OLD V. NEW ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 487, 8 December 1869, Page 3

OLD V. NEW ENGLAND.

(Written expressly for the Sydney Morning Herald, by "' Peter 'Possum'.") A would-be satirical German, with elephantinely epigrammatic German wit, has described the English climate as resembling «• in fine weather looking up a chimney ; in foul weather, looking down." That we have a good deal of disagreeable weather in England, it would, of course, be ridiculous to deny ; but, to my taste, our agreeable weather, when it comes— and it does come far more frequently, and stays far longer, than those who pin their faith on such absurd old libels as that which I have quoted could believe even in dreams— beats all weather to be found in any other part of the globe with which lam acquainted. When our skies are blue, and sunbeams golden, we can feet grateful for our frequent rains ; since they are. "banked'? — returning rich interest— in foliage and greensward which inhabitants of countries that almost always have blue skies and golden suns must eye with hopeless envy. The day of the great Anglo-American Interuniyersitarian Boat Race was a perfect English summer day. When I started for the river-side, the mercury was fa'-t mounting to the 134deg. in the sun, which thermometers registered in the hottest part of the day ; but the air tasted like "brandy- smash," owing to the icing it got now and then from the dash of ea t in the breeze. Even in my " suburban retreat northerly " it was easy to see that " something was up." Such business people as were left in it were doing their business in a grumphisly lackadaisical fashion that showed they wished they had had strength of mind to follow the example of their brethren who had started, or were starting, for the race, instead of staying at home to sell a few paltry yards of ribbon or pounds of tea to customers as regrettfully stay-at-home as themselves. The 'bus-men— a few with the American magenta Qsolferino, a young lady tells me, the American colours ought. to be called), but most with the Oxford dark-blue on their whips and in their button-holes— have a rollicking look about them. If they cannot witness the boat race, at any rate, they can be tossed, so to speak, in its "back wash;" they can talk with those who are going to the race about odds offered and taken, and the chance that, after all, " the Yankees have been pulling dark," and may lick Oxford yet, in spite of newspaper predictions; and the 'busmen behave themselves accordingly. My hilarious cad shouts, ▼aguely, " London— London — any part o' London," in place of his usual painfully accurate topographies. " Come along, sir — Hoxford for hever!" he ejaculates, as an elderly gentleman pants up to the 'bus steps — in gold spectacles, straw hat with band of Oxford blue, and Oxford-blue tie knotted with a devil-may-care jauntiness that contrasts comically with the .generally staid look of the old gentleman, who, probably, knows as much about boating as he does of quaternions or spectrum-analysis. Along the road, in mercers' shops, on almost every passing vehicle, and worn by a considerable percentage of the pedestrians, male and female, old and young, rich and poor -the rival colours are constantly turning up ; the Oxford preponderating, but the American sprinkled with a plenitude which proves that even amongst English folk an opinion prevails that the race will be one of the closest on record. At the railway station everybody, except the sulky clerks and the excited porters, is going, by one route or another, to the race. The dingy platform is as blooming as a dahlia-show with blue and red. Trousers with Oxford stripes, trousers with American stripes, impatiently patrol it. An Oxford rosette and an American cravat, and similar colour compromises are not uncommon — blue above red, or red above blue, indicating the wearers' leanings. Long empty express trains, telegraphed for from stations farther down the line, rush past, and it is with great difficulty that the porters prevent the more agile of the waiting passengers from taking Harlequin leaps through the open windows of the trains as they rattle by, with a refreshing breeze. Every face is flushed with heat and excitement. Yonder i bevy of laughing girls are clad in Oxford blue from top to. toe, but they cannot help wearing the American colours in. their cheeks. Disgorged at last, from the snake-like train, we find all Hammersmith either going to the race, watching those who are going, or ministering to their wants. The publics are crammed— to get up at the bar, you must struggle like the man " of a very stout countenance," in " Pilgrim's Progress," who said "Set down my name, sir." "Bitter" and « stout " and "claret with a bit o' hice in it " are cataracting down parched throats in miniature Niagaras'. The deliquescent barmaids have lost their smiles, and scowl savagely as Gorgons as every minute the shouted orders " follow - fast and follow faster." Apples, pears, plums, and purple grapes— all bloomed with dust — effervescent beverages, stars and stripes, Oxford and Harvard flags, favours and hatbands, are being briskly sold outside. Biding switches, magic donkeys, and fusees are poked under your nose at every second step. Ethiopian seranaders, in dingy white hats and caricatured cravats, are twanging everywhere. Every Cottage that gives, or can be supposed to give, a view on the river, has a board outside chalked with, " Seats for the Boat Race," and a tout who enjoys a sinecure — so eagerly are the "seats snapped up. Policemen, are plentiful as blackberries — tramping along in double and single file, and being told%f£-itt pairs. Mounted policemen are dashing 1 about

like aides-de-camp at a review. An unintermittent stream of all kinds of closelypacked vehicles— the aristocratic drag threatening to take the wheel off the costermonger's donkey-drawn barrow, and the 'bus placarded with "Boat Race— Any distance, Is," jostling against the American waggonette foaming like a syllabus with red-streaked white muslin- -is pouring in from London. A similar stream of pedestrians choke the footpaths and meanders between the wheels that choke the roadway. As far as the eye can reach, both banks of the sungilt river have lost their green, and are black and white with spectators. " Close upon a million," say the knowing in numbers, " must have turned out to see the race." There are 5000 people, packed like figs, on Hammersmith Bridge. In vain do the police attempt to keep the roadway open, and adventurous boys from clustering like swarming bees upon the chains. A very keen-sighted observer professes to see a man perched on the top of the tall chimney-stalk of the Soap "Works that rises white above the green trees. I cannot make him out, but I do see a balloon working up, embossed like floating thistle down on the blue sky, to enable its freight to obtain a bird's-eye view of the exciting contest. Bunting, red/white, and blue, is flying everywhere. It is hard work to struggle down to the cosy old-fasbioned riverside house on the Mall, whose tenant's kind courtesy has saved me from paying a guinea for a peep through a window pane. For an hour or two, when I have struggled down, I have a. panorama to | look at which is almost as good" as the race. The flustered swans do not seem to enjoy it, as they paddle about in a nervous way, very j nnlike their usual dignified progress; but I! do. The golden river is alive with craft of all kinds; moored black barges, almost sinking under their load of gazers ; wherries, canoes, wager-boats, row-boats of all kinds, water-velocipedes, tiny snowy-winged yachts, gliding and passing about like water-birds and water-beetles, or going up stream in the wake of the steam-launches, passenger steamers, and steam tugs that— bright with flags, white with awnings, blithe with bands, and studded with faces as close together as pins in a " Welcome Little Stranger" cushion —are panting and splashing in procession to take up their stations beyond the winningpost. A chain, stretched right across the river at Putney, keeps the course clear there. The river police-boats dart about and compel the steamers to move on above the chain. If any skipper turns cantankerous, the constables have orders to board him, and put out his fires. The general wish, however, to have a perfectly fair race has, perhaps, most to do with the clearness of the course. In spite of the unprecedented number of craft with which the river is crowded, the fairway is far clearer than ever it was in any previous boat-race. Several false alarms have been given, and pooh-poohed ; but at last watches are anxiously glanced at, and we begin to think that the boats ought to be in sight. A huge billow of hurrahs presently rolls along each bank of the river; the masses that have lined them, looking motionless in the distance, heave and toss like troubled water. Myriads of men, women, and children have suddenly gone mad in the golden summer evening. " There they come ! " is the wondrous shout; and there they do come— the Yankee boat flying over the water like a thing possessed. She won the toss and got the start, and with just such weather and water as her crew might have prayed for, she is keeping her lead in a way that makes a good many English hearts feel qualmish, whilst the Yankees on board the two steamers that follow '♦ 'rah — 'rah — 'rah," and fling about their arms, like men made maniacs by joy. " Harvard has it," is the cry which rises from Hammersmith Bridge as the two boats shoot under, the Yankee still ahead; and the v.^st crowd upon the bridge surges towards the up-river side with a crammed rush that makes it wonderful how the bridge stands. " Harvard has it 1 Brayvo, Yankees ! Why the devil don't Oxford pull ? " But Oxford is pulling in its own unresting, unhalting style — sleuth-hound for three parts of the course, but greyhound at the finish ; and experts still confidently back Oxford at 2 to 1. " They did Jits ( the same with Cambridge," exclaims an excited fair young friend; "and I hated them for it then, but now I'm so glad — I'm sure they'll win." The pitier of Cambridge is still patriotic, and now sports the Oxford blue. Clear of the bridge, the Yankees put on a terrific spurt. They literally "go it like winking." C'est magnijique, tnais cc nest pas guerre — with bo much of their course still before them. As the game; lithe fellows, however, with white kerchiefs turbanning their tanned faces, and their brown arms bare, flash their pars like streaks of diamondsprayed lightning, they are cheered to the echo. They are the popular, picturesque heroes. The Englishmen look dumpingly in comparison, and the blue oar-blades, although they rise and. fall most rhythmically, still seem -to rise and faU so slowly that fear deepens in many English hearts. Necks are craned out of windows, rushes are made upon roofs; when the boats are lost sight of, Oxford is still behind, Harvard still " rowing like mad." After minutes that seem centuries, the boom of a gun is heard. The race is lost and won, but who are the winners ? Carrier pigeons. flock the sky; the news is being flashed across the Atlantic ; but we do not know at Hammersmith. At last a vague rumour comes down the river that Oxford has proved itself still invincible. A little afterwards boats pull past, whose passengers wave dark-blue rosettes, and hold up fingers to intimate by how many boats' lengths' the dark blue has won. But all this wearers of magenta look upon as apocryphal, and still shake their colours in defiance. :We shall soon know now. That thrilling Toar- of cheers is rolling along the banks again—this time from Mortlake. The Press

boat splashes into sight, and she carries the blue flag hoisted above the red. Still more nerve-shaking are the cheers when the Oxford men, looking almost as fresh as when they started, pull back to Putney at their leisure —victors by three boats' lengths, which would have been five, had not an idiot nearly fouled them just as they were shooting in, with the game Americans still making desperate .efforts to recover their lost lead. "The coxswain had to splash water over the Yankees to keep them from fainting as they pulled. It seems queer, don't it, when they looked so much more powerful than our fellows? Their way of training can't be right anyhow; it's the finest, gamest race that ever was rowed. Why don't the Yankees show ? They'd have got a better cheer than Oxford, if they'd pulled back. But they've gone back in one of the steamers, regularly done up, I've heard." Those are the remarks, as the vast crowds break up, and, with an awful crush, force their way through narrow alleys in o wide thoroughfares which they still choke, in spite of the dusty policemen's half frantic efforts to " preserve circulation." And this remark may also be heard everywhere. "It was a plucky thing of those Harvard chaps to come over — Oxford must pull them in America, next year. Of course, I'm glad that Oxford has won, but I wish they could both have won. Anyhow, it was the fairest race tliat was ever pulled, and the best men got it." A small colony of Irish, who have come out of the fetid courts in which they kennel to air themselves in a broad thoroughfare, are not, however, amongst those who make this observation. They glance with sullen disgust at the Dark Blue (which, after the race, is almost universally sported), and growl, as loudly as they dare, derogatory criticisms on the victorious Five — simply because they happen to be English. The Irish wished — naturally enough, perhaps (although they are looked down upon in the United States) — the Americans to win; a good many Irishmen came over from Ireland to see them do it. Americans flocked overf rom Paris, and even from the other side of the Atlantic to do the same— even the vast throng the race drew together has been perceptibly and piquantly peppered by the American cut of fac >, figure, beard, and costume — but the Americans accept Harvard's defeat in far better temper than the Irish do. "Let your Britishers pull, without a coxswain, on the Charles River, and then see how the race would eventuate," is what the Americans say ; but they do not for a moment dispute that their chivalrous champions have been chivalrously and most unmistakably " whipped."