Close to it was the boat-house of the London Rowing Club, an association of four hundred gentlemen, who had proved themselves warm and steady friends of the Harvard crew since their arrival here. The Harvard boat was housed here, and the staging and platform were decorated with American colors. A number of ladies, wearing red rosettes, were seated upon this balcony.
A few yards below was the modest stone house where the Harvard crew were sleeping two hours before the race. This place was enclosed by a stone wall, breast high, and shaded by green trees. Platforms were erected behind this wall, and on them I noticed seated the American Minister, Mr. Motley, the Hon. S.S. Cox, "Tom Hughes," Charles Reade, the novelist—a bluff-looking, hearty Englishman, in gray clothes—and a number of ladies, just before the race began.
A FRIGHTFUL JAM.
Back from this house ran the High street, and, I believe, the only street of Putney, and in this street was located the unpretending place of residence of the Oxford men. The towing-path on the Surrey side of the river runs along for miles away beyond Mortlake, and on the Middlesex bank there is also a path, and on both of these paths it is customary on a race day for thousands of harmless maniacs to run along, hats and coats in hand, vainly endeavoring to keep up with race-boats going at a speed greater than a mile every five minutes.
THE HARVARD CREW.
Of course, they soon lose sight of the boats after the start; yet they will still run, hallooing, cheering, and shouting like madmen. To furnish sport and amusement for the myriads of Cockneys who come by rail, steamboat, or on foot, from London and its environs, there are not wanting sharpers, players, peddlers, fighting-men, showmen, venders of all kinds of fruit, vegetables, meats, pies, drinks, ices, and all kinds of knick-knacks—things useful and useless; and these people and their wares combined make up a kind of a Bartholomew's fair on a grand scale.
The fair and its accessories covered the towing-path for three miles, and rendered the passage most difficult on this occasion for the many pedestrians. Dresses were torn, buttons pulled off, hats smashed, bonnets rumpled, hoops irretrievably wrecked, children trod on, women half suffocated and rendered faint and sick; yet, back from the river, for fifty or sixty feet, for a distance of three miles, the uproar and sale of questionable merchandise and doubtful provender never ceased for an instant.
It was a scene such as is displayed once in a man's life-time, to remain indelibly engraved on his mind ever after. One thousand policemen lined both banks of the river to keep order, but most of them were on the Surrey, or most thronged bank of the stream. A large number of those were mounted on huge black horses, and but for them many lives would have been lost on this most eventful day of days.