RE-BIRTH OF THE DERBY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1530, 21 August 1919, Page 17

RE-BIRTH OF THE DERBY.

Stories about the Derby are always interesting. Writing re the Derby week, the “Daily Mail” correspondent on sporting matters said it was a very long time since there had been a week so packed with social interest, pageantry, and amusement for the masses of the people. The King’s birthday saw the revival —this time in Hyde Park —of the old spectacular ceremony of trooping the colour. For this ceremony the bandsmen of the Household Brigade and the Brigade of Guards went back to their gorgeous uniforms of scarlet and gold which have delighted the eyes of successive generations of Londoners on so many famous occasions. It was another sign and symbol of the return of peace. “But most significant of all,” he wrote, “is the re-birth of the great Derby carnival at Epsom, which easily eclipsed all previous records for attendance and interest. I asked a man who has witnessed more than twenty-five Derbies to tell me the greatest number of people he had ever seen at this race. He said that it was impossible—the Derby crowd was uncountable. At luncheon in a club I put a similar question to a number of other Derby enthusiasts. Their estimates varied from 100,000 to 600,000 persons—the latter obviously an impossible figure. Inquiry in official quarters revealed the fact that there is actually no method of estimating the attendances, for there are no turnstiles for the great mass of Derby patrons to pass through. The only thing certain seems to be that this year all previous records for attendances were handsomely eclipsed. Last week I gave you a few facts about the demand for accommodation in Epsom. A few days before the great event hotelkeepers, and even private householders, had literally been besieged by applicants for a night’s lodging. Offers of £l9 for a bed, or, indeed, a mere “shake-down” for one night were frequent. And there were many cases of rash folk, who ventured down the night before Derby Day on the off-chance of securing accommodation, having to walk the streets all night or to sleep in the railway station or in a doorway. But perhaps most difficult of all was the traffic problem. The transport arrangements in these days of depleted rolling stock was inadequate, and purchasers of railway tickets were warned that they could not possibly be guaranteed accommodation of the class their tickets represented. Sensational prices were offered for a seat in any kind of vehicle that seemed to have even an “outside chance” of holding its own in the fierce tide of traffic that flowed along the roads that lead from London to the Downs.”