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QUEER RACING. A writer in Temple Bar give3 an account of the famous race which takes place every year at the old Tuscan town Siena. The course is an irregular oval, lying along the steep hillside; and as the curves often degenerate into corners, and parts of the course are paved, aocidents are to be expected. Siena is divided for municipal purposes into "wards," and each ward enters a horse the evening before the race. The horse and his jockey are escorted with great ceremony to the church of the ward, where the two are bolemnly blessed by the priests. If the animal happens to be a mare, aho wears a white cap during the ceremony of the blessing. The men ride barebacked, and each carries a blunt dagger, with which it is permissible to attack other jockeys or horses. Use of the weapons is practically confined to the start, when those who know they have no chance of winning devote themselves to the congenial work of attacking any horse that has, which iB painful for the favorite, unless he succeeds in jumping away with the lead the moment the rope used as a "starting gate" is lowered. Intense jealousy Eooms to be the most conspicuous feeling about the race; the winning jockey slipped off his horse at the post and was immediately surrounded by a body of gendarmes, who escorted him away lest the people of the defeated wards should try and kill him ! In the evening the winner and jockey are escorted to the ward church to be blessed again. With this odor of sanctity about it, the Siena race should be free from lust of gain, and fairly run at least. Sad to say, this is far from being the case; the jockeys are "doubly or trebly dyed traitors, who have sold themselves over and over again to pull and impede in this or that interest." The only element of uncertainty in the race, which is said to bo "arranged" by the ward authorities bsforehand, ia the dishonesty of the jockey, who, if bribed not to win, sometimoa pockets the money and gives way to the temptation to catch the judges eye and lots his horse out.
