of Tommy and
addressing himself to the ex-Pirate; "I know another joke now. I know
what the Bo's'n said to the Gunner's Mate when he told him to shoot at
the ship."

"Well, what did he tell him?" asked the ex-Pirate, incautiously.

"Cheese it!" shouted the Gopher, who was immediately seized with such a
violent fit of laughter that he fell under the table, and almost buried
himself under the pile of broken soup plates.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]

[Illustration: THE CASCADILLA CREW AND BOAT-HOUSE.]

Although the Cascadilla School has not practised rowing so long as St.
Paul's, of which this Department spoke last week, it has made rapid
strides ever since the sport was introduced there two years ago, and now
boasts of a well-equipped navy. Owing to the school's location on Cayuga
Lake, aquatics will become the distinctive form of athletics there in
the future, although, as a member of the New York State Interscholastic
League, football and baseball teams are also put into the field. But it
is a good thing to have rowing developed in some of the preparatory
institutions, and I shall not regret to see some of the vast amount of
energy that now appears to be running riot in track athletics turned
into this new channel. Every large school situated near a watercourse or
a lake ought to add rowing to its list of sports, if it is possible to
do so.

The principal difficulty in the way of such progress at present lies in
the fact that so few schools have crews, that interscholastic contests
are hard to arrange. The Cascadilla oarsmen are fortunate in having the
Cornell crews to row against, and each year they get races with the
Freshmen and 'Varsity eights. Thus far they have secured no victories
over either of these rivals, but as the sport grows older with them they
should make a better showing from year to year. The Cascadilla commodore
is now negotiating with a school near Philadelphia that has taken steps
toward the organization of a crew, and it is possible that next summer
will witness the first of a series of interscholastic regattas between
these progressive institutions.

The same lack of a scholastic rival hampers rowing at St. John's
Academy, Delafield, Wisconsin, where the school eight have to seek as
their opponents the crews of Madison University. Last spring they
defeated the '97 crew by three lengths in an exciting race over the
Nagawicka course in the excellent t