he advantage of the
neighborhood of the Chantilly and Morlaye stables, will no doubt make
Enghien a success. Steeple-chases and hurdle-races predominate.
We can hardly close this review of turf matters in France without at
least a reference to the so-called sporting journals, but what we have
to say of them can be told in two words. They exist only in name. Any
one who buys _Le Sport_, _Le Turf_, _Le Jockey_, _Le Derby_, the _Revue
des Sports,_ etc., on the faith of their titles--nearly all English, be
it observed--will be greatly disappointed if he expects to find in them
anything beyond the mere programmes of the races: they contain no
criticism worthy of the name, no accurate appreciation of the subject
they profess to treat of, and are even devoid of all interesting details
relating to it. Far from following the example of their fellows of
London and New York, these sheets concern themselves neither with
hunting, shooting or fishing, nor with horse-breeding or cattle-raising,
but give us instead the valuable results of their lucubrations upon the
names of the winning horses of the future, and with such sagacity that a
subscriber to one of them has made the calculation that if he had bet
but one louis upon each of the favorites recommended by his paper he
would have lost five hundred louis in the one year of his subscription.
Let us add, however, that, the press excepted, the English have nothing
more to teach their neighbors in turf matters. The _Pall Mall Gazette_
has well said that the organization of racing in France has taken a
great deal of what is good from the English turf, and has excluded most
of what is bad. The liberality of the French Jockey Club is declared by
_Vanity Fair_ to be in striking contrast with the starveling policy of
its English namesake. The _Daily Telegraph_ has recently eulogized the
French club for having found out how to rid the turf of the pest of
publicans and speculators and clerks of courses, and of all the riffraff
that encumber and disgrace it in England, and that make parliamentary
intervention necessary. The French turf, in fine, may be said to be
inferior to the English in the number of horses, but its equal in
respect of their quality, while it must be admitted to be superior to it
in the average morality of their owners.
L. LEJEUNE.
FROM FAR.
Oh, Love, come back, across the weary way
Thou didst go yesterday--
Dea
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