Making Holiday.

Patea Mail, 18 March 1882, Page 3

Making Holiday.

“ Gloi.'.o to the llaces” was the popular amusement yesterday ; the highway being clouded with vehicles and horsemen and dust during the forenoon, as if Patea were emptying Waverley-wards. It was a saint’s day, though sinners seemed unconscious of it. The pagan deity of sport was more to them than St. Patrick. Racing at Waverlcy was considered slow, there being a long dull lime between each race, with no legalised wickedness (such as betting gloves on a race) to fill up the blanks in the card. People who want to bet have to do it mechanically, by putting into the totalisator. Those who worked the machine at Waverley were not up to the business. Nine-tenths of the people who go to races do not care to bet in the sense of staking pounds. Their naughty joy used to be found in half-crown sweeps. Now you cannot stake a sixpence without blushing at sight of a policeman. With the abolition of these little sweeps, the one social amusement of a race meeting is gone to the dogs. Other sorts of harmless excitement are not provided at a small meeting—for ladies cannot shy sticks at Aunt Sally, or shoot pop-guns ; and it ought to be recorded that the kind of people whose presence is most desirable at local sports to give them a bright holiday character are made to feel that horse-racing is a weariness to spectators, and a tiresome form of holiday. Some other amusement should be contrived between the equine spins.