The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-03


 ly agreeable in the prospect. In ac- cordanee with MT. Rhodes belief that he who runs may read, while reading men as a rule will not run, many of the successful candidates are athletes first and students second. If we may be- lieve what has been reported though it is to be remembered that interview CTS from the days of Herodotus have often been willing victims of tall stories Queens club next Easter is likely to abound in American competitors.
 Perhaps because they are little old CT or a little more conhdent-and the American climate develops more rapid ly than ours both physique and assur- ance-the new freshmen are credited with achievements unheard of in fresh- men. We may perhaps except two ath- letes sent from Charterhouse, of whom one, it was noised. had run the school hundred in nine and foru-hfth seconds, and the other mile in four minutes, tWenty-seYen seconds. It is true that one failed to get his blue and the other won no event. But supposing that these American freshmen should even tually come more nearly up to the rep utation they bring with them and final Y exercise a preponderant weight in the athletic club. a rather delicate and complicated position is set LID.
 The matches against Harvard and Yale are now more or less regularly es- abolished. Will Oxford be judged to have beaten Harvard if a deciding event is won for her by an American? The case is anything but improbable. But at any rate it will not occur fre- quently. Cambridge on the other hand will have American competitors contin- ually against them They will have good reason to feel aggrieved if as members of an English university they are beaten by those who are in no sense British: and indeed may claim that they are not beaten on their mer- its if year by year declining events are won by this body of graduates impor- ted from abroad.
 This is the more likely as the schol- ars are bound by the law of their ad- mission to be of exceptional athletic proficiency. The case of casual Ameri- cans rowing for Oxford was of differ- ent quality. Certainly on the last oc- casion that this happened no Cam bridge man-if he cared for his univer- sity-would have felt any objection But in athletics Oxford also would scarcely feel proper satisfaction in her representatives. II would be as if the club were yearly packed for the ccca- sion, after the manner alleged against. American clubs at the time os the last international meeting. This unfairness is increased by the accident that some special events are much practised in America and very little in England.
 Here, however, we may look forward to the small compensation that success sions of American victories may induce Cambridge after all these years, to consent to the reiecton of one os the gymnastic events.
 Less obvious, but perhaps more in trinsic objections to the American rep presentation of Oxford, spring from the divergent views held in the two coun- tries on the manner of playing the game. It is much to the credit of Americans that they are a people not readily absorbed. Their desire to Tick creation involves determination to | lick it into their shape. Athletically of course they will have some trouble ir making any impression on an Oxford representative whom, with American leae, we may call in this connection MT Stonewall Jackson. But he, too. as was said of the Confederate general may need to take up his stand on be- half of the pure and resolute virtues of his people. :
 An American athletic meeting, as also the training preliminaries, is con ducted on a very different system from ours. The ring is packed with useless I officials to such an extent that the view 1 of the crowd and the general smooth conduct of the meeting are not a little Interrupted Officials and competitors admit their friends, it may be their friends friends. The professional trainer of the team is almost the most important person before or at the meet | ing. He is a person who may give himself up to the interviewer and say on the one side, the sort of congratu- llatory thing that no undergraduate would care to have bruited, and on the other may attempt, in his desire tc score 8 point, to spread untrue and su. perfluous information.
 Utter and mysterious secrecy is one of the notes of American athletics, il rowing, football and athletics. In Eng. Hand no captain or president would think of attempting to conceal the do. ings of his best boat or eleven or team These obvious points of difference art of innportance because in the case oi athletic sports the approximation oi English to American methods is a dan. lGerous probability. We do not expect 1 to hear of president of the Oxford l University Boat club telling a rival spy I that the boat will go out at 8 D. m. lWhen he intends to row q course at Il a. rrl.: nor of a captain of the football club appearing in an indiarubber nose bag and shouting mystic .call-signals tt his padded tllree-quarters. ...
 The Americans perhaps will not es