me any chapter of which is worth the whole of Mr.
Fraser's "Reminiscences," and the other "A Woman Rice-Planter," by
"Patience Pennington," otherwise Mrs. John Julius Pringle (nee Alston),
who lives on her plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina.

The Carolina Jockey Club subscribed regularly to the support of the
library, and now that that club is no more, its chief memorial may be
said to rest there. This club was probably the first racing club in the
country, and it is interesting to note that the old cement pillars from
the Washington Race Course at Charleston were taken, when that course
was abandoned, and set up at the Belmont Park course, near New York.

The turf history of Carolina began (according to the "South Carolina
Gazette," dated February 1, 1734) in that same year, on the first
Tuesday in February. One of the prizes was a saddle and bridle valued at
L20. The riders were white men and the course was a green at Charleston
Neck, near where the lower depot of the South Carolina Railroad now
stands. In a "History of the Turf in South Carolina," which I found in
the library, I learned that Mr. Daniel Ravenel bred fine horses on his
plantation, Wantoot, in St. John's Parish, as early as 1761, that Mr.
Frank Huger had imported an Arabian horse, and that many other gentlemen
were importing British running horses, and were engaged in breeding. The
book refers to the old York Course, later called the New Market Course.
A long search did not, however, enable me to establish the date on which
the Jockey Club was founded. It was clearly a going institution in 1792,
for under date of Wednesday, February 15, in that year, I found the
record of a race for the Jockey Club Purse--"four mile-heats--weight for
age--won by Mr. Lynch's _Foxhunter_, after a well contested race of four
heats, beating Mr. Sumter's _Ugly_, who won the first heat; Col.
Washington's _Rosetta_, who won the second heat; Capt. Alston's _Betsy
Baker_," etc., etc.

The Civil War practically ended the Jockey Club, though a feeble effort
was, for a time, made to carry it on. In 1900 the club properties and
the funds remaining in the club treasury were transferred as an
endowment to the Charleston Library Society. The proceeds from this
endowment add to the library's income by about two thousand dollars
annually. Other items of interest in connection with the Carolina Jockey
Club are that Episcopal Church conventions used to be held in Charleston
durin