A HERCULEAN TASK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 140, 7 January 1876, Page 7

A HERCULEAN TASK.

A c '<>nt km i'ohary states that the Jockey Club arc about to undertake the Herculean task^of cleansing an Augean stable, They have arrived at the conclusion that the time has come when some purification of the Turf must be attempted. They consider that rascality and dishonest practices so abound in that arena, principally in the matter of corrupting stable-boys, dealing foully by horses, and other ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, that a thorough reformation must be effected in the national sport, if it is to live and flourish as such. The ' Field ' has in plain terms told the Jockey Club that they ought to have prosecuted those who ruined Lord Portsmouth's Buccaneer and very nearly succeeded in nailing Prince Charlie for the Two Thousand Guineas. Prosecutions in this connection would be founded on very substantial precedent. A man was once hanged for putting poison into the trough a race horse was to drink from. But, as is pointed out, the trouble is how to deal with small offences. A trainer who sees his stable boy t liking to some notorious " tout," as the turf spies are called, knows, if he dismiss the indiscreet or treacherous help, somebody else will pick him up at once, glad of the chance to glean and utilise such information as he may have gathered. A proposition is under consideration which is intended to prevent any trainer who engages a lad without a written character from his previous master, from running horses for a given time on any course where the rules and regulations of the Jockey Club obtain. But while provision is made to secure the integrity of racing, what is to be done about betting, the great demoraliser of the Turf as an institution and a sport ?? — • Weekly Freeman.'

Mr. B. Walker, of Arrowtown, has recently discovered at a rery high elevation on the Crown Terrace, a sandstone formation through which are intermixed numerous fossils of shells, many of them very perfect.—' Wakatip Mail.'