Morning journal and courier., 1881-06-28
An English Race-course.
The Scene at Brighton When the Good wood Races are i'm PrOggess.
 From Lippincott's Magazine

wood Races are i'm Progress. From Lippncott's Magazine Divided from us by the wide road of which have before spoken was the beautiful 1 course, running at first in long parallelo- gram, then disappearing behind a wood to | reappear and disappear again behind two or | three gentle hillocks, and stretching, be- 1 ieve, for two miles and half. Hills rose in soft billowy swells into the distance, covered \ with trees and pastured by hocks of sheep, and all around us was panoramic view of distant villages woods, parks and glinting streams, the sight of which alone would have gwen us keen pleasure for week Behind us was another roadway; behind that on 8 high banks were placed the betting booths lnterspersed with an occasional eating tent, while before these booths stoop rowdy look ing men offering at the top of their voices the odds and bets to be made on the different horses and races.
 Their noise was deafening, and added to it
 were the shouted recommendations of the vendors of the various eatables in the tents
 beside them. Along the row with us were vehicles of all descriptions on one side of us
 was an extremely handsome coronettad four
 horse coach, empty of it's occupants, who
 were on the stand; on the other was cab
 in the possession of an abominably vulgar set The woman, middle age and very well dress- ed, got tipsy early in the day, and the rest of
 the party, consisting of her husband appar-
 ently much younger than herself, and two or
 three sporting men, one of whom had driven
 them down as coachman, except for time when the racing was actually going on, ate and drank with most amazing coustancy and excess.
 We could not well see the stand from where we were. but in the intervals of the races we walked toward it, and found it a most gorge
 ouS spectacle. Hundreds of women magni- feently (too magniticently, according to our American taste, for such occasion) and effectively dressed at their very handsomest,
 under the bright sky and the soft, moist air,
 and distlnguished-looking men were grouped around, flirting, laughing, testing, and ap-
 parently perfectly indifferent to the crowd of
 faces which, admiring or inimical, were press-
 ed against the fence dividing these splendid
 visions from common humanity.
 Before the races began the shows of all
 sorts which convJrt an English ace-course
 into what seems to a combination of
 fair and circus. As soon as we were plac-
 ed very small boy, with poorly-blackenee
 face and white hands and with a dolls hat
 upon his kinky woolly wig, stationed himself
 before us and with uncommon gravity sang "a
 comic song, the droller because of his solemn
 indifference to the words this child reap
 peared five or six times in the course of the
 day, and was the prelude to an endless set of
 shows more or less amusing, but to us inter-
 esting There were innumerable negro-min-
 strels, in bands, in twos, single, with banjoes,s
 with tambourines, with triangles, swallowed up in shirt-collars. or disguised in pictures que plantation homespun one real negro threw sticks, which seemed never to come down, high into the air, and gabbled bar barous gibberish, which he assured his credu- lous audience was the true African language; gypsy women offered to tell our fortunes some men played at quarter-statf and single stick, and others boxed B blind man was led by wife, who warbled ballads with thin voice. sailor and his wife sang nautical songs, and he kept time with stump of an arm and game leg; little dog showed off his tricks and peddlers of parasols, faces and trihes of all sorts offered their goods indus triously. Besides all these shows endless games of chance and skill were going on, and just behind our carriage 8 woman had set up an alley with pegs crowned with cocoanuts, the rewards of fortunate rollers who hit the pegs having paid penny for the chance.