[16] I write this with full knowledge that many Oxford men deny the fact. I have rowed behind Cambridge, Oxford, and London strokes, and have several times taken the place (number 2 thwart) of a London waterman in a four (‘stroked’ by John Mackinney) training for the Thames Regatta. So that I have had ample opportunities for comparing different rowing styles; and I am satisfied that the main defect of the real Cambridge style was (and perhaps is) an _exaggeration_ of the sound rule that a boat should be propelled rather by the body than by the arms. The very swing in a Cambridge boat shows that this must be so. On the other hand, the Thames watermen do too much arm-work; and hence seem to double a little over their oars. I once rowed with some Cambridge friends from London nearly to Oxford and back, taking a Thames waterman as ‘help.’ We set him, at first, for our strokesman, but we soon had to make him row _bow_, for we could none of us stand his gripping, arm-working style. _BETTING ON HORSE RACES: OR, THE STATE OF THE ODDS._ There appears every day in the newspapers an account of the betting on the principal forthcoming races. The betting on such races as the Two Thousand Guineas, the Derby, and the Oaks, often begins more than a year before the races are run; and during the interval, the odds laid against the different horses engaged in them vary repeatedly, in accordance with the reported progress of the animals in their training, or with what is learned respecting the intentions of their owners. Many who do not bet themselves, find an interest in watching the varying fortunes of the horses which are held by the initiated to be leading favourites, or to fall into the second rank, or merely to have an outside chance of success. It is amusing to notice, too, how frequently the final state of the odds is falsified by the event; how some ‘rank outsider’ will run into the first place, while the leading favourites are not even ‘placed.’ It is in reality a simple matter to understand the betting on races (or contests of any kind), yet it is astonishing how seldom those who do not actually bet upon races have any inkling of the meaning of those mysterious columns which indicate the opinion of the betting world respecting the probable results of approaching contests, equine or otherwise. Let us take a few simple cases of ‘odds,’ to begin with; and, having mastered the elements of our subject, proceed to see how cases of greater complexity are to be dealt with.