A SWIMMER cannot lay claim to be an expert unless he can float, and as soon as that can be done well, scientific and trick swimming becomes fascinating to him. Many of the feats which to an ordinary speed swimmer seem wonderfully diffi cult are really very easily performed ; but in this branch of the art, more than in any other, practice of a careful and painstaking character is compulsory. A number of the tricks can only be accomplished after very steady trials, and any swimmer who attempts them in public before attaining perfection risks the chance of making his exhibition ludicrous and absurd.
There are very few amateur swimmers who are sufficiently expert to give exhibitions, but many professionals are capable of affording great entertainment and interest to their patrons. It is not necessary for an amateur to learn scientific swimming, but the ability to do almost anything in the water brings with it an increased pleasure in bathing and swimming, not attained by merely being able to cover a certain distance in a given time. Very probably the lack of good teachers, and the
slight interest taken in the higher development of the art by swimming clubs, have prevented amateurs from becoming, as a body, scientific swimmers ; but there is no reason why they should not include in their club work exercise in that branch of the sport which forms the greatest attraction to spectators, and educates their members to a knowledge of the power which by practice can be acquired over the water. With that view in mind we have endeavoured so to describe the methods usually adopted to perform the tricks in as simple a manner as possible.