Probably the most interesting and exciting contests in the small-boat class will be the sharpie races of the Shelter Island Sharpie Club. This club was organized two years ago with about twenty members, and has grown rapidly in size and popularity. A regular race is sailed every week over a club course of five miles, and three races are sailed around Shelter Island during the season, a distance of twenty-five miles. These races are always most exciting, for the boats are limited to 16 ft. on the water-line, with no limit to the sail area. Consequently some of them get over-rigged, and an occasional upset adds zest to the sport. In addition to these races the Sharpie Club holds athletic games, including, among other events, swimming, rowing, weight-throwing, etc., and at the end of the season medals are awarded to the best all-round athletes. Last year the sharpie Frolic, owned by S. M. and G. H. Milliken, won the highest number of points, with the Chip-Chip, owned by H. V. Whitney, and the Mary Jane, owned by A. E. Whitney, tied for second place. In the athletic events H. V. Whitney took first, with W. B. Cowperthwait second.
The New England Interscholastic baseball season has thus far proved most interesting. A number of the games have already required more than nine innings play to determine the winner, and so far the Cambridge High and Latin nine has escaped defeat. At the present date of writing the standing of the clubs in the N.E.I.S.B. League is:
| Per | |||
| Clubs. | Won. | Lost. | cent. |
| Cambridge High and Latin | 2 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Hopkinson | 3 | 1 | .750 |
| Boston Latin | 1 | 1 | .500 |
| English High | 1 | 1 | .500 |
| Roxbury Latin | 1 | 1 | .500 |
| Somerville High | 0 | 3 | .000 |
The Hopkinson players received their first defeat on Friday, the 17th, but they played a good game, and showed the results of Joe Upton's coaching. The batting especially has improved. Hopkinson and C.H. & L. will have a hot fight for the pennant. Dakin of the English High-school is pitching up to his old form again, and held Somerville High down to a single hit in their recent game, which E.H.-S. won by the score of 14 to 1. But S.H.-S is one of the weakest teams in the League. The Roxbury Latin nine show want of practice, and their only redeeming virtues just now are the pitching of Morse and their general batting strength. But the New England school teams are all well provided with good pitchers this season, so that Morse's proficiency counts for little when it comes to a decisive contest. Team-work, after all, should be the mainstay of every nine.
In the tabulated record of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. games printed on p. 538 of Harper's Round Table of May 21st, a typographical error shows Hackett's time in the mile walk as 7 min. 4-2/5 sec. instead of 7 min. 46-2/5 sec., which it should be.
The Graduate.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Editor of the Round Table:
Sir,—I noticed in the first number of Harper's Round Table a reference to the "timid people" who object to football. There have been many other remarks of this kind, at various times, made in the Round Table. If you can grant me a little space, I should like to point out the injustice of sneers of this kind.
In the first place, in order that it may not be said (as it generally is said when any one lifts up his voice against the game) that I am ignorant of the subject, I may say that I am a football player myself in a small way, and until recently was heartily in favor of the game. My position is thus rather inconsistent, but it is that of many other sincere well-wishers of the game. The objection to the game that seems to me most important is its roughness, both necessary and unnecessary. First as to the latter. It is all very well to say that if players would behave like gentlemen, this would be done away with. This may be so, but it is not in the nature of boys or men, in the midst of an exciting struggle on the gridiron, to keep calm, and control their strength and their temper. In their excitement they will do things that they are sorry for afterwards, and I have never seen anything proposed that would prevent such things.