Year: 1873

The jerome Park Autumn Meeting.


The close of the autumn meeting Of the
American Jockey Club at Jerome Park yester-
day leaves but one more meeting, that Of
Baltimore, to reach the end of the fall
racing season. The meeting just concluded
has been one on which the well-wishers
of fast horsefesh can congratulate
themselves. It was blessed with lovely
weather, full attendance and fine racing Each
days programme contained at least two nota-
BILE struggles, and the fortunes Of the field
abounded in those surprises which gave merit,
unknown till then, the place it deserved.
In recalling the meeting, however, it must be
said that there are some points on which the
management might do great deal to give
significance We have long learned to be glad
at the sight of such gatherings as the past
meeting and its predecessors have
witnessed. We do not wish that
the Club members or those willing and able to
pay for special privileges should be denied
them; but there is every reason to ask why
those who can spare day, but not the extra
dollar to procure simple admission, should
be debarred from having share in the
sport? The management need not fear
that the free admission of people
to those portions of the Park which are abso-
lutely bare of spectators on racing days would
lower the tone of the sacred precincts of the
Club, the speculated on strip of quarter-stretch,
which they call in England the ring" the
benches of the grand stand or the hill behind
it. The grades, and they cover wide differences
of social standing would remain much as
they are and the picturesque addition to the
scene of the masses in their holiday attire and
enthusiasm would grandly compensate for
the injured dignity of o parsonage here
or there 1t is thus that the Derby
is national institution in England
everybody is jollier for the presence of
the crowd Next to sitting out play with
"a beggarly array of empty benches" getting
through days racing where there is sparse
attendance is the most doleful thing
possible in the way of amusement. The
manner in which the bluffs overlooking
at distance the Jerome Park course
are thronged on nce days shows
how gladly the masses, and these not the vile
and degraded, would hail the opportunity of
entering the Canaan of equitation. They
are more to be pitied than Moses
on Mount Horeb. We learn from the
Saturday Reuie,o that there are some things
in the English turf rules requiring
amendment at the hands Of the Jockey Club
there, and SO the gentlemen of our own institu-
ton need not expect to be less criticised be-
cause their faults are fewer. Horse racing is
a noble and healthy pastime within certain
limits. These limits are certainly not in the
classes fit to enjoy the sport


The DISTRICT OF CoLUMBIA-A CRY FROM
THE PUBLIC ScHooLs.-After the dance comes
the piper with his little bill. The Territorial
government of the District of Columbia for
year or two has been as freely spending
its money and its credit as If assured OF car
nival of flush times that would never end.
But the pinch has come, and now it seems
that, while the Governor and other District
officials have been dining and wining as if
upon the proceeds of an inexhaustible gold
mine or oil well, the pitiful salaries of the
poor teachers Of the District schools have not
been paid them for six months, and that while
they cannot meet the demands for their board,
the schools are unprovided with fuel. At a
meeting tho other evening Of the Board Of