f the staircase of the splendid apartments at
the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue Scribe--the present location of
the club--was dismissed for no other reason than that she had become
too extensively known to the gay world of Paris. Excluded from the
sacred paddock on the race-course, she is to-day compelled to content
herself on great occasions with selling her flowers on the public turf
from a pretty basket-wagon drawn by a pair of coquettish black ponies,
or "toy" ponies in the language of the day.

Notwithstanding the magnificence of the present quarters of the club to
which I have referred, one cannot help regretting that, unlike the
Agricultural Society and the Club of the Champs Elyses, it is obliged
to confine itself to one story of the building--the first floor,
according to continental enumeration--though the rental of this floor
alone amounts to some three hundred thousand francs a year.

The committee on races, composed of fifteen members (founders) and
fifteen associate members--the latter elected every year by the
founders--represents the club in all that concerns its finances and
property, votes the budget, the programme of all races and the
conditions of the prizes, and not only legislates in making the laws
that govern the course, but acts also as judge in deciding questions
that may arise under the code that it has established. And as a
legislative body it has its hands almost as full as that of the state,
for the budget of the society grows from year to year as rapidly as the
nation's, and there are now forty-nine turfs for which it is
responsible or to which it has extended its protection. The presidency
of the committee, after having been held for many years by the lamented
Vicomte Daru, passed on his death last year to M. Auguste Lupin, the
oldest proprietor of race-horses in France. To M. Lupin, moreover,
belongs the honor of being the first breeder in France who has beaten
the English in their own country by gaining the Goodwood Cup in 1855
with Jouvence--success that was renewed by his horse Dollar in 1864. M.
Lupin, who had six times won the Jockey Club Purse (the French Derby)
and twice the Grand Prix de Paris, occupies very much the same position
in France that Lord Falmouth holds in England, and, like him, he never
bets. His colors, black jacket and red cap, are exceedingly popular,
and received even more than their wonted share of applause in the year
1875, the most brilliant season in