Different Strokes For Different Folks

Tim Koch writes:

The cartoon of 1881 that prefaced my piece on the University Boat Race yesterday (‘Different Views of the Event’) did not reproduce very well. Here it is again, with the captions reproduced and the picture in two parts to make it clearer.

The American: ‘I guess you British know nothin’ about rowing nohow’.
The Rowing Man: ‘Too much feather about the slide – Ah’.
The Idle Fellow: ‘What! Work like that ‘ere an’ get nothink for it? Well I'm blowed’.

The Frenchman: ‘Mon Dieu! They shall all catch their death of colds’.
The Little Man: ‘Glorious sport - just the thing I should enjoy myself’.
The Schoolboys: ‘Are you for Cambridge? Yes I am. Why’are yer? How should I know stupid’.
The Angry Man: ‘Glorious sport? Indeed – glorious tomfoolery I call it’.

Allowing for period humour, out of date stereotypes and possibly mild racism, these views of the race probably still exist in some form today. It is an event on which everyone seems to have an opinion.