"It has been reported to me that you broke training last night you were seen smoking not only a few wiffs but a whole pipe I have therefore decided to turn you out of the boat.
"I am in reciet of your letter it is true that I smoked two whifs (not "wiffs" as you say) out of another man's pipe but that's all however I don't want to row in your beastly boat.
I may add here some axioms which have been printed before,[11] but which I may venture to repeat in a treatise on rowing. The years that have passed since they were first set down have not weakened my conviction that they are accurate. I still believe myself justified in stating--
(1) That if two crews row a course within ten minutes of one another, the wind is always more violent and the stream more powerful against the crew in which you yourself happen to be rowing.
(2) That it is always right to take off at least five seconds from the time shown on your stop-watch in timing your own crew, and to add them, by way of compensation, to the time shown on the same watch when timing a rival crew.
(3) That your own crew is absolutely the only one which ever rows the full course right out or starts at the proper place.
(4) That if your crew is impeded while rowing a course you must allow ten seconds; but if any other crew is impeded you must allow only two seconds.
(5) That if you row a slow course, No. 5's stretcher gave way, or his slide came off.
(6) That you could always knock a quarter of a minute off when you row a faster stroke, but that--
(7) You never do, as a matter of fact, row a faster stroke.
(8) That your crew always rowed a slower stroke than the rest.
(9) That you are sure to do a faster time to-morrow.
(10) That your private opinion is, that if everybody in the crew did as much work as you do yourself your crew would be many lengths faster, and--
(11) (and last) That you always lose by the steering of your coxswain three lengths, which all other crews gain by the steering of theirs.
FOUR-OARS AND PAIR-OARS--SWIVEL ROWLOCKS.
A good coxswainless four-oared crew represents skill and watermanship, as distinguished from mere brute strength, in their highest development. I may lay it down as an axiom that any man who can row well in a coxswainless Four will row equally well in an eight-oared crew. The converse of this is, however, by no means true. A man may do good work in an Eight, and yet be incapable of doing himself justice in a Four, or, indeed, of helping the pace of the boat in any way. Rowing of a more refined order is requisite for a Four. Greater power of balance is needed, and a more perfect sense of that rhythm which goes far to secure uniformity in rowing. You may have in your Eight a clumsy heavy-weight, who at No. 5 can use his strength to wonderful advantage, in spite of various aberrations from correct form. But if you put this man at No. 3 in a Four, the results are sure to be disastrous. An easier style of movement is required for a Four. A strenuous application of all the body-weight at the beginning of the stroke is still, no doubt, necessary. The beginning must, of course, be gripped, and that firmly; but the best four-oared rowing I have seen always gave me the impression that a sort of "oiling" method of progression, in which steady leg-pressure plays a prominent part, was best suited to a Four which is not encumbered with the weight of a coxswain. Over and over again have Eights been defeated at Henley for the Grand Challenge Cup, and yet Fours, selected from their members, have been able to beat all comers in the Stewards'. From 1868 to 1878 the London Rowing Club won the Grand five times. In the same period of eleven years their Four was only once defeated for the Stewards', proving, if any proof were needed, that an inferior Eight (I use the term merely relatively) may contain a first-class victorious Four. On the other hand, from 1891 to 1897, a period during which Leander won the Grand five times, they were able to win the Stewards' only once, and that was this year, when their Eight was defeated. Instances of this kind might be multiplied.