TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 177, 26 July 1913, Page 13

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

JFrom Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, June 11. DERBY AFTERMATH. To add to the extraordinary sequence, of events in connection with this year's race 'for the English Derby, the disqualified colt C'raganour has been sold by Mr. C. Bower Ismay for £30,000, on condition that he never races again in any country. The purchaser of the colt is Mr. Martinez de Hoz, a well-known Argentine breeder of thoroughbreo.s and other pedigree stock. South American breeders in recent years have shown an anxiety to acquire the best horses possible for that country. King Edward might have sold Persimmon for £50,000 to an Argentine breeder, but he would never listen to any proposal to part with his favour.ts horse. His Majesty was -induced, however, to sell Diamond Jubilee for £30,000. Argentine breeders have made few mistakes with their purchases from this country. Diamond Jubilee, for example, was not generally in favour with breeders: here, and was considered well sold, but after a comparative failure in his firet season at the stud in Argentina, he has now done wonderfully well, being third last season on the list of winning sires. Similarly Pietermaritzburg was considered well sold out of this country for £16,000, but he did great things in his new home, his stock winning £34,612 in stake money Inst year. Argentine breeders have done equally well with .lardy, Yal dOr, Cyllene, and Tolar Star, which four sires represented the outlay of more than £100,000. In 1912 there were sold at auction in Buencs Ayres 303 two-year-olds for the colossal aggregate of £400,868, .-o that the average yield per lot was £076. If all goes well with C'raganour. Mr. Martinez de lloz should make a splendid profit on his purchase of the ill-starred son of Desmond and Veneration. The United States has ilso bought many high-class thoroughbreds from this country, among them the unbeaicn Omonde. purchased for £12,000. to be afterwards sold for £-1.250. Included among other transactions in bloodstock where "tall"' figures are concerned may he further mentioned Rock Sand, dia-po-cd of for £25,000. but who is now located in France, having been repurchased from America by a syndicate. But substantial as have been the sums paid for bloodstock at various times, the record is still held by Flying Fox, who was purchased on the occasion of | the sale o' the late Duke of \Ye><tj minister's horses at rLingsclere by M. I lilrtnc- for £39,370. Many sporting writers are wondering | why Mr. Ismay parted with his dis-|l[U_li-cd Derby winnerj which had _ host of rich engagements in the ___r future, including the Grand Trix rt« Paris, which is worth £12,000 to the winner. But the Derby form—unless it was all wrong —showed that Craganoar, good little horse though he has .-diriwn himself to be, is very little in front of sovoral other horses of the same age, and, taking all things into consideration] £30,000 cash down is a thumping big sum to stake on the chances of a "horso winning that amount in stakes,-or t->----i tiring to the stud with such a record that breeders would rush to secure his services at. say, a couple of hundred pounds a time.

I I A SPY MYSTERT. I In an extraordinarily roundabout way '.be iiifnrmr.'iion has leaked out that Arngaard Karl Graves, the German spy, who was arrested in April last year in Glasgow and sentenced at Edinburgh in, July to eighteen months' imprisonment, was released some time ago. Graves is now in Xew York, and, according to that tin-defiled well of Press truth, filiates that he was released shortly after his conviction in order that he might enter the British Secret Service. He declares •that he discovered in America that envoys of Japan and Germany had met in New York with the object of completing an , anti-American agreement, an.l that he sent a copy of the document t-> the British Foreign Office. He received no payment, he says, so he decided to make the details public. •His Majesty's Prison Commissioners, decline to say anything concerning the Grav-rs business, exeepit that he was released "in the due course of the law." a phrase that covers a multitude of things, including release for any special •purpose. The fact .that tbe authorities refuse to disclose any specific reason for the release of Gravers, is. of course, sug-gcs-.tive. but if he was given bis freedom for the purposes he alleges, he hr.s himself apparently destroyed his own value as a spy by his communications to the Xew York Press, and at the same time has absolved the English authorities from the necessity of guarding his and their secret. The indictment against Graves, it maybe remembered, was that between January 21 and April 15, In Edinburgh or Glasgow, or elsewhere in Scotland, for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the .State, he made cr obtained a document, being a telegraphic code framed for the purpose of communicating information relative to Mis Majesty's Xavy and land fortifications; and made or obtained documents with reference to guns under construction for the British Government by William Beardmore and Go., of Glasgow, these documents, in the phraseology of the indictment, being "c-lculated or intended to be. or might be, directly or indirectly useful to an enemy, contrary to the Official Secrets Act. - ' On behalf of Graves, who pleaded "Xot guilty,'' an agent produced a number of envelopes and papers in-tended to prove -that the prisoner was Dr. 'Graves, an Australian of German parentage, who had practised near Adelaide. The case for the Crown was that Gravers was in this country to obtain information for communication to a man named Lewis, in Brussels, who was an agenit of a foreign Power desirous of obtaining such information. The jury found Graves guilty of the first charge, and by a majority not guilty of the second charge, and he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. When and why he was released is a mystery. That i-t was not by way of graceful acknowledgment of the -Emperor of Germ.-.nys act of clemency towards Mrosns Drandoti and Stewart may be taken for g-.i-,tod, since in that case there couM I i\- :,..,,„ no earthly reason for conc.-.-i,.ni-- • .:• f,,.j .t.hait G-raves was once more a f-e win, or for "keeping dark"' the reas >:; for his release. 'Continued on F'age l._i