How the Recreation Ground was!
Saved from Land-Grabbing by Mr. Hogg and Race Club From a. Correspondent.
With reference to the proposed memorial to the founders of the Recreation Fund inside.the Recreation Ground, ith is to be hoped that the late Mr. E. Jenner Flogg's name will not be omitted, for, had it not been for him, there would now have been no Recreation Ground and no Race Course on the present site.
About 10 years after the Ground was bought by the Trustees, the! Race Club having paid for the right of view over the interior at the time of the purchase of the grass Race Course, certain parties, with an eye to profit, began to chal-Jenge the Race Club's vight over the-—interior. This challenge materialized in the action of the Cricket Club during the winter of 1873 in preparing to erect a second storey over the Club's pavilion, without permission from the Stew. ards of the Race Club.
The question of the Race Club's} right became the topic of the hour, and the Stewards held many meetings to discuss the matter. Owing to various letters and documents having been lost, the Stewards had practically decided that they could not prove their case, but Mr. Hogg, who had been seeretany of the Race Club at the time of the purchase of. the grass Race Course, was positive there were sufficient men in Shanghai who could and would give evidence in favour of the Race Olub's contention, and that the weight of evidence would be bound to tell in a court of law. He implored the Stewards to fight, saying that the question at issue was! too important to the Race Club! and to the community, to be abandoned to.a lot of land-grabbers. At the last moment the Stewards! decided to take his advice (after first having tried to bargain with} the Trustees of the Fund to give! them an uninterrupted view except for existing buildings over the in-} terior for an afinual payment) and the celebrated trial—Shanghai Race Club Shanghai Cricket Club, in which the plaintiff sought injunction restraining the Cricket Club from building another storey on their pavilion, took place during the summer of 1874. Shang-bai during the trial was almost ie a. state of civil war, and high word: were exchanged without restrain Sir Edmund Hornby's judgement waa all in favour' of the Race Club. and it secured to the public the! present Recreation Grovnd_for} exer, subject always to the Race Club'g right of view over, the in-! terior of its course. 3 1
After the trial-was over the Stewards wrote a letter to Mr. Hogg thanking him for his sound advice, clearly indicating how much indebted they and the community
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.