Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/497

488 daily in its fourth volume, gave half a column to the races. Both heading and account are in the "label" form, with everything chrono logical, the reader waiting to the end of each race for the result. Here are the first 100 words or so of the article:

"Mile heats, 2 in 3, for a purse of $100. Put Smith named Pathfinder, bk st; Jerry Welsh named Richmond Mare., b.m.; Jimmy Welsh named Oregon Nell, r.m.; Oregon Nell was withdrawn. Richmond won the inside; Pathfinder next. The horses got off well together at the first trial. Rich mond soon drew ahead and passed the quarter pole in 46 seconds, the horse a length behind; passed the half mile in the same order in 1:33. Pathfinder now began to work . . . Pathfinder reached the stand in 3:o6, Richmond two lengths behind. . . . Pathfinder . . . winning the (second) heat and race in 2:45 amid the cheers of the crowd. . .."

Throughout the week of the fair the paper continued to tell the race stories in the same artless chronological fashion.

Other sports noticed by the same paper in the same year were yacht races at Portland, and a footrace at Salem. Let the devotees of these sports see what excitement they think they could have worked up by reading these accounts in the Daily Unionist, August 29, 1869:

"Regatta at Portland.—The yacht racing at Portland, first inaugurated on the 5th of July last, has grown to be one of the live institutions of that thriving city. The last regatta of the season came off on the 26th, an account of which we find in the Herald. Six boats entered as contestants for the prize, which was won by yacht No. 6, a new boat, launched only a few days since. The second prize was won by the Elsie."

The squib about the footrace was run a few days later, on September 2:

"A footrace through the long Bridge was the cause of a great excitement yesterday. The contestants were respectively from Scio and this city, and the Scio man got beat."

All of which is a little more anonymous than sports items seem to have become. Not much detail!

The following paragraph under CITY in the Morning Oregonian of Feb. 16, 1861, with the sidehead Review of the Week, kills several small birds with the same charge of TNT:

The reader will find in the Local Items of any newspaper, much that he might think would be better if omitted. There