Morrison, one of the finest Oxford 

 oarsmen, had taught the Cambridge men the Oxford style, 

 so far as it could be imparted to rowers accustomed, for the 

 most part, in intercollegiate struggles, to a different system. 

 With regard to the long succession of Oxford victories 

 which began in 1861, and which, be it noticed, followed on 

 Cambridge successes obtained when the light-blue stroke 

 rowed in the Oxford style, I may remark that, viewing the 

 matter as a question of probabilities, it may safely be said 

 that the nine successive victories of Oxford could not 

 reasonably be regarded as accidental. The loss of three or 

 four successive races would not have sufficed to show that 

 there was any assignable difference in the conditions under 

 which the rival universities encountered each other on the 

 Thames. In cases where the chance of one or other of two 

 events happening is exactly equal, there will repeatedly be 

 observed recurrences of this sort. But when the same 

 event recurs so often as nine successive times, it is justifiable 

 to infer that the chances are not precisely or perhaps even 



