Race Course Still Uncertain.

Yesterday Senator Hill's amendment to the House appropriation bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to detail revenue cutters to protect passengers on excursion steamers at regattas was lost. This will bring up again the question as to where the boat race shall be rowed.

Earlier in the season Saratoga was practically decided upon. Poughkeepsie was held by the majority of the committee to be an unsafe place for the race, as the Hudson is navigable at that point and is used by many large steamers. Mr. Richards, however, representing Columbia asked for time before the final decision in which to try to have a bill passed in Congress policing all navigable waters during regattas. This bill passed the Senate, and the prospects for its final adoption were so good that the committee unanimously decided upon Poughkeepsie. Mr. Watson, representing Harvard, had been opposed to the Poughkeepsie course unless it could be made safe, and only voted in its favor, on condition that the bill should pass. Now that the bill has been rejected, all the old objections to the Poughkeepsie course hold, and Mr. Watson will ask for another meeting of the committee to reconsider the choice of a course.

The failure of the bill has caused much confusion. The course at Poughkeepsie has been measured and buoyed and the Harvard quarters have been partially engaged and fitted up. L. Blagden, manager of the crew, went to Poughkeepsie yesterday to make final arrangements.