SPORTING.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 55, 2 September 1903, Page 6

SPORTING.

SOUTH CANTERBURY J.C. MEETING. $ ' [BT TELEGBAPH — PRESS ASSOCIATION.] TIMARU, This Day. The South Canterbury Jockey Club's Spring Meeting commenced to-day Results : — Timaru Hurdle Handicap, of £50 ; one mile and three-quarters. — Slow * Tom, 10.13, 1; Hurricane, 9.11, 2; Reliance, 9.H, 3. Won by eight lengths. Dividend, £2 7s. President's Welter Handicap, of £50 ; one mile and a half.t— Count of Kolmar, 9.6, 1; Black Tracker, 8.8, 2; Sanfoin, 9.12, 3. A great race. Black Tracker was beaten on the post by a short length. Dividends, £4 Is «nd £6 6s. Timaru Handicap, of "jBKJO ; one mile and a quarter. — Bulawayo, 6.7, 1 ; Secret Society, 6.13, 2; Bombardo, 7.7, 3. Won by two lengths. An excellent story is told by the Rev. J. Gibson Smith of an experience in Invercargill. The occasion was an annual gathering of the Gaelic Society, and he could not speak Gaelic. First there was .t song in Gaelic, then a recitation in Gaelic, next a reading in Gaelic, and so on right through the programme — everything in Gaelic, till it came to Mr. Smith's turn to give an address. He felt nervous. He was doubtful if he was a Highlander, only he remembered that when he was a boy and was naughty his mother used to tell him he was just like a wild Hieiandman. He had found that when he Spoke, or endeavoured to speak, Gaelic no one seemed Fo understand him, but he would do his best. And then he started — he recited one of Horace's odes in Latin! "And if you could only have seen those people leaning forward and trying to understand!" said Mr. Smith in telling the story last evening amidst roars of laughter, and he gave the Wellington audience a few lines of the poem for them to taste of its quality. There was another outburst as Mr. Smith went on : "When I got home my good lady said to me : 'I never knew you could speak Gaelic before.' " It was not till the next annual gathering of the Gaelic Society, he concluded, that he unbosomed himself, and confessed his transgression. Mesdames Macdonald and Smith have been entrusted with the preparation of the programme for the approaching season of the American Comedy Company, and also for those connected with the operatic season by Mr. George Musgrove's Company. At the quarterly meeting of the Hutt Licensing Committee held to-day, Dr. M'Arthur, S.M., presiding, the business ■was chiefly of a formal character. The licensees of the Provincial Hotel, Upper Hutt, and Central Hotel, Lower Hutt, were, ordered to carry oirt repairs which had been rcfeireJ to at the annual meeting. The licensee of the Central Hotel stated that he had repairs well in, hand.

[For Notices of Births, Marriage* and Deaths, see Page i.]