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. 7 . - j DESCRIPTION OF PARIS RACEC.0URSES. . 1 An English visitor to France recently penned this description of the racecourses in the vicinity of Paris, but perhaps, had he deferred his writing until 1 after the recent Sunday riot at Longchamps he would hardly have said that "the whole thing passes in silence:" . "The only real difference between the horse racing in France and in England is In the conditions under which the Parisian racing man goes to his. meetings. What would not the Londoner, tired out with the j long journeys to Ascot and Goodwood, give to have his courses as near to him as Longchamps and Au-teull are to Paris? The French racing man eats . his dejeuner comfortably In Paris, drives down to Longchamps or Auteuil In about twenty minutes through the beautiful shade of the Bols de Boulogne, and Is home again to tea. Nor could race- courses be placed in more pleasant places Auteuil, which is the steeplechase course, surrounded, by trees and flanked by the Lac Superieur of the Bois and Longchamps in such a setting that I must j:o on to a new sentence to describe it. "As you look across the course from the grandstand the west end of the Bois rises up in wooded , slopes before you, and when this amphitheater of wood ends right and left the circle of beauty Is taken up by the high hills which follow the line of the Seine; on your right the Bois do Meudon and steep St. Cloud, studded with Its spires and houses and behind you Mont Valerian, with Its square barracks and fort, a towering sentinel that watches over all Paris. "A louls gives you the freedom .of more enclosures than a stranger can enter on an English course, where he pays more. The garden behind -the stands is open and well designed. This is just the sort of. thing the French do well. In a bois or a garden proper their taste is perfect: in a city garden or open space they are too fond of regularity and oyercultivation. The airy stands are more like bungalows than our stands, which have the appearance of a great many trays let into a shelf. And then the whole is unspoiled by the ravening roar of an English course. Comparatively, the. whole thing passes in silence. "A bookmaker may evade the laws for his suppression only by plying his trade as a private person, who makes bets in ordinary conversation wfth his acquaintances, it his conversation becomes rather loud sometimes a few scattered shouts are swept away by the breezes into the great spaces. The betting is visible, not audible. At the end of each race the crowd wells up from the extremities to the center of the pelouse, where are the booths of the pari mutuel, like blood flowing to the heart, and after the betting is done the crowd ebbs back to Its extremities. "The state takes 1 per cent on the receipts of the pari mutuel, and makes a good profit. After the races the whole world drives back to Paris through the Bois. Packed carriages look like boats just shoved off from a sinking ship with men sitting on the gunwales. Some stop for tea along the route, and the route Itself is lined with patient people, who get as much enjoyment out of looking on as the others get out of being looked at."
