LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS 



I do not think a town park can ever safely 

 be mated with a trotting-course ; either the 

 trotting or the park will go under. It is not 

 intended to speak against trotting-courses, or 

 greased pigs, or the climbing of greased poles; 

 but the arena for these sports is not usually 

 such a one as to entice a quiet family man to a 

 park drive. Quiet family men are not, to be 

 sure, very plentiful, and are not much consid- 

 ered nowadays; they still subsist, however, in 

 sufficient numbers to give a stale flavor of re- 

 spectability to many of our growing provin- 

 cial towns, and to shape, to a certain degree, 

 the municipal improvements. The love for 

 fast trotters and for trotting matches is so de- 

 cided an American taste that a good trotting- 

 course will become a cherished institution in 

 every town of a dozen or fifteen thousand in- 

 habitants. Indeed, I think its establishment 

 may be regarded as a kind of necessary safety- 

 valve, through which unusual speed and the ac- 

 companying howls may be worked off safely 

 without frightening staid old gentlemen who 

 keep to the quiet high-roads. A good flat, a 

 good bottom, and a good amphitheatre of seats, 

 are about all the requisites of an approved 

 trotting-course, and anything picturesque in the 

 way of trees or decorative features is an im- 



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