| Show AN EXCITING bace KACE A AN exciting steamboat race ter clr terminated m on the fourth instant between an the steamboat robert bobert L lee tee capr capt can non and the steamboat natchez capt leathers the distance run beig being belg from new orleans to st louis previous to the race the natchez notches had made a very fine trip between the two points making the fastest time that had ever been made but the nobert bobert JE les lee in the race which wai waa was hr ranged arranged between it an and d the natchee natchez mat Nat chei chet made the trip in three days eighteen hours and fourteen minutes beating the natchez six hours thirty seven minutes and beating her former crack trip three hours and forty four minutes yand and the james jamss M H whites famous time lime over the same distance in 1844 a run which had never been equalled equal led until the natchez made her great trip four hours and fifty five minutes it is 13 claimed that no event in the west or south ever attracted BO so large a share of popular attention or aroused such a pitch of popular excitement as this race it is said that one million dollars have been lost and won ton fon on it it may be added that not less than one millich persons first and last saw it the start affat off at new orleans on thursday afternoon june soth was witnessed by iby nearly half the population of the city who knew the race was waa to come off oft and had collected on the bank and about the shipping all the way from the centre contra of the city to carrolton to see the boats boat off all along the plantations on the coast below natchez at the river towns villages and cities ia u louisiana mississippi arkansas tennessee kentucky illinois and missouri could be seen beon from the deck of the zee lee gatherings of persons which made the passage of the boat seem to be through two almost unbroken ranks of hying liying beings for the whole twelve hundred miles at bt st louis it seemed as if the whole population of the city had congregated in the vicinity of the river and the excitement cit was most intense all the amusements excursions etc incident to the national holiday were entirely forgotten in the absorbing interest of of the steamboat race the roberc robert JS lee zee was built at new albany ind in the year 1866 she was built under the liw lih immediate supervision of her captain john W cannon new albany ind is three miles below louisville ana and louisville claims it as her boat yard and boasts that it turns out the fleetest and best steamboats in the world the notches natchez was built at cincinnati in 1869 and is the pride of the boat builders of that city in one sense the contest was a trial of skill between the two ohio river cities in which each heavily backed its favorite it is 19 said that louisville will indemnify indemnity the lee for the expense expenses of the race and that cincinnati will do the same foi the natchez Natch tz |
