CHAPTER III.
AN EVENING IN OFFICERS' MESS-ROOM.
Many of our readers are familiar with the old building still standing, facing on Queen Street, known as the officers' barracks.

At the time when this story opened, this was a scene of continual festivity--life in its gayest aspect.

Here were quartered the noisy, the swaggering, the riotous, the vain, the gallant, the honourable, and all those different qualities which help to form the make-up of the many individuals comprising the officers of H.M.52nd Regiment.

At no period, before or since, has Fredericton ever risen to such notoriety.

Several enterprising gentlemen of this body in connexion with a few of the leading citizens planned and laid the first regular and circular race course, near where the present now is situated, under the management of J.H.Reid, Esq., and the members of York County Agricultural Society.
On the old race course it was no unusual occurrence to witness as many as a dozen races during the space of two days.