THE START. 



''There are many good people wlio call horse racing 

 a sinful amusement and say hard things about those who 

 patronize it. There are also a large number of equally 

 good people who see no harm in the sport and heartily 

 encourage it. I am not ashamed to own that I was one 

 of the big crowd of sinners who attended the races on 

 the town moor this afternoon. I am also not ashamed 

 to own that I enthused over the splendid struggle be- 

 tween the three gallant thoroughbreds which fought out 

 the finish in the Wilton Plate, and it was not surprising 

 that deafening cheers rewarded such an exhibition of 

 gameness. I know many good men also who will back 

 their favorite horse, yet are in no way deserving of 

 being stigmatized as gamblers for so indulging. Racing 

 honestly conducted is a noble sport and many of the 

 most celebrated names in our national history have been 

 pillars of the turf. It is the favorite sport of our people 

 and is likely long to remain so." 



The above words it was my privilege, when a mere 

 boy, to hear fall from the lips of one who was then a 

 central figure in the political historj^ of Europe ; a states- 

 man whose bold and fearless foreign policy had made 

 him the idol of his countrymen. The speaker was Lord 

 Palmerston, Premier of Great Britain, and the occasion, 

 a county dinner at a race meeting in Wiltshire. 



No man in English public life ever understood his 

 countrymen better than Lord Palmerston. Though an 

 aristocrat by birth, he was eminently a man of the people. 

 He was equally at home in the homes of the poor and 

 in the palaces of the great. In a word, he was one of 

 those outspoken, fearless public men whose actions were 

 ever guided more by principle than by policy. 



