May. No-one could doubt that the Races are still a strong attraction to Shanghai who saw the large gathering, including a great number of brightly-dressed ladies, in the Grand Stand and on the lawns on Saturday. It is very seldom that all three days of a Spring Meeting in Shanghai are free from rain, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week were abso-Intely rainless. Although the mercury reached 86° in the course of the afternoon, the force of the sun was tempered a little by the light clouds which betokened a coming change, and the third day joined its two predecessors in completing a most successful meeting. Enthusiasm is evidently not a necessary outcome of general enjoyment, for while there was no doubt about the presence of the latter there was equally little doubt about the absence of. the former, the only cheering that could be called a demonstration being when Mr. C. R. Burkill rode in on his own pony to be weighed in after winning the Champion Sweepstakes. It will be remembered that Loyalty won the same race at the Spring Meeting last year, making the record for a mile-and-a-quarter, and was second to Damaskus at' the Autumn Meeting, On Saturday Damaskus, having been badly beaten by Rio Grande in the i-Mutuel Stakes, his last chance, was unfortunately not qualified for the Champions.
There is a general complaint that while the racing is good, and the public come up in full numbers, the meetings themselves nowadays are very tame. Old residents especially may be heard deploring the absence of the fun that used to characterise the racing in the old days. But the conditions have entirely changed. In the old days almost everybody lived in town, the jaunt to the races was a jaunt into the country, and the meeting was kind of Everybody leo, and all-about. their ud picnic where everybody knew
Heeerysus had some personal interest, jonies and their hopes and fears. in the sport, and each race was not merely a spectacle which you went tothe rails to look at if you felt so disposed, and then turned away contented. The interest in the races has been weakened by dilution, there being ten events a day now, where six or seven would be quite enough, and by being spread over a much greater number of people. There is a great deal of reason, too, in those who blame the prominent position occupied by the paris-mutuals for the absence of gaiety at the races. Three-fourths or more of the men and half the ladies or so go about all the afternoon with banknotes in their hands, and are thinking all the time of their losings and winnings, and asking for and ex-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.