168 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



water of the better style, perfect simultaneity is all-impor- 

 tant. The stroke must not only have first a good style him- 

 self, and secondly a keen sense of time, but he must have 

 that power of making his crew know and feel what he is 

 doing, and what he wants them to do, which constitutes the 

 essential distinction between the merely steady stroke and 

 such a stroke as every man of the crew feels to be made for 

 the place. When one of these 'born strokes' occupies the 

 aft thwart, there is no occasion for the coxswain to tell the 

 crew when to quicken or when to row steadily at their 

 hardest ; for the whole crew knows and feels the purpose 

 of the stroke as distinctly as he knows and feels it himself. 



The following paragraph, written a fwv days before the 

 race (1879) is left unaltered. 1 may note that Marriott, the 

 successful Oxford stroke ^ 1878, so far succeeded in improving 

 the style of the Oxford boat when he took the aft thwart in '79 

 (far too late by the way], that Cambridge did not win by any- 

 thing like the expected distance. 



[Since the above was written I have seen both the crews 

 for the present year's race at work. It is too early to venture 

 a prediction as to the result of the race, though the odds 

 offered on Cambridge would seem to imply that nothing 

 short of an accident can save Oxford from a crushing defeat. 

 It is manifest that Cambridge has the stronger crew, and the 

 style of the Oxford crew at present is not such as to indicate 

 that this year the Oxford style will defeat superior strength. 

 In fact, at present, Oxford shows defects which have been 

 wont to characterise Cambridge crews, and which unmis- 

 takably do characterise the present Cambridge crew, 

 fine though it undoubtedly is. But if, as has before now 

 happened, the Oxford crew fall into the true Oxford style 

 during the fortnight before the race, the odds will not be 

 a to i as at present, nor even 3 to 2, on Cambridge.] 



