London newspapers have arrived in Shanghai recording extensively n photograph and print the triumphs and disappointments of the Derby, and as the world situation is so complex and permeated with the activities of diplomats it s not surprising that among the features, ranging from the sporting side to the fashion angle, a diplomatic note should be mentioned. Mr. Joseph E. Kennedy, the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James, saw his first Derby, but it is stated he did not have the luck of M Kassidolatz, the Jugoslav: Minister, who having been a habitue of Longchamp and Auteuil when Minister in Paris, thought old associations must prevail and backed Bois Roussel. It only needed a gossip writer to unearth an anecdote regarding Li Hung-chang, the great Chinese statesman who impressed the western world with his original, but really old-time ideas, to complete the record. The writer related that when the Chinese statesman was in Washington the British Ambassador invited him to lunch and afterwards to attend a race meeting. The invitation was formal and so was the reply, which read:
His Excellency the Ambassador from China acknowledges with due appreciation the gracious: invitation of his Excellency the Ambascado from the Court of St. James, but begs to decline on the ground that it has been admitted for many centuries in China that one horse can run faster than another.
This may be a true story for the Li Hung-chang quips and remarks during his world tour are legend, but casting back in Chinese history, horse racing, although not quite on the Derby scale and conduct, was a popular form of spon centuries before the western countries ever conceived the idea.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.