The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-06-11


Perhaps in the whole annals Of American
aquatics our oarsmsn have never misjudged
their opponents, or the work In store for them,
more completely than did the four of whose
performance on the Thames yesterday Of
ternoon have come to us such unwelcome
tidings. Undoubtedly they were much disap-
pointed in not having the boat in which they
had expected to row; and their chances were
not improved by being forced to take, at very
short notice, one different materially from
the former. But their rivals appear long ago
to have concluded land many of the frst oars
men in this country win endorse their opin-
ien) that levitt or Clasper can build about as
fast q shell as floats, and it seems to us quite
unfortunate, either that when they did have
to order in England, they did not go to one Of
these men at once, or, better yet did not go to
him in the first place. and SO avoid all perils
of the sea, and these yet more perilous
changes late in the day, which beget anything
but confidence in them or their friends. IN
But, plainly enough, In the best outrigger that
ever adnted, that crew yesterday could not
have come in first. Their boat, if somewhat
inferior, never made all, or nearly oil, that
difference The Atalanta crew was, as has
been painfully manifest from the beginning,
badly overmatched. They are light, small,
spare men, not averaging in weight much above
one hundred and forty-fve pounds apiece
Their opponents weigh nearly twenty pounds
man more. Large men are not always tougher
tbo,, .,oou ovou ofto,, Mt ca kouoh R,,k uhoD
they have about all their lives been accr--
toned to severe and protracted muscular
e1ertion, and for many years back to
efforts Of just the sort demanded
for such trying work as yesterdays, it
will not take long to see that twenty
pounds Of solid bone and sinew in man,
active, full of vigor and Of unquestoned pluck,
will do him an excellent turn when it comes
to the fourth or fifth mile Of hot, hard race,
and his carrying power ia being tested in way
most unquestonably thorough. A one hun
dred and forty pound man might run fve-
mile foot race and beat rival made Of equally
good stuff and weighing twenty pounds more.
But now fasten forty pound knapsack on the
back Of each and let them try again. The big
fellow makes the better cart horse and feels the
load less; and the same holds good in carrying
four-quarters of boat and your eight pounds
of oar. 8
But neither did anything done by the Alta
lantas yesterday show that if they had
matched their opponents pound for pound,
and had been equally well boated, they would
have been in first to the goal. Each crew may
select its own method Of pulling. They
seem to have made each stroke they took,
naturally from their own shortness of limb,
brief enough, even shorter than there was
any call for; and when it is remembered that for
every inch they can move that part Of their oar
inside the rowlock, or fulcrum, the long out
side portion goes three times as far, and that
they make forty Of these motions q minute,
it will be seen how wise it is to put on every
inch of reach they can, especially as in
this instance, when their antagonists notice.
ably outreached them. But that to which we
are looking more than boat or weight, or
reach or style, as the chief element in the
recent defeat, is the marked disparagement in
strength and also in experience between the
two sets of men who found themselves backing
up to the line side by side, ready to do the
best battle that lay in each for the country
that bore and reared him. The whole impress
sion from description of our men is that
three out Of the four are little more than strip
lings, while every one of the rival crew is a
man Of manifest physical strength-indeed,
with perhaps one exception, of decided power,
and power, too, exactly where he wants it,
and where he was delighted to find last even.
ing that he had it-namely, in the very mus.
cles and parts brought into play in this lung
pumping, loin-tiring business In fact, if the
reports are correct not only the muscles used
in rowing, but about all the others, seemed to
show more development and power in them
than in their opponents And then in expe.
rience they seem to be equally far advanced
experience not only In rowing, but, three Of
them, at least, in rowing in one boat together,
and all over the same water and in the same
tides and eddies that they swept over 80 swiftly
for twenty-one minutes yesterday after.
noon. Few need hesitate long in decid.
ing whether this will tell. practice
is nlne-tenths,' says Emerson, and nowhere
will this better hold than in crew rowing.
And in one other respect might our men well
envy them. Old, shrewd, wary fellows as
they are, they are not too old to learn, and
they showed their excellent good sense in EVIL
dencing 1t by having Mr.. Clasper coach them
until he doubtless weeded out many an imper-
lection, that made his tutoring well worth
having.
But the Americans for some reason best
known to themselves, were content to have
such words of wisdom as might fall from the
lips OF one Of their own number, who, pound
ing away forty hard, swift strokes minute
for quarter of an hour together may have
been we'll qualified just then for detecting the
faults Of his men, and in the right mood for