Year: 1874

farmers. The Little Rock (Ark) Repub-
hcdn, so late as the 9th August says':-The
drought continues throughout the State From
information derived from all sources we are
now satisfied that this protracted absence OF
rain will work ruinous consequences. The
corn crop (Arkansas) may be regarded total
failure 1t is now past redemption. The top
crop OF cotton, few weeks since so promising,
will amount to little or nothing, thus cutting
the aggregate one-haf short of former ex-
pectations." We are gratiied, however, that
the last week Of August in Illinois, Kentucky,
tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi was
marked by liberal life-giving rains, the be-
ginning, we trust, of liberal rains soon to
cover the whole land and that they will not
yet be too late for good to the maturing crops.


But it our summer season this year has,
throughout the Union, been the dryest, it has
been and is to our people the healthest of any
summer for many years, in city, town and
country, East, West North and South. 1t
was feared that the inundations of the spring
in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and
Louisiana, would be followed in the summer
by some pestlence, (which walketh in the
darkness and wasteth at monday" but thus
far we have no reports of yellow fever or
cholera, or Of any symptoms of an epidemic
from the Southwest or the Southern Atlantic
seaboard States. 1t may be said that the
danger Of pesti1ence down South is not yet
past, but still We are encouraged to believe
that this is destined to be remarkable year,
through the summer and autumn, not only in
the general cheering record from its health
reports, but in the exemption of the South
from cholera, yellow fever, and from any
epidemical disease. We rejoice that Septem-
Der opens with this high and grateful
PROMISE and we hope to record its fulilment
in the dying glories Of October.


American Amateur Championship at


tho Oar.


The performances of last summer and this
have proved beyond all reasonable doubt that
we are in fair way to soon have navy of
amateur oarsmen in this country who will
bring US almost equal credit with that won by
our professionals. For years, here and there at
irregular intervals, now at Philadelphia, then
at Detroit, next on the Harlem and again at
Saratoga Lake, there have been local, or, at
best, sectional meetings of the men who had
the time to spare, and took to boat racing from
pure love Of it; and, indeed, for over . score
Of years, either here or in Boston, on the
Fourth of July, or other gala day, good work
could often be seen. But not until last year,
we believe, did the meeting of our amateur
oarsmen become in any sense national It
was reserved for little body Of resolute men
the Continent, and open for 1t a test which
should settle publicly and conclusively
where we could look for our best anna
teur rowing. Canada, then, as in the
first college foot race, proved the favored one.
but that did no harm in either case. On the
other hand, it seemed only to arouse our ma
tional PRIDE and this year the number of con-
testants in some of the races has more than
doubled, while the result of yesterday proved
that, if the good men from the Dominion seek
a worthy foe, they need only cross the line
into our State alone. For, as if not contented
with her memorable scoring six weeks ago
on this same Saratoga water, when little COL





fore, New York has again carried off the
highest prize Of all that Of the great race of
yesterday-and been likewise first in every
race in which she was allowed to enter And
to do this she has had to beat some first class
crews, which, coming as they did from the
Northwest, from Canada, the Middle and the
Southern States, would in all probability not
have come had any who could vanquish them
remained behind. Our own Harlem clubs
were there, and the gallant Bergen Pointers,
and gave, as might be expected,
good account of themselves; while the
Gramercys, by their very fast time
at the SOULS, deserve especial mention.
But there is no denying the fact that among
many genuine surprises the gallant perform
ance of the winners of the last event yester-
day-the Beaverwycks, of Albany-has
been the chiefest of all. If any one had
wished to look them up they could have well
referred him to their rivals, whose boathouse
almost adjoins theirs under the bridge at Al
bany the well known Mutuals but so little
were they known by the outside world that in
naming the first four, or indeed the first half
dozen, they were hardly thought of at all.
Most Of the New Workers pinned their faith
to the famous Argonautas, and indeed the
result showed that they did not shoot very
wide of the mark; but the Wah-wah-sums
with their singular aboriginal name had made
record for themselves on the lakes which
made many wary of them, while the Can
adams who won last year, the Pittsburg men
who SO often give o good account of them
selves, and the welcome strangers from the
Carolinas, to say nothing of the Atalantas
who Went once to England, had all earned
prominence in the forecasting which could
not be ignored. AS is usual in such cases
the winners had been modest before