The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-03-30 00:00:00

SKETCHES FROM THE BOAT RACE.

Under the head of "Our Break," a Correspondent of the
Daily News gives the following sketch of the Boat Race—
We were a gloomy party in that great drawing-roost
on Saturday morning. The young men had come in
scowling. Their bouts had been splashed on alighting
from their Hansoms. The flowers in their button-
holes, dexterously pinned up by a smiling damsel in
Brooks's, 1,04 been hopelessly crushed by their top-
coats. Then the girls appealed, looking at once il.wn-
carit and anxious. What about those white tulle
bonnets, and the beautiful cream-coloured gloves?
Our hostess in vain strove to lend the party some of
her own cheerfulness and good humour. It was well
for her to be merry. She was not going to the Boat-
race. _ _ .

But we really did not know what positive rage,
anger, and despair were until the Frenchman came. "1
told you so" was written all over his jars—between the
lines, one might say. "Do you start ?" he said to our
hostess, as he gravely shook hands with her. "It is
English holiday weather, is it not? You are ac•
customed to snow for your holidays?" 'Snow?"
echoed the girls in dismay; and then as we turned
to the windowe by common consent, lo ! there were
white soft flakes floating down through the cold grey
atmosphere. They increased. The air was thick with
them—we could scarcely see the trees in the square- -
and a great weight fell on every heart. We knew it
was all along of that Frenchman. ‘Vhy had he come
in smiling? He was rejoiced to see the snow.
At this point our hostess addressed the young folks
in a pretty little speech, and said that as it was absurd
to think of going to the Boat-race, they might as well
have their luucheon party at home. Meanwhile, how
were they to occupy the three hours? The girls
glanced at each other. The young fellows with the
crushed flowers in their button-holes had a look as of
billiards in their eyes. Our hostess remarked that the
Haymakers was a pretty dance. Sir Roger de
Coverley, too, had its merits. But unfoitunately,
when we were plunged in these bewildering doubts, the
cockatoo had a tit, and everybody ran away to assist
that interesting bird.
Whether we should have been driven into dancing
country dances at ten of the morning, it is liar I to
say; but the snow deceitfully left off for a few minutes,
and a sort of pale glow shone along the dull sky that
brooded over the square. It was not sunlight, nor
anything remotely resembling sunlight ; but it
stirred a little hopc• in some gentle bosoms, and anxious
questions were asked. The party that hesitates is lost.
Orders were immediately given to put the horses in the
break—a scurfy after waterproofs and rugs resounded
through the house- there was a brief settlement of
places—a sound of hoofs in the street outside—and
then a glimmer of the shining blue b * a of the
two postilions. The calash-top was drawn forward—
all the girls thrown, in a mass of white, and pink, and
blue into the centre of the carriage, and covered over
with the skins of wild animals, and rugs and plaids—
while the rest of us got up on the front and hind seats
and proceeded to arrange our white 'Mackintoshes so
that they would drain off the expected water. Our
hostess kissed her hand to us. M. Crapaud removed
his hat some distance from his head, and finally put it
on again. And then— his, lictors, clear the way !--our
horses sprung forward and we found ourselves whirling
down Grosvenor-place and into King's-road, and 60 on
to Parson's-peen and Fulham.
It was now snowing hard. The girls had long ago
disappeared; where once that bight mass of costume
ladbeen visible we saw only thetops of umbrellas and the
calash-top. with a fringe of fur peeping out. The trees
on either side id us were laden with white; the road
underfoot a canal of m re. There were, nevertheless,
a large number of vehicles bowling down the level
thoroughfares towards Putney'brid4e.
When the snow ceased sleet fell; when the sleet
ceased a bitter wind flattered through our mackin-
toshes and chilled our veiy- bones. When we came in
sight of the river, a more desolate prospect could not
be imagined —a dull, leaden-coloured stream flowing
through a sort of grey, low-lying mist, with a gloomy
sky overhead, and a wilderness of falling flakes
between. We got over the bridge. We drove past
the deserted common, and down into Barnes. We
took up our position on the banks, where an enormous
• black-hued crowd had congregated along the miry
shores, and got clown to see whether any of our
partners had been frozen to death. Well, they
had survived, if here and there a trace of delicate
, blue was nevertheless visible in the pale peach-tints of
a fair face. They were better off than the determined
. young women we could see in the crowd, who had
• tramped through the mud with their lovers and
friends, and were now patiently enduring the sleet, or
trying to fence off the biting wind with sing umbrella.
They were in good spirits, too, those buxom girls who
. stood on the banks with their companions, reminding
one .4 the brave little woman whose praises Alfred de
Musset sang :
• •

among that soaked mass of pleasure-hunters. Now
and again a shout or a laugh came up to the bridge,
and heads would be seen emerging from water-proofs
or peeping from carriage windows, in the vain hope of
their owners being inspired with passing merriment.
But the thick atmosphere and the all-pervading wet
hung over them like a pall; aid their efforts at gaiety
were dismal indeed. . . . . A mild wonderment
on the part of everybody that any one but themselves
should have come down "for pleaaure " on such a day,
seemed the prevailing sentiment; and the scene on the
banks at Barnes was only less depressing than that on
the river or that on the other side to them. As for the
banks last named, they presented one expanse of deso-
lation. " Phizzer's Stand" looked like the damp
firework its name suggested. Its empty boards shiny
with wet, implieol an alliount of dreariness which it
He med impossible to evolve out lof such innocent
materials BA water and bare deal. As the time for he
race drew nearer this stand partly filled, and a hand-
ful of resolute men • dotted the marshy ground
near it, but these increased rather than aiminished
the general gruesomeness; and colds in the head,
coughs, catarrahs, and rheumatism were the most
lively topics suggested by their appearance. The
outlook was as cheerful as this during the whole
time of waiting, and when the guests at the hand-
some house near the bridge turned out in a body
and relieved the solitary policeman who had guarded
its terrace from the public, by taking up their position
by the low wall, it was as mea who resented having to
leave the luncheon table, and who, promised themselves
compensation on their return. The black toadstools
grew thicker on the pathway as the hour drew near.
Figures in every kind of hideous wrap mounted the
carriages. Au itinerant photagrapher, of sanguine
spirit, offered to take groups, adding, with dismal
cheerfulness, "As you look in the snow, ladies, as
you look in the snow !" Three several bands of
itinerant Ethiopians essayed to sing, and were driven
in succession from their "pitch" by force of cir-
cumstances. Who could sustain the character of a
comic African with melted snow running down his
blackened face and making it pie-bald? Who could
deal effectively with the bones when his own teeth
chattered in his head; The minstrels below us gave it
up in despair, and the public amusements in our
vicinity were limited to the observations of and com-
ments on the queer figures cut by acquaintances,
strangers, and friends. The canoes, outriggers,
wherries, barges, and ferry-boats which were moving
rapidly to and fro, came into collision now and then,
as it seemed, to break the monotony. Warm language
was a relief somehow, and when one old man who was
rowing alone had an oar broken by another boat
nearing down upon him, one half envied him the
exertion he underwent in his efforts to save himself and
his craft from more serious disaster. Perhaps the
people in the barges and large boats anchored in full
view of the course looked most thoroughly helpless.
There had been attempts to roof some of these in tem-
porarily with tarpaulin, which were successful for a
time; but which gave way as the snow and wet accu-
mulated, and which then half drowned the hapless
people beneath. The only sign of life on one of the
largest bargee was the head of an old gentleman—evi-
dently a poor relation—which peeped out of a round
hole in the deck, and whose owner was kept on the
look-oat while his friends regaled or sheltered them-
selves in the hold below.
All this time Barnes-bridge was like the deck of
a vessel in harbour, but of a vessel bereft of every
bulkhead, cabin, and other point of shelter, and
with none of its hundreds of passengers permitted
to go below. Ladies and gentlemen cast appear-
ances to the winda, and a stroll from one end of
the bridge to the other made one acquainted with
some singular varieties of costume. There was
great diversity of character, too, and it seemed as
if one were learning the trite lesson that one man
in his time 'lays many parts. For there were
several well-known public men upon tte Bridge,
and their metamorphosis was extraordinary. Yon-
der stands the bold smuggler of the transpontine
stage—the man who used in former days to lounge
at street corners, or before shop windows, and
tempt the young and unwary with offers of cigars
and bandanas weich had never paid duty, and could
be had in consequence for a song. His nor-wester, his
dreadnought, and his heavy boots all tell the same
story, and, but that he is a thought too nautical, his
get-up would be perfect. Here is a solicitor in large
practice, and one of the mildest-mannered and most
astute of men. A few yards further, and a member of
Parliament stands as if for his portrait, in the character
of a Thames waterman. Here is a man who won his
honours under an Indian sun, disguised in a wrap-
rascal, which looks older than the sword-cuton Ids reso-
lute face, and which transforms him into a pig-jobber
in reduced circumstances. As for the great commer-
cial people, who dare not for their lives go upon
'Change in the garb they figured in on Saturday, their
name is legion; while many a form familiar to the
frtquenters of Park and Row defied the Graces and
showed itself a, shapeless-mass of moist frieze. Cal-
lantry forbids comment upon the dresses of the ladies.
These were fully equal to the occasion; and if they
did not disfigure to the same extent as those described,
the triumph of their wearers was the greater.
At last, after more than an hour's waffler, and
wetting, and when the snow and damp were at their
coldest, it became known on the Bridge, no one knew
exactly how, that the boats had started. All discom-
fort was forgotten then. Even the reckless bore
who after professing to calculate to a nicety what
it would cost to roof the bridge over with glass, vowed
that it would pay the company handitontely, as tickets
would then sell easily for five guineaaeach—evenhe lost
his prosiug tongue for the time. There were eager en-
deavours to pear tin ough the bank of fog towards Putney.
Then the smoke from the strainers was seen round the
bend to the left. Then the steamers themselves came
in view. Then a couple of tiny white specks,
which seemed to more with surprising slowness.
Then a glimmer of dark colour above the white.
Then the colour resolved itself into blue tiara, and then
into blue two shades, "Cambridge first!" and
" Cambridgewins!" had been shouted long before this,
and the race from where we 'data seems over before
the boats are identified with certainty. Then, there
la a ert.oh hem one aide of the bridge to the other, as
the boats glide through, still with seeming slowness;
and the fortunate people standing immediately above
them criticise the pulling of the two crews loudly, and
even the expression of their faces. Cambridge looks
fresh and Oxford fagged, is the general verdict; and an
the "Bravos" and "Hurrahs " echo and re-echo from
bridge and banks, we see Cambridge win easily, and
fiud to our astonishment that it has left off snowing,
and in fact has been ipoderately fine for the last quarter
of an hour. The excitement or the cold has kept this
knowledge from us, just as the sight of Cambridge
coming back again causes a fresh snowstorm to fall
unheeded. "Is Oxford never coming back ? " "She's
fouled up yonder by that barge." "That was another
boat!" "Here she is !" "Three cheers for Oxford!"
"Well rowed Oxford—better luck next time ! " and
then there is a rush for the special train, and Barnes
Bridge, and the Boat-race of 1872, become experieuces
to ruminate over under cover, and on cushioned seats.