The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-03-09
THE GRAND sTAND.

If the night passes by with nothing more
threatening than few dark clouds and q
little drizzle he continues his quiet pacing
TO and fro. Let those clouds, however,
drop but the first few flakes of an ap-
preaching snowstorm and on the instant
this Waterman, like sentinel alarmed, is
all activity. At his prompt summons
there issue from unexpected quarters de-
tachments of men armed with shovels,
who, as the snow thickens upon the
ground, industriously shovel it away. 1t
is no uncommon thing for half a hundred
men, aroused from their beds at midnight
by this Waterman of the weather, to fight
the falling snow necessarily until long af-
ter daylight or until it ceases.
This is at Guttenburg, n. j., the only
spot or locality on the habitable globe
where horse racing has gone on without
single days interruption throughout an
entire winter season. There has been rae
ing at Guttenburg when the thermometer
registered 2 dogs. below zero, and when the
snow everywhere save on the track itself
was three feet deep. Horses have raced
there in gales of sleet laden wind in
drenching torrents of rain and in fogs so
thick that the animals and their riders
have been invisible TO either the judges or
the spectators on any part of the course,
save that directly in front of the grand
stand and the wire 1t must be a blizzard
of uncommon dimensions to cause post
ponement of the daily Gutenberg races,
and the snow must fall thick and fast that
can get the better of the all night track
shovelers and render the race course impos-
sible to race upon.
Just two miles and a half by road lies
the Guttenburg track from the Jersey end
of the New York and Weehawken ferry
Jay street and Forty-second street are the
two points from which every day dense
ly crowded ferry boats leave New York.
From the latter slip it is but few mo-
ments' sail across the Hudson river, the
trip from Jay street. further down town,
being upward of two miles long. Landed
on Jersey soil the racegoer is given his
choice of several ways to reach the track.
He may climb steep hill for the distance
of a third of a mile and at the summit
board a narrow gauge steam train; he may
ride to the cars in rickety omnibuses lat
five cents per head or he may take passage
in any one of hundreds of curious traps,
coaches, landaus, picnic brakes, barouches,
carryalls, buckboardS, express wagons or
what not to the track direct, the fare
varying from twenty-five to fifty cents, ac-
cording to the stylishness of the conveyance
These things he must do at the present
writing, but within six weeks more con-
venient mode of travelling will be opened
to him in the form of enormous passenger
elevators, the largest in the world, which
will take the racegoers, hundreds at a
time, right plumb upward from the gates
of the ferryhouse to trestle on level
with the summit of the hill, from which
trestle he will be whisked in steam cars to
the track
Were the facilities for reaching Gutten-
burg much less adequate than they are, it
is not likely that the daily attendance
would be materially decreased. Betting
upon the races has become business with
a large number of New Workers, and al
though the city poolrooms ATTEND to the
wants" of great many, there is still a
large contingent of bettors who prefer to