THE AMERICAN 



SPOR 



JOURNAL. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1877- 



MAKING THE HARBOR LIGHT. 



TMTE snow falls thick so yon may not see 

 ffhe foresail gleam from tie break of the poop ; 

 Th<4ong-boat looms like a rock on the lee, 

 i Jd the drift lies a foot on hatch and coop. 



Long, glimmering lines of dark and light 



■tingle in wavy dance up aloft, 

 AM the topmast-head goes into tlie night, 

 Capped with a head-dress white and soft. 



Phantom-like figures grow in the tops, 

 t* And the bunts of the furled-up sails are piled 

 With a heavy freight that suddenly drops 

 When the good ship bounds to a gust more wild. 



And the clews of the courses, stiff as a board, 



Catch up the flakes inlo bossy heaps, 

 Till a flap, and off whirrs the sparkling hoard, 



Startling the tars in their standing sleeps. 



Still stoutly onward we hold our course, 



Hugging the wind with a bear-like grip, 

 Holding each inch we gain with a force, 



And passing the credit to our good ship. 



The helmsman's eye from under the rim 



Of his slouched sou'wester beams aglow; 

 No matter how braggart the wind to him, 



And little matters the fall of the snow. 



Hand, eye and ear are serving his soul, 



He feels the flap of the topsail leach, 

 And steadily over, watching the roll, 



Whirls the wheel to au arm-long reach. 

 Grasping the weathermost mizzen shrouds, 



As grimly as if it were gript in his hands 

 Our fifteen lives, and swathed in a cloud 



Of sleet-stuff and snow, the master stands. 



Into the darkness and whirling flakes, 



Into the heart of the brooding bank, 

 A long, dim alley lis calm eye makes, 



And the world outside is all a blank. 



No voice save his on the midnight stirs, 

 No sound save the flash and swish and swirl, ' 



As under her bows one ceaselessly hears 

 The slush-covered water part and curl. 



With the quiet flakes on his stiffened feet, 



Searching his neck, and nipping his eyes, 

 On the rounded coils of the spanker-sheet 



A youngster, half-dreaming, shapeless lies. 



He knows that, true to his will, his hand 

 Would promptly answer the master's shout ; 



But his thoughts are far away on the land, 

 Nor heeds he of any perils without. 



He. dreams of a valley spread broad and fair, 



With grand old mountains upon each side ; 

 He dreams of a red lamp's cheerful glare, 



Welcoming ships to the old wharf's side ; 



Of a little room with its walls ablaze, 



On happy faces, all bright with joy; 

 And he hears the voices of olden days, 



Before he went as a sailor boy. 



Dear, kind, brown eyes, seem his to greet, 

 "God bless and guard her!" he prays, "His she !" 



When a cry, "Ease off that spanker sheet, 

 Hard up the helm, and keep her free I" 



One glare— one flare of a flashing light, 



And the visions die with its sudden ray ; 

 The lee-braces fly with a circling bight, 



And the sheets spin out. as she gathers way. 



The water seethes at the blutf of the bow, 



And the helm churns It to fussing wrath ; 

 And the strain on the ship and the master's brow 



Relax to welcome the well-known path. 



With a surge and a bound the yards swing square, 



And the night's alive with our cheery cries, 

 As before the snow-storm, free and fair, 



Merrily homeward our good ship flies. 



[I found the above poem quoted in " Sketches of Life in 

 Newfoundland," by Col. B. B. McCrea, British Army, Lon- 

 don, 1869, and attributed to Rer. Walter Mitchell, author of 

 "Tacking Ship Off -Shore," published in the second volume 

 of the Atlantic Monthly, and reprinted in your valuable 

 journal of Jane 7, where it was erroneously credited to Mrs. 

 Celia Thrater. 8. 0. C] 



For Parent rind Stream and Rod and Gun. 



§cettfs n( a <$m\th ]§wt %omu. 



' ' 'T'HEY do those things better in France " could very well 

 -L be said of the manner in which order and the politest 

 decorum, combined with the fullest possible liberty, are pre- 

 served at the leading race courses throughout France. Po- 

 litically, the most excitable and troublesome people in Europe, 

 socially, the French are excelled by none in quietude, good 

 breeding and scrupulous attention to the comfort of strangers. 

 In all public assemblies, except those of a political character, 

 they carry, out the mottoes of Liberie, Egolite, Fraternite, 

 which they are so fond of displaying on their national build- 

 ings; and no person who has miagled much with them can 

 say other than that they are the most orderly race in the world 

 when they are not aroused by political or religious agitation. 

 A dozen sergeants de ■oille can handle a crowd of several 

 thousands with less trouble than a battalion of American or 

 even English policemen can handle a mob of as many hundreds 

 under the same circumstances. 



This is readily seen at a race-course, and the impression it 

 produces upon a foreigner is highly complimentary to a people 

 deemed so enthusiastic. There is no crowding, fussing, or 

 any attempt to intrude on each other's rights; all is the acme 

 of decorum and cheerful politeness. Having had an oppor- 

 tunity of witnessing the spring series of steeple-chases, held at 

 Auteuil, a pretty little village just outside the northern forti- 

 fications of Paris, I was much impressed with the suave char- 

 acter of the people, and the efforts made by the managers of 

 the course and the civil and military authorities to give them 

 the fullest possible liberty for enjoying the sport, without 

 granting any means for indulging in a license that might be 

 opposed to the rights of even the tenderest child. 



The course at Auteuil is the only one near Paris where 

 hurdle and steeple-chases are run, and for its purpose it is well 

 situated, being in the midst of a small, rolling plain, diversi- 

 fied enough in character to display all styles of leaping, while 

 the jumping to be seen there is quite good, yet it bears no 

 comparison to the ''neck-breakers" to be witnessed at Punches- 

 town, Ireland, or at the Grand National of Liverpool. There 

 is no "in-and-out" leaping, and the only dangerous bit of a 

 "take" is the water jump opposite the grand stand. The 

 number of horses that compete is also, as a rule, quite small in 

 comparison to similar races in the United Kingdom, so that 

 the contests seem quite tame to those who have enjoyed the 

 large fields, close running and appalling bounds so character- 

 istic of English or Irish steeple chases. The races are also 

 rendered somewhat uninteresting by the absence of foreign 

 horses, for the prizes given being comparatively small — aver- 

 aging only about fifteen hundred francs — few Englishmen care 

 to go to the expense of sending their best stock over to com- 

 pete for such petty sums. The name of a British competitor 

 appears occasionally, but it is— or was last spring at least— a 

 comparatively rare occurrence. 



The scenes to be witnessed at the course make up, however, 

 for the lack of excitement in the contests, and few who have 

 any idea of the picturesque in nature, or take an interest in 

 national peculiarities can return home without feeling that he 

 has at least enjoyed a pleasant, though perhaps quiet, day's 

 amusement. The French are nothing if not artistic, hence the 

 track at Auteuil is surrounded by luxuriant shrubbery through 

 which, in places, peer parterres of rich flowers. The result of 

 this care to please the eye is that the people have something 

 to attract their attention when a race is over, and they are 

 prevented from manifesting that irritation which is so charac- 

 teristic of English and American audiences when the contests 

 do not follow each other in rapid succession. The monde is 

 also allowed to roam at free will over the lawn surrounding 

 the track, and to place themselves in any convenient position 

 from which the race can be seen, provided they do not ob- 

 struct the path of the coursers. The way the people rush 

 about would never be tolerated on American courses, for the 

 simple reason that an American audience once under headway 

 would be hard to control, but in France one quiet word from 

 the police or military would check a rushing multitude in a 

 moment — I mean, of course, the hurdle-loving multitude. 

 The management of even the course shows the paternal charac- 

 ter of the government, and the scrupulous attention paid to 

 the prevention of any excite 



When I slopped at a pretty little cabaret outside the course 

 to enjoy a glass of wine, I was rather surprised to see a body 

 or cuirassiers of the Garde Republicaine dash up the road, 

 wheel promptly into line, then deploy by twos, and trot off to 

 various points along the highway. The commander of the 

 detachment, with his bugler, mounted on a snow-white steed, 

 galloped up to the grand stand, and a minute later he was fol- 

 lowed by half a dozen troopers, who took positions, without 

 any apparent instructions, in different quarters of the course. 

 A battalion of the infantry of the line next arrived and was 

 marched along the track, and whenever an upright fence post 

 was reached a soldier fell out and took up his position near it- 

 In this manner a cordon of red-legged soldiers was placed 

 around the course, and they were as close together as if they 

 had been deployed as a skirmish line in actual warfare. They 

 were only dummies, however, for as soon as the people com- 

 menced crowding in, the sergeants de ville, or police of Paris, 

 placed themselves beside their co laborers of the army and 

 directed the movements of the surging throngs who ranged 

 themselves along the fence near the winning post. The ad- 

 mission to the course being only one franc, the greater por- 

 tion of the audience were content to keep to the common, so 

 few indeed graced the stands, where an extra five or ten francs 

 were demanded for a seat. These seemed to be occupied 

 principally by betting men, and a few ladies and gentlemen. 

 The former were, as a general rule, natives of Great Britain, 

 and they carried the stamp of their profession so indelibly im- 

 pressed on their countenance that no one could possibly mis- 

 take them. They had that air of shrewdness and boldness 

 combined which specially mark the " horse}^ " character; but 

 even if that were not sufficient to announce their nationality, 

 the manner in which they defied the French laws of grammar 

 and pronounciation most readily would. They seemed to 

 know in advance what horses would and would not run, and 

 to perdict in what position the competitors would reach the 

 winning post. They looked a thoroughly " knowing " lot, 

 but the French people not being addicted to the American or 

 English systems of betting they did not find trade very brisk. 

 As all the fun and excitement seemed to be confined to the 

 multitude on the lawn or common, I moved down there, and 

 found I had improved my position most advantageously, for 

 wit and humor were flying about among all classes, and that 

 good-natured badinage for which the French are famous was 

 in full play. " You will pardon me, Monsieur le militaire," a 

 portly dame would say to a mite of a soldier, " if I ask you 

 to stoop a little more so that I can see over your head. You 

 are small enough already, yet not sufficiently so to enable me 

 to see over your shako. You are no doubt a giant in battle, 

 though small in body, and will in all probability get to be a 

 general; so I hope, Monsieur le General, you will grant me the 

 small favor I ask." This bit of raillery elicited hearty 

 laughter from the bystanders ; but, highly sensitive as the 

 French are to anything approaching ridicule, the soldier did 

 not resent the familiarity, and touching his hat he moved to 

 one side. 



"Monsieur would oblige if he would move one side," an 

 ouvrier would say to a policeman, as he was being pushed for- 

 ward by the incoming multitude, but instead of clubbing him 

 as a New York policeman would for his presumption in speak- 

 ing so familiarly, the officer merely turned around and said 

 that it would be impossible to do so without breaking the 

 cordon. Facing the crowd he asked them if they would be 

 kind enough to move back a little further in order to give the 

 horses plenty of room. In all this swaying not a petulant 

 word was uttered by any person, and when one happened by 

 mistake to push another he immediately lifted his hat and 

 begged pardon. None were more polite than the civil officers, 

 and if they made a request it was always with Messieurs et 

 madames sil vow plait. They manifested none of the grow- 

 ing, small-apple self-importance of the so-called "finest police 

 in the world," yet they handled thousands without, the least 

 trouble. The people were bubbling with cheerfulness and 

 suavity, and though " chaff " reigned supreme it was devoid 

 of all tincture of acrimony or the remotest ill-nature. The 

 venders of racing programmes were the recipients of many 

 humorous inquiries, which they answered in the same spirit. 

 An individual who was selling Vee-yawm turo was told he had 

 better study English before he yelled out the name of his 

 paper, as no Frenchman would understand it, aud no English- 

 man could, On purchasing a copy from him for, I believe, 

 three sous, T found the badinage was somewhat appropriate. 



