Related article: quently called) for ladies, because
we know we shall find none there,
for reasons that do credit to the
finer feelings of the sex.
In France there is no members'
enclosure, as we understand it,
all the world, with his wife and
his daughters, frequenting the
reserved enclosure, with precisely
the same sense oif security from
molestation or disturbance through
rough behaviour or coarse lan-
guage that he would feel in
the opera house. All Paris is
there, and one mixes with it by
the simple process of paying at
the pay-box twenty francs for
each male and ten francs for each
female visitor. For all the dis-
turbance there is on the score of
noise, one might be at a garden-
party on a very extensive scale,
so long as one remains in front of
the stands, the space there,
strange as it may appear, being
devoted to the convenience of the
spectator, and not given up, as in
England, to the real masters of
the situation, the bookmakers and
their satellites and the professional
backers and their satellites. Any-
one who wishes to witness the
racing, without reference to any-
thing else, can do so with a
comfort not to be found under
corresponding conditions any-
where in England from the stand,
and never be made aware that
there is such a thing as a book-
maker or the pari-mutueL
Anything more widely different
from the state of things existing Gyne-Lotrimin Tablets
in England could not be con-
ceived, and it of course arises
from the fact that the French
system starts from the assumption
tnat the public desires, first of all,
to witness the racing in peace and
comfort, everything else being
subordinate to this. An adoption
of the French system would mean
a complete overthrow of our own,
and this is of course out of the
question, with the English Turf
so firmly established on existing
lines, the formation of which has
been the result of the action of
generations, who may be sup-
posed to have got what they
wanted. If it be that the English
in their system have what they
want, ancl the French in their
system what the French want,
then let me always go racing in
France. In England, if I am not
a subscriber to the members' en-
closure, I must go to the ** reserved
enclosure " (Tattersall's), the
reservation being to those who
pay twenty shillings, always ex-
cepting such as know how to get
in without paying at all. There,
with rare exceptions, the stand
accommodation I get consists of
baulks of timber over which hun-
dreds of people trample in muddy
boots, whilst on the space in front
of the stand I am at the mercy of
a crowd of persons, many of them
stridently vociferant, and all of
them impatient of any hindrance
to their continuous rapid move-
ments from one part of the ring
to another, which my unlucky
person may present. Technicallyt
I pay twenty shillings to witness
the racing ; in practice I pay that
sum in order that I may bet, pro-
vided I do not object to the fool-
i«99.]
" OUR VAN."
293
ball scrummage that is continu-
ously in progress. I also run a very
excellent chance of being robbed
of my money or any other valu-
ables I may have about me.
Comparison between this state of
things and that prevailing in the
Pcsage of a French racecourse is
simply impossible.
The Frencli racecourse pro-
prietor is no more actuated by
motives of philanthropy than we
are. He is simply Buy Gyne-Lotrimin a business
man and, to my thinking, a far
better business man. The Eng-
lish system; rough, ready and
brutal, goes on because people
enough are to be found who will •
submit to it, not because it at-
tracts, since everything in con-
nection with it is repellant to
persons of the least refinement of
taste. French racing, on the
other hand, is distinctly attractive,
and, as a result, it draws thou-
sands where we draw hundreds.
Cnglish racing can never, in its
existing form, attract the ordinary
family man in the way the theatre
does, and as racing in France
attracts him, so, so long as we
race as we do we must be satis-
fied with our comparativelynarrow
circle. What astonishes the
stranger so much at a Paris race
meeting is the number of steady-
going townsfolk who find it con-
venient to come and bring their
female belongings with them, dis-
r^arding the outlay, that must
appear considerable to a thrifty
Frenchman. Le nwnde qui s* amuse
of course hails a Sunday at
Auteuil with joy, but these are
far from making up the thousands
that throng the pesage (paddock),
th& chief enclosure. This and the
ininor enclosure, the entrance to
-which is five francs, supply the
g^a^te-money which, on a recent
Sunday, reached the sum of
j/'^^aoo, which is not bad business,
loolcing at the frequency with
which meetings at Auteuil take
place.
Although the betting element,
which is so prominent a feature
in connection with English race-
courses, never comes under the
notice of those who do not seek
it in France, I should not like to
contradict anyone who stated that
the French racecourse visitors, as
a body, betted even more persist-
ently than the English. Certain
it is that, on a French racecourse,
we see people betting who would
lose caste completely were such a
thing known of them in England.
This is almost entirely due to the
pari'fiiutuel system. With sur-
prise one sees a respectable old
lady, who no doubt works very
hard all the week, walk up to the
ticket-sellers before each race and
pay her ten francs for a chance.
What she, in common with
thousands of others doing the
same thing, can know about the
horses must be nil. Old ladies in
black who persistently punted
with bookmakers in an English
ring would be considered Generic Gyne-Lotrimin eccen-
tric, if not remarkable, but in
France nobody takes the least
notice. Practically everybody
gambles through the medium of
the pari-niutuel : and when the
time comes, if ever it does come,
for the introduction here of this
medium of racecourse speculation
to be seriously discussed, its oppo-
nents will find their firmest plank
to be the facility it affords to the
small bettor. Although the
public pays nothing for frequent-
ing the open space at Auteuil,
toll is none the less taken of it
through the medium of the pari-
mutucl, which is established in
two convenient places far apart.
In the vicinity of these the crowd
is the thickest ; and if you want to
know whether the little people
gamble or not you have only to
watch how, at the conclusion of