HANLAN AT HOME.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3160, 15 August 1881, Page 4

HANLAN AT HOME.

An Australian who visited Toronto in May last called on the champion sculler Hanlan. Writing to a friend in Sydney, states the Echo, he says :—"I foundHanlnn nt his island homo. I saw a young, Irishlooking man, about sft 3in. ordinary build, with a physique more susrjjpstive of activity thnn strength, and as T looked at him could not rcfr.iin from wondering how such a little fellow rould beat men like Trickett and Laycoek. Informed him I was an Australian. He received me very hospitably, and appeared to be yery decent, respectable fellow. He showed me the boats in which he pulled ' rickett and the others, and spoke of Trickett several times as being a gentle • man. He also said Trickett pulled very well in the first part of the race, but suddenly gave in, and that he pulled away from Lnyeock at the start. He said Trickett was much underrated in America, and that if he came over they would finnd out. their mistake. Hanlan said that he learnt all his rowing on the lake, and that they had never had any one in Toronto of any note as a puller before his time. This increases the difficulty of understanding how he acquired his skill. Toronto, is a village even ns compared with Sydney, and is several hundreds of miles inland, and distant from the large seaport towns where rowing is prnctised. It is the same as if a man from Lake George, in the Goulbnrn district, should suddenly come forth and astonish the world, wif.h the exception that at Lake George he could practise all the year round, whereas at. Toronto the lake is frozen during part of the year. Hanlan had only been six years pulling in outriggers, and he said that when he went down to the States to try what he could do his neighbors laugbp'l at him, but he won all his races one jifrer the other. He keeps an hotel on tli" island — a large wooden place. w : th 60 room? —a gift to him from his admiring countrymen. It is only open during the penson from end of May to September. I looked in vain to find the extraordinary length of nrm he is paid to possess. There is nothing of the sort."