The Russellville Democrat., 1890-08-14

rounded neck, and tenderly lifting his
 exquisitely formed hoof, and listening with thrill to the champ of his bit, so | all great natures in all ages have spo- ken of him in ecomiastic terms. Virgil in his Georgics almost seems to pla- 1 giarize from the description of Job The
 Duke of Wellington would not allow any
 one irreverently to touch his old war horse, Copenhagen. on whom he had
 ridden fifteen hours without dismount-
 ing at Waterloo; and when old Copen-
 hagen died, his master ordered mili-
 tary salute fired over his grave. John l Howard showed that he did not ex-
 haust all his sympaties in pitying the
 human race, for when sick he writes
 home: Has my old chaise-horse be- come sick or spoiled?"
 But we do not think that the speed of
 the horse should be cultured at the ex- pense of human degradation Horse
 races, in olden times, where under the
 ban of Christian people, and in our day
 the same institution has come up under
 fictitious names, and 1t is called a Summer Meeting" almost suggestiv 0
 to positive religious exercises- And 1t
 is called Agricultural Fair" sug-
 gestiye of every thing that is improving in the art of farming. But under these deceptive titles are the same cheating
 and the same betting, the same drunk
 enness and the same vagabondage and
 the same abominations that were to be
 ound under the old horss-racing sys- | tenn.
 | l never knew a man yet who could | give himself to the pleasures of the turf
 for long reach of time and not be bat
 tered in morals. They hook up their
 spanking team, and put on their sport | ing cap, and light their cigar, and take ! the reins and dash down the road to
 perdition. The great day at Saratoga,
 Long Branch, and Cape May, and near | ly all the other watering places, is the | day of the races. The hotels are
 thronged, nearly every kind of equip | age Is taken up at an all
 most fabulous price, and there
 are many respectable people
 mingling with jockeys, and the gam blers, and libertines. and foul-mouthed
 men and fashy women. Tho bartender 1 stirs up the brandy smash. The bets
 run high. The greenhorns, supposing | all is fair, put in their money soon | enough to lose it Three weeks before
 the race takes place the struggle is de- | cided, and the men in the secret know
 on which steed to bet their money. | The two men on the horses riding l around long before arranged who shall | beat.
 Leaning from the stand or from the
 carriage are men and women so ab- sorbed in the struggle of bone and mus
 cle and mettle that they make grand 1 harvest for the pickpockets. who carry
 off the pocket books and portemonnaies.
 Men looking on see only two horses | with two riders flying around the ring; | but there is many a man on that stand whose honor and domestic happiness
 and fortune---white mane. white foot, | white fank-are in the ring, racing with inebriety, and with fraud, and
 with profanity, and with ruin-black | neck, black foot black flank. Neck
 and neck they go in that moral Epson. An, my friends, have nothing to do with horse-racing dissipations this sum-
 mer. Long ago the English Govern ment got through looking to the turf l for the dragoon and light-cavalry horse. 1 They found the turf depreciates the 1 stock, and it is yet worse for men. | Thomas Hughes, the member ot
 Parliament and the author, known all the world over, hearing
 that new turf enterprise was being started in this country,
 wrote a letter, in which he said:
 Heaven help you, then; for of all the l cankers of our old civilization, there is nothing in this country approaching in unblushing meanness, in rascality holding its head high, to this belauded institution of the British turt." An | other famous sportsman writes: How l many fine domains have been shared | among these hosts of rapacious l sharks during the last 200 years;
 and unless the system be altered, how many more are doomed to fall into | tho same surfln The Duke of Hamil- ton, through his horse-racing proclivi- ! ties in three years got through his en-
 tire fortune of s350, 900, and I will say ! that some of you are being undermined | by it. With the bull-fghts of Spain and the bear -battlings of the pit, may | the Lord God annihilate the infamous
 and accursed horse racing of England | and America.
 I go further and speak of another
 temptation that hovers over the water l ing-places; and this is the temptation
 to sacrifice physical strength. The
 modern Bethesda was meant to recu-
 perate the physical strength; and yet how many como from the watering places, their health absolutely de- stroyed. New York and Brooklyn idiots boasting of having imbibed twenty glasses ot Congress water before break fast Families accustomed to going to
 bed at ten o'clock at night, gossiping
 until one or two o'clock in the morning. Dyspeptics usually very cautious about
 their health mingling ice-creams and
 lemons and lobster salads and cocoa
 nuts, until the gastric juices lift up
 all their voices Of lamentation and protest Delicate women and brain less young men chassezing themselves
 into vertigo and ca talepsy. Thousands of men and women coming back from our
 watering-places in the autumn with
 the foundati tions laid for ailments that
 will last them all their life long. You
 know as well as l do that this is the
 simple truth.
 In the summer you say to your good health: Goodbye, l am going to have good time for little while. l will be
 very glad to see you again in the au-
 tumn. Then in the autumn, when you are hard at work in your office, or
 sop, or counting-room, Good Health
 will come and say: Goodbye, I am go- ing" You say: Where are you going?"
 ''Oh, says Good Health, 'I am going to
 take a vacation!" It is a poor rule
 that will not work both ways, and your good health will leave you choleric and
 plenetic and exhausted You coquetted
 with your good health in the summer time, and your good health is coquet- ting with you in the winter time. 4 frae,,,aut oF pat,l'o .ha~ra to .ha safiar