A thunder-storm, which lasted all the morning and afternoon
till three o'clock. When it cleared I drove, in company with Mr. Burnside and
his friends, to dinner with Mr. Duncan Kenner, who lives some ten or twelve
miles above Houmas. He is one of the sporting men of the South, well known on
the Charleston race-course, and keeps a large stable of racehorses and brood
mares, under the management of an Englishman. The jocks were negro lads; and
when we arrived, about half a dozen of them were giving the colts a run in the
paddock. The calveless legs and hollow thighs of the negro adapt him admirably
for the pigskin; and these little fellows sat their horses so well, one might
have thought, till the turn in the course displayed their black faces and
grinning mouths, he was looking at a set of John Scott's young gentlemen out
training.
The Carolinians are true sportsmen, and in the South the
Charleston races create almost as much sensation as our Derby at home. One of
the guests at Mr. Kenner's knew all about the winners of Epsom Oaks, and Ascot,
and took delight in showing his knowledge of the “Racing Calendar.”
It is observable, however, that the Creoles do not exhibit
any great enthusiasm for horse-racing, but that they apply themselves rather to
cultivate their plantations and to domestic duties; and it is even remarkable
that they do not stand prominently forward in the State Legislature, or aspire
to high political influence and position, although their numbers and wealth
would fairly entitle them to both. The population of small settlers, scarcely
removed from pauperism, along the river banks, is courted by men who obtain
larger political influence than the great land-owners, as the latter consider
it beneath them to have recourse to the arts of the demagogue.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 286-7
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