HORSE-RACING IN WAR TIME.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1917, Page 2

HORSE-RACING IN WAR TIME.

| " NOT AN ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY." Mr. 31. .T. Mack, of the Third Wellington Military Service Hoard, holds very! ftrong views about racing in war time. A recent, case before the board was that of Mr. Skipwith, the starter for various lacing clubs at the. periodical meetings, lie enlisted on January 31, to report for duty on April ■>, but lie applied to the b"i!i'd tor an extension tit' time untii .May ->, mi the ground that if this leave were giw-n him he could carFi at meetings to occur durjng the month of April ices amounting to iilo.">. The board granted leave until April 28. Mr. Mack has put in the following minority judgment:—"l regret to have to dissent from the "finding of the majority of the board, on the, ground that I do not regard horse-racing as an esscnvai industry, and, further, that there is ■ it the slightest doubt in my mind that ■ 'l'se-racing is absorbing a lar<je num■er of men who could be more profitably employed. The appellant's ground of the ioss of ,£lO5 in fees is nfi worthy of consideration when compared with "the sacrifices made by small farmers, busi-ne-s men and others." A SCATHING DENUNCIATION. From a soldier's letter from France received at Manaia tile Witness makes the following extracts dealing with the prevalent horse-racing in New Zealand: 1 One of the things tint madden men out here is the way in which the people at home have given themselves up to horseracing and riotous festivity, while wo are suffering every form of hardship, fighting and dying, getting smashed and maimed, and ail, as wo believed, in defence of the lives and liberty of this mob that can't preserve even an outward appearance of deeencv at a time like this. Yesterday some New Zealand illustrated weekly papers were passed along the trench. The pictures were mostly of dead and wounded New Zealanders, out here or of men wearily drawsin" th(ir tired bodies along to' a sodden .hake-down in a stable or cowshed after days and nights in the front trenches; ami others of them of New Zealanders at home, thousands of them, sleek well fed and Well-dressed, young men and old, wildly struggling round the tote to get, their '"bit" on. That's how those fellows are "doing their bit." And there, are the grandstands packed with overdressed women, and girls and male shirkers. Well, by heavens! I have some sympathy for those chaps who are being dragged out of their farms in New Zealand and damn well ruined and sent out here to fight for this race-mad mob. There are some chaps here, friends and pals of mine, who, like myself, have been in this business now since the outset, that is to say, have for nearly three years lived the life of wild beasts, burrowed in holes, lived on offal, suffered from the extremes of heat and coM, went ragged and verminous and lived in an unbroken nightmare of horrors, and here through these picture papers wc see New Zealand reeling drunk in a mad delirium of horse-racing and tote gambling and all other swinish excitements that the racecourse provides. We make no pretence of being saints out here, and are not against sport, but onl> tliot.c with the sensibility of hogs could fail to understand that there are other things now of more solemn and serious import. To me it seems like a man dicing and revelling with death in the house.