The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-07-22

ing and oars leaping in the hardest, hand
soonest squirt OF the dav for place and not for
the race. In less than i've minutes the
race would be over. Endurance and speed
were needed and used to the last ounce on
the stretcher and the quickest of strokes on
the water, and the hard struggle settled to
the closest risk of a bursting blood
vessel or a fainting man. Minute
afIer minute the boats hung side by SIDE
and Amherst passed at last to find
fainting stroke in her boat when the race
was over. Two miles the crews had pulled
in silence. From end TO end of the long
line the creaking outrigger, the leaping oars,
| the rushing water of the great race, filed
| the air with its only sound. Up from the
grand stand came a fitful cheer, and from
the hillside beyond victorious Cornell
| louder one. The crews swept on nearer
and nearer to the line, and the sounds of
shelr strife went out under great rush of
cheers and shouts from the stand, The
/ finish had begun. Now, of all this which
/ has been unrollipg itself before the ewes OF
steamboatmen there is precious little token
to half the college men at the grand stand
who fore&o seeing the race, partly of neces
/ slty and partly to see the finish. And this
finish, after all, which turns 10000 peacea-
Die persons into mad enthusiasts, has
MORE OF HUMAN INTEREST
in it to the non collegiate mind than the
pluckiest of interminal contests among the
|
the halt mile and the mile we thousands
then, catch sight for the first time of the
glance from the line of oars that bears down
uPOn US. Just a row Of FLASHES and moth
ing more, and hardly enough of that, with
The sunlight on the wind Iuffied water daZ-
cling US, TO count the time of any stroke were
we cool enough to go to counting. Click go
the telegraph boards again, and the ''rah"-
ing that Harvard had been doing out of hope
comes up again OF knowledge and with
hearty good cheer, for "12' is the leading
boat. Dartmouth, good crew, is next, then
Cornell end the New YORK faces lenpthen)
then Princeton, then Wesleyan. To be sure,
it turns out that this signaling was all
wrong, but that has nothing to do with the
enthusiasm. And so, wrong side up, but with
Cornell generally. prominent, the signals
come till, just before they reach the two
and hall mile line the crew themselves
frightening black spots, come into sight.
So now we have it. Cornell mas got lead
and is going to keep it, that being the way
she has. Harvard, green-capped Dartmouth
and Columbia are close behind. and there
are two crews hanging upon them and
pounding away at the water gallautly but
vainly. And that is about all we can see
and It is all we care to see. The men al the
upper end OF the grand stand have left it
en- masse, and are screaming and running
down the shore. There is no time and no
it is all one great roar of voices contendlng
and striving, and one great tumble of hats
and handkerchiefs and ribbons and frantic
arms waving-the whole world gone mad.
Over on the opposite shore they are behav-
ing in the same fashion to the utmost of
their limited abilities, considering that the
crew which is going to win is on our side OF
the water. Going TO win, of course, How
can she help it, with us
THOUSANDS YELLING STRAIGHT AT HER
and at nobody else? Still we do look little
anxiously at Harvard, tried in battles, al
ways rowing a good if losing race; always
expected, of late years, TO summon up at some
critical time a great reserve of force, and TO
work victory out in the very jaws of defeat
always expected to do it and never doing it,
But then she is so far off Just now; almost at
the other shore, and out of the EASY reach of
sympathy or .aith. And there is Columbia
half way over-another New York crew.
SIZE Will take care OF Harvard apparently,
AID though they have been neck and neck
for quarter OF a mile is gaining, gaining
with every stroke, by inches though and yet
by inches. Now the leading crews lie in
three groups. Cornell, here she is under our
noses; the darling is alone, and by more
than three full boat lengths is master OF
these waters, beyond danger from any rival
unless Columbia has a terrific burst
Harvard, and the slow, sure defeat of the |
crimson, is all there is to the next group, |
and in That struggle, depending on so slight
a thread, the two contestants lie with 600 fest |
OF water between them. In these 600 feet, |
and hardly back enough for clear water to
show between her bow and Hsrvard's stern
is Dartmouth with Wesleyan and Val
hanging on her right and left flank. All |
the elasticity IN this group Is with Dart |
mouth, and her men swing away goodna- |
turedly aud easily, so that it seems & pity |
q little more had not been got from her FUR |
thsr tack. She is fresh and comfort |
able, as no Dartmouth crew has ever been |
at a. finish before, and should have been up |
lighting at least with Columbia the battle !
that tired Harvard can not sustain. AS it is |
she keeps easily ahead OF Wesleyan, whose |
force has departed and has no fears of un |
lucky Yale. Alas. Yale, disappointing her |
friends and hackers so utterly, and yet so
calamity pounding on in an utterly hopeless |
contest, holding out under difficulties that |
must have sorely tried every soul in the |
stsrboard oars and her rudder alone. 1t is |
easy to pity her, bnt it needs Yale man to |
understand what
LOAD OF DISAPPOINTMENT
the boat is carrying, thus lamely to fight for |
sixth place after six months well-grounded |
hope for first place, and to have discovered,
to have dreamed of this weakness first |
scarcely ten miuutes ago. But the race to
the winner. Cornell, into whose shell as it |
sweeps along under the grand stand you
could almost cast stone, is laughing at |
twelve crews and showing them her heels.
To be sure she was expected to do some
thing of that sort, but not easily or with
such COMPOUNDED GOODNESS. Harvard's un-
lucky pumping and Dartmouth's lsziness
are responsible perhaps for the extreme
ease and comfortable calmness of her APP
pearance here steady three lengths ahead.
There is not enough left in any crew, unless
it be Dartmouth. to disturb her equanimity.
Columbia is shaking off Harvard little by
little, but that is all she will do. And yet
with all her exquisite self-satisfaction it
is a pretty pace Cornell is making.
She pulls thirty-eight, the fastest
she has rowed yet to-day If it