A visit to the boat-house and a casual inspection of the boats and oars there stored is apt to make the visitor take his departure with plenty of food for reflection, and unpleasant reflection it cannot fail to be. The University Boat Club is supported by the subscriptions of the students, and it has always been supposed that some provision is made for the aquatic exercise desired by those who are not members of either of the five regular crews. Yet what is the real state of matters? A glance at the array of craft tucked away upon the brackets discloses the fact that, aside from the shells and barges belonging to the regular crews, there is not a boat obtainable in which a student who cannot swim, who has a large family dependent on him for support, and whose life is not insured pretty well up into the thousands, would dare trust himself upon the raging and muddy Charles. Here and there a respectable single shell or working boat may be seen, but inquiry only elicits the information that they are the property of men who have chosen to draw upon their own purses rather than forego altogether their accustomed rowing. In the matter of oars the club is woefully deficient, Only a few pairs, and many of these not mates, are to be had for the pair-oared boats and for the singles. The only two four-oared working boats owned by the club are so out of repairs that the scratch race for fours announced for tomorrow's races may have to be given up. It is time that something were done to remedy the existing state of decay in the Harvard navy; it must not be allowed to follow the example set by the navy of the United States.