UNIVERSITY ROWING.
There are three Universities of Australia—those of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Racing was first instituted when Sydney and Melbourne met on the water of the latter in string test gig fours over a three and a half miles course. In the following year they met on the Parramatta. Mel bourne won on both occasions. The race was then discontinued, but in 1885 the Sydney University Boat Club was founded, and in 1888 the three Universities mutually agreed to establish the race as an annual event in eights, to be rowed in turn on the Parramatta, the Yarra, and the Port Adelaide rivers, over a three mile course. Of nine races rowed—in two of which Adelaide, and in one of which Sydney, did not compete—Sydney has won four times, Melbourne thrice, and Adelaide on two occasions. The presentation by Old Blues of Oxford and Cambridge of a magnificent cup, to be held by the winners, has given a great stimulus to the race, and invested it with an importance which otherwise would not have attached to it. It has served to establish the continuity of the contest, and to connect the local Universities with their more famous elder sisters of England.
The Sydney U.B.C. undoubtedly takes the lead in prosecuting rowing. It promotes annual races for Freshmen, and intercollegiate fours between the three colleges of St. John's, St. Andrew's, and St. Paul's. Since their inauguration, in 1892, St. Paul's has won on every occasion except in 1894. In 1895 and 1896 the U.B.C. won the Rowing Association Eight-oar Championship.
There is an annual race in eights between Ormond and Trinity Colleges of the Melbourne University, besides a few other less important events, but the rowing spirit is not in such evi dence as in Sydney and Adelaide. The latter is simply a teaching and examining University, with members so few that it is rather a matter of finding eight men to put in a boat than of picking or selecting a crew from a number of aspirants. Its success and enterprise are the more
remarkable.
Speaking generally of University form in Aus tralia, it is far inferior to that of a good college eight. Nor is the reason far to seek. There is no such recruiting ground as, for instance, Eton or Radley, not to mention other rowing schools, nor are there the opportunities for making oars such as the college clubs at the two great Universities present, with the successive stages of the Torpids and Lent races, the May and Summer Eights, Henley, and the Trial Eights. Coaching, as in England, from the tow path or a fast steam-launch, is practically impossible, and the number of those who have a scientific knowledge of oarsmanship, and, what is rarer still, the gift of imparting it to a crew, individually and collectively, is small indeed. Coaching in Australia is done from the stern, or from another boat, or by an occasional view from the bank, sometimes from a launch seldom fast enough to keep up, or range abeam. Pair-oar tubbing is of course utilized. Sydney University rowing is, however, far superior to non University oarsmanship. The men sit up, use their backs and legs well, understand the knee work at the end of the slide, and do not rush their recovery. They are somewhat deficient in fore and aft swing, have a tendency to sky the feather, and rarely catch their water at the first. Melbourne rowing is wanting in body work, and conspicuous for absence of length. The men apparently are taught to discard on slides every approach to fixed-seat form, instead of to retain as much as possible. Thanks to a strong Oxford inspiration in Adelaide, and a belief in fixed-seat form as the foundation of good rowing on slides, an Adelaide school or University crew is conspicuous for length, reach, and swing. The pace of the eights is far behind English standard.