RAGING AT SHANGHAI.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 263, 15 November 1901, Page 3

RAGING AT SHANGHAI.

Wherever Britons congregate, there, sooner or later, will be racing. The officers in Buller’s army held a race meeting in tho camp at Chieveley almost under tho guns of tho Boors. Any mining township in West Australia can furnish a meeting once a year, even if camels aro the only animals to race with. It is part of a Briton’s natural instinct to pit one horse against another, and will remain so as long as England remains a nation. Shanghai goes in heavily for racing twice a year. There is plenty of money in tho place, and any amount of enterprise, so Mr Paterson found a big grandstand and first-rate appointments, with a track of magnificent turf. The Shanghai people have a contempt for gate-money, and when they want anything done to the racecourse they subscribe the money. They also draw a revenue from lotteries. Some features of the racing strike one as poculiar. For instance, this year members subscribed for a number of Australian horses. Each man paid ,£Ju into tho poo), and tho horses were distributed by lot. The horses added to tho interest of the meeting, at which China ponies are usually tho only animals raced. Each man is, with the help of a “ mafoo,” or Chinese groom, his own trainer, and “ Tho Banjo,” who knows rather more about horses than.

the average Australian, remarks that the hair of an Australian trainor would stand on end at their methods.