If it could be shown that a Derby can be
held with- out drinking and betting, as of course it could be, it would be a war lesson of incomparable value. We do not know whether fresh legislation would be required in order to close the publie- houses in the way we have suggested, but if so it could easily be obtained. It may be said that the rich would find a loop- hole for indulgence in the private luncheon-basket. If, how- ever, the Jockey Club made it known that it was their wish that no intoximmts should be brought on to the course by private persons, and if public opinion generally were to back up each warning, as we are certain it would, there would be little danger of scandal from this source. We commend the course we have suggested to those who hold that racing ought not to be abandoned. We feel confident that if they will seriously take up proposals for compromise on these lines and will make them their own, the demand to stop all racing will not be pushed even by those who, like ourselves, would have preferred a complete, but of course temporary, abandonment of racing. Neither side in the controversy would get its own way or be altogether satisfied, but in matters where strong feeling is aroused that is a sure sign of a sound compromise. We are not among thew who think that the only true com. promise is the abandonment by the "other side" of its entire position. Our American friends will recall President Lincoln's story of the man who, after a domestic dispute as to whether his house should be painted, as his wife desired, or not painted, tut he desired, announced that they had come to a compromise and that the house was not to be painted! We do not demand a compromise of that sort.
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