THE decline in the interest taken in boating has been very much regretted of late, and has been explained in various ways. The explanation which seems to be the true one is, at the same time, very far from complimentary to us. It is safe to say that laziness has more to do with the lack of material for club crews this spring, than anything else. While at the time we were making up our minds that rowing too closely resembled work, our English cousins were struggling manfully at the oar. At Oxford, twenty-one colleges have boats on the river, and consequently a hundred and sixty-eight men, in addition to the University eight, show their willingness to sacrifice their ease enough to row for their colleges. The races just ended lasted a week, and Brazenose came out at the "head of the river," having bumped University on the first or second night. Of the twenty-one boats only six held their positions without change from first to last. Something of the extent to which rowing is indulged in at Oxford can be realized by reading the account in the Undergraduates' Journal of the "Procession of Boats" which passed and saluted the head boat when the races were over. The twenty-one racing-boats were followed on this occasion by twenty-two "Torpid Boats," making the number of "rowing men" on the river three hundred and forty-four. To man our first and second club crews forty men are needed; and certainly forty is a smaller part of the number of undergraduates here, than three hundred and forty is of the whole number at Oxford. The comparison is far from being creditable to us.