13 



Therefore, although Calcutta may pride herself upon 

 possessing- possibly the oldest organised Paperchase Club 

 in the British Dominions, and tohave had a larger succession 

 of years of this form of sport than many other places, she 

 cannot claim to have been the nest, in which was hatched 

 this admirable substitute for that sport of Kings which 

 Jorrocks has told us is the "h'image of war with only 

 five and twenty per cent, of the danger." In his excellent 

 preface to the previous records of the Calcutta Paper- 

 chases written by " C. C. M.," initials which do not 

 conceal the identity of Mr. C. C. McLeod ("The 

 Tougall "), and the results of whose laborious researches 

 are repubHshed in the present volume, he makes the 

 following statement as to the actual date when the first 

 Calcutta paperchase was organised. 



]\Ir. McLeod wrote in November 1899 : — 



As far as I can make out, the tirst attempt at paperchasing was made some 

 time in 1870, the leaders in the institution being Crooke, Brancker, Alexander,- 

 Landale, Sam Carlisle, George Fox, etc., followed a couple of years later by 

 Job Trotter. Fred Carlisle, Charlie Moore and others, and though in those days 

 the fields were smaller and a gallery non-existent, the fun was as keen as now 

 to those who did ride regularly in them. It should, how-ever, be mentioned 

 that at this time a pack of Fi)x-hounds was annually imported and sold afier 

 the hunting season to Regiments up-country. This coupled with such paper- 

 chasing, as there was, provided for those wants of riding men, which later were 

 met by the greater development of paperchasing when, for various causes, 

 hunting had to be abandoned. This greater (ievelopment set in about 1876, and 

 there were then two seasons, the first in the cold weather and the second in the 

 early part of the rains. The commencement of the monsoon paperchases heral- 

 ded the inauguration that year of the Monsoon Sky Races, and the combination 

 gave a noticeable impetus to the sense of sport in our community, which brought 

 about a large addition to the ranks of local sportsmen, and the acquiring of many 

 a horse of the paperchase stamp by men who had before been content to tramp 

 about on foot. In this year also the paperchases were for the first time reported 

 in the press, which crowned them with a halo of prestige before wanting. The 

 articles which appeared in the Statesman under the heading of " Midsummer 

 Madness," signed •' F. Golightly," appear to have originated the model which 

 future writers followed, and included accounts of all the local amusements afloat. 

 Since then the paperchases have been kept regularly going in the cold weather.. 



