The track was faster than the opening day, and an absence of wind contributed towards fast times.
During the day the totalisator handled £26,206, or £9880 less than last year.
The total for the meeting amounted to £65,145 10 shillings, or £18,716 10s less than last year’s figures.
The club will, however, show a profit over the meeting.
One drowning and one surf rescue
Shortly after 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon two lads, who were apparently unaware of the dangers of the St Kilda Beach opposite the end of Prince Albert Road, got into serious difficulties in the surf and began to shout for help.
Their cries were treated as a joke by the people on the beach, and nobody made a move to help them.
Eventually, one of them managed to struggle in to safety, and then a lady, Mrs Macpherson, who resides at Musselburgh, and who had just dressed after a bathe, took in the situation and went out to the rescue of the other, she being at this time fully dressed.
The lad was very much exhausted, and Mrs Macpherson made use of artificial respiration when she got him ashore.
An experienced police officer declared afterwards that the people on the beach at the time were the most callous and unconcerned crowd he had ever seen.
The accident which, owing to Mrs Macpherson’s plucky and timely action, had no serious termination, serves to draw attention to the futility of the present lifeline equipment there, which is much too weak to be of practical use in such an emergency.
The St Kilda Beach, opposite the Prince Albert Road is reported to be in a very treacherous condition at the present time, with a steep channel and dangerous backwash between the beach and the breakers, and children and any who are not thoroughly expert swimmers are warned against bathing anywhere in that neighbourhood.
Earlier in the day the painfully long list of drowning accidents was added to at Brighton, when Miss Olan Hilton Billings (22) lost her life while bathing at the beach there.
She went into the water with a friend, Catherine Margaret Poupart, who, after a little time heard her give a scream.
Miss Poupart went to her assistance, but when Miss Billings gripped her around the neck she was compelled to free herself, and eventually gained safety, but Miss Billings was drowned.
— ODT, 5.1.1922.
