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SENSIBLE VIEW ON RACING Sport as Conducted at New Orleans Not as Vicious as Painted. NEW ORLEANS, La., December 10. To hear some of racings lifelong enemies talk, the incoming city commission, mayor and district attorney have been elected solely for the purpose of putting the ban on thoroughbred sport. That, we believe, is going Just a little too far. As well as we can remember, the men elected to office ran on platforms which .contained no word concerning racing. And, in spite of all the noise which lias been raised from certain quarters, it is pretty near a sure thing that the incoming administration is going to attend to the important part of conducting the city government before it switches off into the byways to prove whether a little white slip of carboard is a device, or a piece torn from a program is not a device. Mr. McShane and those elected with him have a gigantic tnsk - facing them. It will probably take them four years to get well launched on the comprehensive good government plan they have in mind. Streets of New Orleans are in a terrible condition. Why, there is a hole in the asphalt at Lee Circle which jars a persons false teeth out every time he goes over it in a jitney. It has been there several months. Isnt it possible the new city government will try and fill that hole before it starts holding a daily caucus over the legality of racing? Doesnt it strike an unbiased person that it would be Itetter for the community at large if the Terminal gang is wiped out immediately; if patrons of the St. Charles and Tulane belt lines are not held up half an hour or more at any time of the day when the New Basin bridge is open; if the drainage system is improved upon; if taxi drivers are ipersuaded not to run wild through the busy streets at the risk of life and limb; if the police department is more prompt getting on the trail of murderers and burglars; if the city government can arrive at a scheme of financing itself, or of at least knowing whether it has a sulplus or a deficit? Properly conducted racing, with betting confined to the track and with the admission so high that only those who run afford it attend is not the vicious sport mauy have painted it. We have seen the most respectable, the most intelligent and the most prominent people in town at the races at some time or another, and all seemed to enjoy good sport. Of course, those who object to racing have their reasons, and they are entitled to their opinions. And this is not written in defense of the objectional features of racing. But in the name of common sense lets not have so much ado about nothing. There must be many recommending features connected with racing. The British government helps promote it; the Canadian government sanctions It; high United . States Army officials advocate it and the most progressive people of the country patronize and participate in it in New York, Maryland and, Kentucky. If the sport was so bad as some would have others believe, wouldnt it have more enemies? New Orleans Times-Picayune.
