HANLAN.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1048, 13 February 1882, Page 2

HANL A N .

♦ A late issue of the Referee publishes the following letter from Hanlan:—"Tlie fact of the matter isl can't attend to my hotel business and pull boat races ; one or the other must be sacrificed, and I have determined to sacrifice boatracing. At present I have won every challenge match I ever pulled — what I believe no other oarsman can say — and I think I have done my share. As I say, I have studied this matter well. I thought over when I first started out as a rower, what end I would like to attain. I have reached that end and my ambition is satisfied. I can go no higher, and I have resolved to quit the business. Of course some people will call me a coward but I don't think my record shows that I have shown the white feather ; at any rate I have pulled my last race. My experience is that many men who have reached the top of the tree have tried to remain there. They have been beaten, and then the public has had nothing but sneers for them. That was the mistake they made, and I don't intend to repeat it. It is not to be supposed I could go on winning all the time. I have a business which requiries great care, and which will support me and my family for life, if properly attended to, and I have resolved to attend to it ; I know what public opinion is when a rower meets with a reverse. Why, at the Providence regatta I pulled as well as I could. I was ill, and hardly able to sit in my boat. I was beaten, and those who used to talk and praise me the most were the first to hiss me on the wharf because I lost some of their money." This was written before the match with Boyd was on the | tapis,