en ate nt eee 
THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1873 
UNIVERSITY OARS 
Ts 
WE have, not without motive, adopted the title of 
Dr. Morgan’s book,*—so opportunely timed in 
its issue by its University publishers—as the heading for 
some considerations connected with the coming river 
“Derby ;” for we propose to pass in review the leading 
features of the Hygienic value of these contests, 
which are claiming and receiving from year to year a 
growing importance, into which the book itself is an 
exhaustive inquiry. 
Many a strong hand will tremble as it lifts this book 
for the first time, and many an eye will glisten with 
pleasure or grow dim with regret as it scans its lists 
and tables and reads the revelations made therein. For 
what do they tell—and tell too with a rare fulness and 
circumstantiality ? All particulars as to the health, past 
and present, of the Oarsmen of both Universities who have 
rowed in the annual matches during the last forty years ; 
that is, from the time of their organisation up to the last 
race rowed before the author began collecting the mate- 
rials for his book. Year by year the crews are formed 
and the races rowed. Year by year the races pass and 
are forgotten, and the crews disappear and are wo? for- 
gotten, although they may pass away from our sight. 
What has become of the old Oarsmen, the friends and 
favourites of other days? Are they “doing duty” in 
peaceful country parishes, or in crowded cities at home? 
or have they venturously gone forth to new lands to seek 
for more genial employments than the old one yields? 
What are they doing now? how fares it with them? and 
above all, have they suffered in heart or brain, in nerve 
or lung, from their old practice at the oar? The ample 
lists in Dr. Morgan’s book, his owa ably written pages, 
and the liberal extracts from his correspondents’ 
answers to his queries—his correspondents being 
the oarsmen themselves and his queries being with 
sole reference to their health and bodily condition— 
tell us all: tell us where they are, what they 
are doing, what they did when with us and how they 
did it; and, in their own language, tell with charac- 
teristic frankness, and in words which we can still 
recognise as their old modes of expression, what they 
think and believe for or against their old favourite 
pastime. All write cheerily, and all to a man almost 
speak with prideful remembrance of their work at the oar, 
and the good they have derived from it. From Bengal 
writes McQueen :—“‘I am nowa stout man, weighing 
fifteen stone, but able to be in the saddle all day 
without fatigue, or if necessary walk my ten or fifteen 
miles without any distress.” We wonder if he still possess 
the same hand-power that he hadin his youth? He had 
simply the strongest hand and wrist we have ever known, 
and never did we place our own palm in his without 
setting our teeth close, and subjecting the member when 
set free'to a gentle manipulation, to restore circulation 
and revive feeling in its flattened digits. His was the 
true Herculean build. Nind writes from Queensland on 
* “University Oars.” By John Ed. Morgan, M.A, Oxon, F.R.C.P. 
(Macmillan, 1873.) 
No. 178—Vot., vit. 
‘cae Sale 
NATURE 
Pt See teak ~ 
397 
“Since taking my degree in 1855 my constitution has 
been put to the test in many climates, for I have lived in 
Canada, on the west coast of America, and in Australia, and 
I can safely aver that I never have in trying circumstances 
found a failure of ‘physical power; and that when hard 
pressed by fatigue and want of food, the recollection of 
the endurance developed by rowing and other athletics 
gave me fresh spirit and encouragement.” And yet 
Nind was not naturally a powerful man. His frame 
was the very antithesis to that of McQueen. Those who 
remember him as he first came to the University will 
recall his exquisitely moulded features, almost feminine in 
their softness and sweetness of expression. Schneider 
writes from New Zealand :—“I may state that so far as I 
am concerned, I am able to discover no particular 
symptoms either good, bad, or indifferent specially attri- 
butable to rowing. .... I now come to what I believe to 
be the chief if not the only real danger attendant upon 
Boat-Racing, and that is the violent strain upon the action 
of the heart caused by rowing a rapid stroke and exerting 
every energy to maintain the same to the end of the race.” 
Who among us could argue the matter more wisely ? 
These are bright and pleasant pictures, but like all other 
pictures, they have their dark side. In the lists of Oars- 
men certain names are printed in italics—not many, thank 
God !—a small percentage only. These are they who 
have rowed out their life-race ; who have for ever passed 
out from their period of training and of trial. They rise 
before our mind’s eye as we first knew them. Brewster’s 
magnificent form towering half a head above his stalwart 
shipmates. Men are all wise after the events ; and we 
hear now of those who always doubted his real strength 
and stamina, and point to his untimely end as evidence ot 
their own penetration. “ Invalided from his regiment, 
caught cold by returning wet from a Brighton Volunteer 
Review: died from its effects.” Polehampton, the chival- 
rous, the gentle, the brave! ‘“ Decorated while at college 
with the Royal Humane Society’s Medal for saving a 
companion from drowning at his own imminent peril. 
Shot through the body at Lucknow—and died of 
cholera when attending to his comrades stricken 
by the same malady.” The very career he would 
have marked out for himself, had it been left to 
his hand to trace it! Hughes, the accomplished, the 
frank, the manly—the very nature that, speaking in our 
love and in our pride, we emphatically style the beau- 
ideal of an English gentleman—“ died last year of inflam- 
mation of the lungs.” Here our personal reminiscences 
of old oarsmen must cease. 
For many along year strange tales of the risks and 
dangers of rowing, or rather of boat-racing, have had a 
floating existence in the Universities, and gaining strength 
and circumstantiality by time and repetition, have ex- 
tended to wider circles. While the old tales lived and 
held their own, other and more startling legends sprang 
up, and also grew into importance, legends so alarming, 
and related with such circumstantial detail, that the most 
sceptical began to think that “there must be something 
in it.” Whole crews, it was stated, had been swept off in 
a few brief years by their terrible struggles and efforts 
at the oar. This feeling of uneasiness, if not of absolute 
alarm, attained a sort of climax a few years ago by the 
letters of an eminent surgeon, published in the Z7mes. 
Z 
