A Sad Spectacle.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 4999, 13 June 1891, Page 1

A Sad Spectacle.

About the saddest spectacle wo know of (says the Sydney Bulletin) is to bo found on the racecourse. Wo have found it often, and it makes us feel bad ovory timo. 'XV. spectacle wo allude to is tho horseowner -«ho is trying to look glad on an uphill track. His animal is a hot favorito for a big race, «ikl tho public has laid everything ou it rigv<_ U p to its hair and its brains, and then th*> " books " have squared the proprietor, and i> 0 ] )fl s mado it right with the jockey. Ho to win a tremendous sum if his horso V»uq S) and to win a lot more if another horso gets in first; and just when everything is comfortable and happy, ho sues something before his staring and infuriated head that makes him think he must be dead and in Gehenna—it is his thrice-accursed horso winning in a cantor after all. There is a wild yell of joy from the whole mooting, and he is expected to look as if ho were full of unspeakable happiness—and so ho is ; he is as happy as a man who has sat down in the fire. Ho has won a LIOOO stake and lost a LIO,OOO swindle, and some sixty or more unhanged furies como round and congratulate him, and ho wants to be a centipede so that ho can kick them with a hundred clawed feet at once. He states that ho is profoundly gratified, and smiles a smile that looks as if ho had swallowed himself, and lie thanks thorn in a subdued howl, and is full of execration right down to his boots. And when tho jockey who sold him comes by ho has to express his admiration of tho way ho won the race, when the thing ho really wants is to tear off that youth's head and throw it up into the telegraph wires. And then the "winner" travels serenely round for awhile receiving the congratulations of all his friends, and goes away into a lonesome spot behind the refreshment booth, and screams, and tears up great chunks of earth with his nails.