Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-08-19

Look out for the added starter" That's
one of the shrewdest maxims in the horse
racing game. Long experience has con-
flrmed the maxim Followers Of the
thoroughbreds can easily recall any num-
Der of embittering occasions when, after
carefully going over the field to pick the
winner of a stake race and lighting on one
that they've gone to with confidence and
the greater part of their bank-roll, some
wholly unconsidered added starter, tackled
on to the race at the last minute before
post time, has nudged out Of the bunch
in the stretch run and smothered all Of
the carefully considered ones in dog
trot.
There are other games in which the added
starter is dangerous. thought Of one Of
them while reading recently Of a long-boat
race between a couple of American battle
ship crews. Inasmuch as there will proba-
bly, be a number of these long-boat races
between men-o'-war crews during the ma
neuvers attending the big fleet review at
Oyster Bay, this narrative of one of the
most famous dumps in the history OF
long-boat racing in the American navy
should possess certain renewed interest.
To my knowledge the story of that curious
incident has never been described in print
by anybody who actually saw the race.
was In Honolulu at the time 1t happened,
in 1895, and followed the entertaining af-
fair from its beginning to Its hilarious, If
startling, wnd-up.
The United States gunboat Bennington,
one of the boilers Of which blew UP and
wrecked the cruiser, killing a large num-
her Of bluejackets off the coast Of southern
California last year, was lying in the har-
Dor Of Honolulu during most Of the year
1895.
The Bennington had pretty clever long
boat crew and a racy sort of a long boat.
ha nctO ha6 c1o
ed up right handsomely on a cruise Of the
Mediterranean before she worked her way
around to the Pacific side, and most of the
bluejackets comprising the. crew as it
framed up in Mediterranean waters were
Still. attached to the ship as she lay in the
harbor Of Honolulu. The Bennington's
long-boat crew was by no means the crack
outfit Of the navy, but it was a shifty
eight and had won good many more
races up and down the worlds waters than
1t had lost.
AS the Fourth of July approached the
Bennington long-boat crew began to be-
come nervous for q race on the big day.
The prowess of the man-o'-war crew was
pretty we'll known to the various boat
clubs of Honolulu, however, and, as the
boat club oarsmen weren't much used to
long-boats, anyhow, combining their racing
and practicing to shells exclusively, the
Bennington long-boat crew had some
bother IN getting racing opponents Pres
emily, however, an eight made up of Kama
"a policemen on the Honolulu force offered
to row the Bennington crew a long-boat
race over the four-mile course. The Kama
ka cops were huge men, of magnificent
physical development, and all Of them born
watermen who had been used to pulling
oars almost since their babyhood. They
got hold Of a long-boat that was a pretty
good match for the long-boat Of the man
o'-war and began practice. The Benning-
ton long boat crew watched them practice
out of the corners OF their eyes, pretending
to gaze elsewhere, and grinned in each
others faces. 1t looked pretty good to
cops strength and experience as individual
oarsmen they seemed to make a bad hash
Of eight-oared work, and the Bennington
crew felt as though they already had the
purse as good as slowed in their ditty
boxes.
couple OF days after the two-sided race
was arranged an eight made up Of Kanaka
fishermen boarded the Bennington and
asked to be counted in as competitors in
the race. The Bennington people were
more than willing to have 1t three-cor-
nered affair, for the sake of the betting.
With three crews in the affair they knew
that they would get better price on their
own chances In the handbook that was
about to open on the event in Honolulu.
So they consented to the eight composed
Of the Kanaka fishermen coming In. When
the Kanaka cops were consulted. they, too,
were willing to have their countrymen
compete for the purse. and thus it was
erected into a three-cornered affair.
The Bennis9kon ships company watched
the Kanaka fishermen practice in the long
boat that they dug UP somewhere for the
race, and they weren't quite so gay over
the situation when they saw the way the
splendidly developed hshermen's eight han
died themselves. There was q ste6diness
and a power about their way Of bending to
the oars that was impressive The MEM
bere Of the Bennington's long-boat crew.
however. weren't In the least afraid. They
had a swell coxun who knew all about