Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-01-25
"JINGLE BELLS" ON
THE WISSAHICKON
The Racing and the Softer Charms
the Romantic Old Creek
Has Held

TI' THIS were the Evening Sporting Ledger
/ we'd lay bet and II would run in this wise:
A bottle of Bryan q. j., Brut, to any horse
man who can prove that he ever actually
received one of the bottles OF wine ira
ditionally offered by certain Park roadhouscs
for the FIRST cutter to skim over the seasons s
first snow and claim it.
That wine appears to have been terribly
volatile stuff, for no horscman We ever talked
to would admit that he ever got hold OF IT,
though many have tried. II seems always 10
have been a myth and it's growing mythier
and mythier now that the automobile has
come to push the horse out OF faNor
Not that sleighing in the Park IS no longer
a tinpling delight or that the jingle bells
have ceased to Jingle all the way but the
oIden number of devotees has been decmated
for the reason mentioned above ana more
than decimated again by the eNlgencles OF
war on the East River Drive "heIe not
en- long ago there were snow-scatterlhg
brushed between high-steppers driven by
William or Ham Disston, John y. 1lll' JoHn
Bower George Singerly, Joshua Evans ~ !.
6 Nichols Frank CaVen and most OF others
whose activities ran through several DECADES
thoro is now too much danger from motorcars
to hermit of the mettlesome speeding OF the
oat-consuming thoroughbred.
Even before the arrival OF the hrst morse
less carriage the speedway Favored oy the
racing sleighs shifted to the fats along the
1TIsssbickon and there you'll find the sport
deyotees of this day. George It. Supplee, ol
GI,n,vvd has been out every day during this
,,sasent smell Of weather, and So perhaps, has
Dr Charles williams, but great many OF
tho real oId-timers seem to have taken nlght
40 FLORIDA for some reason or other, ana
tIaro isn't as much doing along the creek as
thore used TO be In years past when the
snow was as good and as lasting as 1t is at
this moment -. .,,,,, o, bo,a
ad,,ali,y netered out since the winter OF
Soos which was one of the livelest In the
i,Itnr,, Of sleighing hereabouts. That was
~ ,'car when c. Henderson Supplee, behind
NE HDhaatable trotter Alabaster, carried of
al tbe nrIzes in sight. At that he never
,an apy of those bottles OF wine, although
he frequently beat the first inch Of snow
80 The Nissahickon Drive. One evening in
tbat wear, with Bob Laycock in the sleigh
hasids him he ran into plant At the
MA RrIdRe going down the drive, he came
mon a half dozen sleghs lying In wait for
sor,e easy MARYLAND they had planted an
other racer some distance ahead to pick up
the ,yinded victim and beat him In the
stretch Alabaster smothered even this fell
Iov, and scampered up 20 the door OF the
II,gn Rridge Hotel yards ahead OF the Held
There supplee found boastfu winner OF
email brushes who offered TO trounce any
Morse among these new arrivals for wine
Tor the house" and Alabaster made him look
a sorrier thing than he had the others
The Lad and Lass in the Cutter
Though 1t seems 10 us the olden glamour
OF those racing days has largely passed Il
Is scarcely likely that the slvery charms OF
the WissahlckOn will ever wholly cease TO