The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-08-05
most healthy or the least presidential condi-
ton. We now raise the note of warning to
all our health guardians and authorities.

L
ton. We now raise the note of warning to
all our health guardians and authorities.
Challenge.
Whatever may have been thought of tho
Judgment Of the Atalanta Boat Club Of this
city, in making the match which early this
summer brought them such bad defeat at the
hands OF the London Rowing Club, there was
but one opinion OF their pluck; and we arc
| glad that by our recent article ON the Cyollaon
boat race the opportunity has been offered
and promptly seized by them to vindicste their
claim to being the first amateur oarsnen Of
the country, though it seems pity that the
test they now seek could not have been applied
before the English match. Captain Withers.
Of the Atalantas, Is out with a challenge to
"a picked four Of the Amherst six, or, If they
cannot be got together, picked four from the
six University crews which rowed at SPRING
field on the Gath of July, the race to take
place over the same course before October l."
Though the acceptance Of this offer will
necessitate the devotion of much of
the vacation Of the parties challenged
to the laborious work of training, as well as
perhaps coming together from distant points,
and it may be the breaking of resolve not to
row in any but college races, yet we hope
they will think we'll of it, and, even though in
Amherst's case from the graduating of some
of their best men they have given up rowing
for good, will reconsider their determination
and take part in q contest which promises to
be Of so much interest and to settle 80 much
But before making this challenge the Atalanta
captain takes one or two positions which seem
to us hardly tenable. We had previously
characterized the only Harvard crew that
the Atalantas had ever beaten as o crippled and
demoralized one. The Captain says:-sCan
this be so when such well known oarsmen as
Messrs Bass, Tucker, Jones, Loring, Sanger
and Read comprised the crew, most Of whom
had had several years experience in the Uni
versity six?" But Of the six gentlemen named
we find that but two, Messrs Read and Jones,
have ever rowed before in university lit
should be college) race. It is little sur
prising, too, that Captain Withers should con-
found William G. Loring, an oarsman nearly
unknown to the public, with Alden Porter
Loring, the famous Harvard stroke at home in
1867 and 1868 and in England in 1869.
Moreover, this MIR. Loring had been out of
practice for two years, and was only sum-
moned to the crew at the eleventh hour to
take the place of Mr.. Rice, who was indulging
in the measles. MIR. Jones also had been laid
up for weeks with badly sprained ankle, and.
as contemporary says the crew had not had
over ten hours practice together in ALL and
how much that would amount to it is idle to
say
Again, the Captain says that the 22:08 made
by the Atalantas over the English course Of
four miles and three furlongs is faster than
Amherst 16: 32a over the three miles at SPRING
field, and that the current in the two
cases was 'about equal" We under
stand that it is seldom that the current
of the Connecticut there runs even as fast as
two miles an hour, while Harvard found that
the tide on the Putney course runs over four.
and that her crew, with Loring and Simmons.
her best men, both out Of condition, and carry
ing one hundred and six pounds of coxswain,
too, could cover these four miles and three
furlongs on an almost slack tide and in
losing race in 22:19, only eleven seconds
more than the Atalantas required when in
their best order and with no twenty-six pounds
and half Of coxswain apiece to carry.
The Captain asserts that rowing, as he did.
from Mortlake to Putney, takes longer than
from Putney to Mortlake; but how so-when
not only the tide, but the current, too, is
favorable for this is down stream-he does not
make so clear. He adds that 1--WE also beat
the Oxford crews time in their race with Har-
ward over half minute. Bells Life, OF
Saturday, August 20, 1869, says that the time
made by Oxford in this race was 22:17, and,
as the Captains own figures for the Atalantas,
leaving out any deduction for the foul, are as
above-22 O8-we hardly understand his
method of subtraction.
Bearing in mind the vast difference between
Amhersts 1921 and the Atalanta's 1914,
over q three-mile course on the Connecticut,
and looking at the wide gap between the latter
and the London Rowing Club on the Thames
last June-almost if not quite ten times as wide
as that between Oxford and Harvard three
years ago-we cannot help thinking our state
ment entirely safe, unpalatable though it may
be to the good Captain when we said that the
Atalantas had changed the name of American
amateur rowing, which Harvard had forced
Englishmen to respect to q laughing-stock
and byword."