Sporting notions of present days and past

31 if�'trAtt�.aih�l / 11�it!! !it
lt"?Ift,"I
IV- itf!fs1q nit
if,
194 SPORTING NOTIONS
moisten his clay when he is thirsty in training.
My experience is that as anyone training grows
fit so does he, if all is well with him, lose his
thirst, therefore unwisdom is shown in denying
means of assuaging that same. Enforced
abstinence from drink when Nature calls for a
refresher—not necessarily stimulant, or, at any
rate, alcoholic—has, I am sure, been fatal to
more than one fine oarsman in the days when
surgeons were given less free play with edged
tools.
But this by the way. We were talking of
old-style training's severity. In the period first
mentioned a Metropolitan Rowing Club crew
would sometimes be sentenced, or directed, to
start fresh from a long row and run right away
out of their ship at the hard above the Star and
Garter, on an expedition up to Putney Hill-top
and back. As for diet, everybody in those days
was practically denied a deal of what was needed.
For some features of preparation no need or
justification really existed. Still, this was almost
better than the half-and-half sort of business one
sees nowadays. We have had a good many
doctors in the Metropolitan crews, hard men
themselves. I never heard one explain why so
often a fine chap, apparently all right, will go to
pieces—a whole crew will at a certain stage—and
that temporary deterioration be forerunner of a
rise exceeding the passing depression. The turn
comes, and the trained is fit to fight for his life in
whatever station from the ring to skipping he
may be called to.
What a splendid list. of L.R.C. worthies Mr
Horton presented! There was in the gallery
A. A. Casamajor, who died in
1
86
1
; he is to be