OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ROWING. 157 



or low, and so on. All these peculiarities of course within 

 reasonable limits are unimportant, save in so far as they 

 indicate that the style of the stroke itself is faulty. Then 

 again there are accidental peculiarities, which may be ex- 

 ceedingly important in themselves, but which yet produce 

 only a transient influence, because they are personal pecu- 

 liarities of such and such a stroke, and when he has left his 

 university they remain no longer in vogue. As an illustra- 

 tion of this sort of peculiarity, I may notice the remarkably 

 effective stroke rowed by Hall of Magdalen in the year 

 1858-60. There the radical defect of the Cambridge style 

 was almost obliterated, and all the good points of that style 

 were fully brought out. The result was that, out of three 

 races rowed with Oxford, Cambridge won two, and though 

 they lost the third, yet they lost it in such a manner as to 

 obtain more credit than any winning race could have 

 brought them. I refer to the memorable race of 1859, in 

 which the Cambridge boat was, at starting, half full of water, 

 and gradually filling as the race proceeded, sank about 

 half-a-mile from the winning-post, being at the moment of 

 sinking only four lengths behind Oxford, notwithstanding 

 the tremendous difficulties under which the crew had all 

 along been rowing. 1 Mr. Hall also rowed stroke in the 

 great race with the famous London crew Casamajor, Play- 

 ford, the two Paynes, &c. when Cambridge won by half a 

 boat's length. We have, however, to inquire whether there 

 is any point held to be essential by Cambridge oarsmen, 

 which is sufficiently important and sufficiently faulty to 

 account for the marked want of success which attended the 

 light-blue flag in the years 1861-69. The following pecu- 

 liarity appears to me to be precisely of such a character. 



1 'Wat Brad wood,' in an article on 'Water Derbies,' afterwards 

 referred to, says that Cambridge was fairly beaten when the boat sank. 

 He might with equal justice have said that they were fairly beaten when 

 they started. They never had a chance of winning from the start, 

 having then half a boat-full, and for some time beiore they sank a whole 

 boat-full, of water to take along with them. 



