The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-09-07
HARVARD CREW
IS. WELL LIKED
-
English Rowing Experts Not So
Sure of Cambridge
Victory. = g.
Journal Special Service.

Putney, Eng. Sept. THE marked i'm
provement in the physical condition of the Har
nj ward crew since the men left Bourne End and
came to Putney shows plainly that Bourne End
was about as bad Il place as could possibly
have been chosen for the preliminary prac.
Z tice of the Americans for their race with Cam.
= bridge. Bourne End is hot and enervatng in
the extreme; is much worse than London proper,
where the English people complain so much.
:. Putney Hill, which the Harvard men are
now staying, is infinitely cooler than Bourne
End.
- Another advantage at Putney is that the
, -ivcr is wider. 1t is perhaps 26o yards across
the Thames at Putney, while at Bourne End
the river is hardly 200 feet wide. There is
plenty of room to at Futney, and the crew
is not bothered by having to dodge small boats.
If the men had gone straight to Putney they
would have been in much better shape today
than they are They will be ready to row the
race. however. when the time comes.
DR.. Manahan has attended them with great
care. and Notwithstanding the sickness Of Rich
ardson, the loss of Glass and the late arrival
of Morgan. there is every reason to believe
~ that the eight will be fit when they go to
the starting point.
The crew Is rowing much better than it was
at Bourne End. but the improvement is not sur
prisng to those who the crew in America.
1t has to be better than it was doing at
Bourne End because its rowing there was
atrocous. At times it looked like a ''scrub''
J eight; every oar WENT into the water indie.
pendently of the others. and the boat rocked
Ike cradle. Things grew little better at
past week the crew has advanced a good
= deal.
- All the time Harvard men were rowing so
-abominably, the English experts were lauding
them to the Skies and the American news
papers who got their reports from the London
papers were printing anything but the facts.
Yet the English experts far less con-
- fdent than they were two weeks ago. At
Bourne End they ridicued the American stroke
and said that the crew had no speed. When
Harvard, In the trials at Bourne End, made as
- good time Cambridge did, the Englishmen
- said that the Harvard crew could not last the
distance rowing such stroke. That state
ment was overthrow almost as soon as the
- Harvard crew came to Putney. When the men
On the Harcard launch and the newspaper re-
:; porters who had followed in a tug came back
after the trial and said that Haryard's time
was p minutes 40 seconds the veterans would
not believe it. One newspaper reporter named
Cook, who had rowed on the Oxford university
eight twenty years ago, made the time II
minutes 80 seconds At first; he said his
watch must be wrong, but when he learned that
a dozen other people had made practically the
same time he concluded that his timepiece
was correct dthat the Harvard crew was
4 fast
- Since then the Engshmen have had a very
wholesome regard for the Harvard eight and
several privately expressed their apprehension
that possibly, instead of learning from the
Englshmen. Harvard may be able to teach
them sonnet hing about eightoared shell work.