The Sculling Championship.

Evening Star, Issue 7401, 22 December 1887, Page 4

The Sculling Championship.

[' Sydney Evening News.'J It is greatly to be regretted that the unblemished and brilliant career of William Beach should, at its voluntary termination, be sullied with the suspicion that he is mixed up in what appears to be one of the meanest and mostdiscreditable arrangements that has ever characterised what is commonly called the sporting world. It was known, on the authority of Beach himself, that whether he loßt or won the late race with Hanlan he would not row again ; and it was taken for granted that his retirement, whether he was victorious or vanquished, would leave the ohamplonship available for, if not possessed oy, the best man. If Hanlan had won, of course it would have belonged to him. He did not win, but he had a right to expect that after his straightforward and manly conduct in ooming to Australia to measure oars with Beaoh for the third time, he would have boon treated in an equally sportsmanlike manner. Instead of this, he finds himself "tiddly-winked" out of even an opportunity of competing for the championship until two men (neither of whom dare meet him) have settled their claims to an honor which neither of them could obtain while Hanlan remained in the Colony, except by a hocuspocus arrangement such as that by which Kemp has become the nominal champion sculler of the world and this while Hanlan, Gaudaur, and Teemer are in existence, and one of them on the spot to do battle for the position. Hanlan has offered to row any man in Australia for LOOO a side ; but instead of meeting him, the man who has had the championship made a present to him by Beach accepts a challenge from Clifford, and if those who are conspiring to wear Hanlan down by making him waste his time and incur expense by waiting in Australia for a chance to regain his lost laurels, play their cards in the same discreditable way that they have commenced the game, Hanlan will have to wait twelve months before he can get the opportunity to prove Kemp's inferiority and his presumption in accepting the championship, or make a public exhibition of Clifford for the second time. The friends of Kemp and Clifford meet to-day to make final arrangements for the contemptible spectacle of two third or fourth class men meeting to row for the championship of the world; and, unfortunately for himself, the retired champion is in the triangular arrangement which is so unpleasantly suggestive of the adroit performance with three thimbles and a pea. The reputation of William Beach is not, however, the only thing concerned; for in the estimation of all fair-dealing sporting men throughout the world, the treatment Hanlan has received will be a reproach to the sporting community of Sydney, and tend to disgrace New South Wales.