Page:Boating - Woodgate - 1888.pdf/265

 No one in Britain thought fit to challenge Hanlan again, after the decisive manner in which he had disposed of all his opponents ; but in his own country he twice defended his title, in 1883, On May 31 in that year he rowed J. L. Kennedy, a comparatively new man, in Massachusetts, and beat him ; and on the following July 18 he once more met his old opponent, Wallace Ross, on the St. Lawrence, and beat him, though after a closer race than heretofore.

Tn England about this time sculling had sunk even lower among professionals than in the days when Boyd and Elliott were the professors of the science. These men had retired ; there were sundry second and third class competitors for champion honours, among them one Largan, who had been to Australia to scull a match or two, and one Perkins, and one Bubear, The latter at first was inferior to Perkins, and was a man of delicate health and somewhat difficult to train. He often disappointed his backers by going amiss just before a match was due, but he took rather more pains with his style than other British scullers had done of late, and eventually he succeeded in surpassing them, and in becoming the representa- tive (such as it was) of British professional oarsmanship.

We should mention that in 1881 the brothers Messrs. Walter and Harry Chinnery most generously made an expensive attempt to raise the lost standard of British sculling, by giving 1000/, in prizes for a series of years, to be sculled for. These two gentlemen were well-known leading amateur athletes in their day. The elder had been a champion amateur long- distance runner; the younger had won the amateur boxing championship, and had rowed a good oar at Henley regattas and elsewhere, It may be invidious to look a gift horse in the mouth, but we feel that this generous subsidy of the Messrs. Chinnery was practically wasted for want of being fettered with a certain condition, That condition should have been, that the competitions for the Chinnery prizes should be on fixed seats. One reason why professional racing has fallen off of late so much, compared to amateur performances, may be found in the