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This Extract from the Oriental Sporting Magazine 

 would possibly be more fittingly included in the subse- 

 quent chapter upon the Hunter's Steeplechase and its 

 history, but no apology is made for its insertion here as 

 it was a direct outcome of the organisation which is to- 

 day represented by the Calcutta Paperchase Club. There 

 is one more very interesting letter which may with advan- 

 tage be quoted in this preliminary canter over the initial 

 fence of a very heavy undertaking, and which was sent to 

 me by a gendeman who rode in the Paperchase Cup 

 of the year before last and who in the old days was well 

 known amongst the sporting blades of those times under 

 the soubriquet oi ''The Bummer" (Mr. C. D. Petersen). 

 It gives us a little side-light upon early days and brings 

 back to some of us the face of many a missing friend, 

 some, alas, who have jumped the big '' boundary fence" 

 into the Unknown Country, and some again whose actual 

 connection with the East has long since been severed. 

 Mr. Petersen's letter is as follows : — 



loth March^ 1906. 



I am writing this on the spur of the moment after my return from the 

 Paperchase dinner. I rode in my first Paperchase in 1878. It was started 

 from the big trees on the Ballygunge Maidan and went straight through the 

 Bodyguard lines and across the Ballygunge Circular Road through what is now 

 Milton Park and finished somewhere near the Red Road, the paper taking a 

 big circuit to the left before the finish. Of course there was no railway in 

 those days. The paper was laid by Mr. Crooke of Crooke Rome & Cq. (since 

 amalgamated with Kettlewell Bullen & Co.) and I rather think Latham 

 Hamilton was the other hare. Will Dickson, the facetious correspondent of 

 the '* Statesman" officiated as Starter on a ^rey waler and going from point to 

 point in order to take notes, and I remember an indignant letter appearing in the 

 issue of the paper following that in which the account of the Paperchase 

 appeared, protesting against the practice of a man, who did not go over the 

 jumps himself, being allowed to criticise the riding of the man who had to. 

 Poor Will Dickson was as fine a rider as I have ever seen on the flat, or across 

 country and was a great horseman and a good vet. though his legitimate business 

 was to preside over the cash of the Bank of Bengal. He eventually died as 

 Dr. Dickson, Professor of Veterinary Science in the United States of America, 



