Year: 1868

The Nacinx ana Tachtin8 Sehsoh.


The spring meeting at Jerome Park on the
9th of June and the grand aquatic festival at the
opening of the New York Yacht Club house
at Staten Island on the 10Th OF June will
render this month memorable in the annals
both of racing and yachting. The fall and
minute descriptions which we have lately pub
lished of the Jockey Club house at Fordham
and of the new yacht club house at Clifton
show that no pains have been spared to render
each of these club houses not only most con-
venient and enjoyable resort for the club MEM
bers, but also an important centre of deepen
ing and widening interest on the part Of the
public at large, as well as of turfmen and
yachtmen in their noble pastimes.


Each of the club houses is picturesquely
situated The one is reached after an exhila-
rating drive through the Park, already
one of the finest and largest parks in
the world, and it stands in the midst
of Jerome Park, which rivals its neigh
Dor in rural loveliness, if not in grandeur.
Supplied with every appliance for rest and
refreshment, including spacious parlors and
dining rooms, and, of course, a choice and
abundant cuisine, this club house is near the
race course, which next Tuesday, Wednesday,
| Thursday and Saturday will be the scene of
the exciting contests of the spring meeting.
Neither at Chantilly, in France, nor at the Ep-
som races in England, does the pleasurable
element of fine natural scenery enter SO largely
into the surroundings of the race course as at
Jerome Park.


Nor can any yacht club in England or in
France boast of club house more conve-.
niently placed than the new club house of the
New York Yacht Club. Staten Island is our
Isle of Wight, offering almost every variety
of landscape in miniature, and over
looking unrivalled marine views. At the
regatta and the promised bal ctampetre
of the 10th of June the members and
guests of the Club can enjoy the double
pleasure of admiring both inland and ocean
scenery. The gay summer scenes off Cowes,
enlivened by the white sails of dainty craft
| fitting to and fro beneath the shadows of huge
steamers and East Indiamen and other levia-
thans of the deep, will be duplicated by the
| gay summer scenes off Clifton. If the rumored
challenge of English to American yachtmen be
actually offered and accepted there will be an
international exchange of courtesies between
them. American yachts having led off by
crossing the Atlantic to England, let English
yachts cross over to America and be heartily
welcomed here. Let a generous rivalry be
encouraged that shall occasion improvements
in all means of securing speed, beauty of model,
| safety and convenience for the benefit not only
of those who gallantly brave the perils of the
deep for healthful and exhiarating pleasure,
but also of all who go down to the sea in ships
| and do business on the mighty waters.


The club house at Jerome Park will radiate
influences equally favorable for securing the
| improvement of stock and the steady growth
| of a popular and national interest in racing.
| This can be done by encouraging the owners
| of the finest horses in the country to enter
them for competition at the spring and autumn
meetings, and by rendering these meetings ac-
cessible and attractive not only to few ex-
clusives of the fashionable world, but also to
all classes of our community. Just as the
| opera fails to be popular amusement when
managers, or rather mismanagers, consult the
prejudices and whims of but small number
of stockholders instead Of appealing to the ear
and eye of the great public, 80 racing will
lose its prestige If similarly short-sighted
and narrow policy be pursued in the manage
ment of race course. A contrary policy will
infallibly insure success. 1t will dissolve the
bitter jealousies which, according to observant
foreign travellers in democratic America, for
merly forced wealth to hide itself within the
splendid but secret recesses of private
dwellings, It will permit and sane
ton the outward exhibition of
splendor in which all can take an honest and
unselfish pride as indicative of the development
of the inexhaustible resources of our national
wealth. High mettled horses in faultless trim
vehicles at once lighter, stronger and more
elegant than any of foreign manufacture that
figure at the annual promenade of Longchamps
at Paris, or on Rotten Row in London, or on
the Prater IN Vienna; ravishng toilets in
which American ladies, with charming inde-
pendence, have improved upon Paris fashions
in fine, the whole display of luxury and taste
exhibited on a fine day in the Park or at the
race course in Jerome Park, will gayly illumi-
nate the scene, to the delight, unalloyed by
envy, of the multitude Of spectators who them
selves form part Of the brilliant spectacle
which they admire The horse races at
Jerome Park and the yacht races off Staten
Island will afford multiplied opportunities to
witness the amazing advance made by Ameri-
oan society, and particularly by the metro
politan society Of New York, in all that per-
taius to healthful enjoyment and to the ele-
gances and amenities Of the highest modern
civilization.


| Our National Securities in Europe.