for his creditors, in short till they repudiated his flimsy, and according to his version of the catastrophe, hustled him out of sight. The cheques were not paid at the banks-of course. Assuming this to be fact, it was a practice considerably in villanous advance of highway robbery. Bell's Life has a summary of this bit of rascality to the following effect ......" We learn with delight that measure is in contemplation on the part of the government, for the purpose of immediately putting an end to these nuisances, which not only encourage a spirit among persons who have nothing of their own wherewith to gamble, and who, consequently, obtain the money to gratify their passion by dishonest means, but are also calculated materially to damage the speculations of the legitimate book-makers frequenting the subscription rooms, several of whom have been compelled, however unwillingly, to open lists in self-defence !"...... Thus the lex talionis being recognised as sound statute law, is become competent for A, standing under arraign for having picked B's pocket, to plead in justification that he did so because he had been served in like manner by C.

Did the mal-adroitness of meddlers go no farther, it might be spared notice, inasmuch it could effect little either good or bad. But it wont keep within mischievousless bounds. It must mouthe like ancient Pistol. It must beard the legislature, and ask the executive to tamper, if it dare, with the liberty of the subject (to rob its master's till, and cut its own throat in the station-house). True, your Hectoring about the divinity of the people is now stale and carrion bait, wherewith to fish for your fool's gudgeon; but if it catch no flats it enlists foes against the cause of which it seems the parasite. All whose countenance is worth the canvassing, that are opposed, upon principle, to the great national sport of England, have imbibed their prejudice from a contemplation of its perversion...... Does "going the whole hog," supply an illustration of deductions from such premises? There is no time to submit the solution to the Conscript Fathers of Notes and Queries; but may not the interpretation of that familiar mataphor imply that while a rasher of bacon is the glory of a breakfast table, to swallow a fathom of black-pudding is not a feat for a gentleman? I don't advise the sire of a city family to introduce his sons, as soon as they assume tails to their jackets, into the ring formed to inaugurate The Licensed Victuallers' Stakes at Epsom Spring Meeting. But there are more unwholesome resorts than Newmarket Heath, for those who can afford to visit it; and the cavalcade which marshals the royal advent to Ascot races is in better taste than anything as yet attempted by Mr. Batty.......

O! bard of "English Bards," that I had one note of thy golden gamut wherewith to sing of cant! to chaunt of the good old gentlewoman's vice which compounds for pet peccadilloes by raising a hue and cry against what "it's not inclined to!" to contrast in thy resistless recitative the sic itur ad astra of Exeter Hall with the facilis discensus at the corner of Grosvenor Place. Says Smellfungus-" Never talk to me of sporting fellows-foul-phrased, ill-spoken churls, that pour forth invective as natural parts of speech: libels on the sweet meekness of Christian communication."...... Mr. Smells," rejoins the Tulip ("him as rode the Brimstone mare for the Bullock-Smithy Handicap ") "Mr. Smells, for the matter of that I make bold to think as how there are some on your own sort pretty hard in the mouth too. There is that

chap as they calls Harry of Exeter been and gone and had a flare up with wot used to be Lord Ashley-not Ashley's theatre, but a regular lord of the noo houses on the Middlesext side of the water. Well, they has a shindy, and what does the bishop do but he ups and rites to the pear of Parliament-or leastwise so the papers says-Your lordship (this is how Harry expresses his-self), your lordship must permit me to express my astonishment that, if not your feeling as a churchman, yet at least your courtesy as a gentleman (what does he mean by a gentleman's courtsey?) and even your sense of ordinary decency did not restrain you.'

"Thou fool, first cast out the beam that is in thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to remove the mote which is in thy brother's eye."...... Assuming Smellfungus and the Tulip to be the persons in this morality, whose sight is affected by the mote, and whose by the beam?

The opening meeting of the month of June was that at Manchester. It appears to have been just the kind of rendezvous that might have been anticipated-full of fun, and thoroughly well furnished in the essential of finance. There were three days running, none of it first class, but all of a good average. The weather, it need not be premised, was better for the grain crops than what Messrs. Moses call "garments." The first day had five events to amuse and interest the companychiefest of which was the Union Cup handicap (of course?) There were 72 subscribers to it, and a field of a score; of these Frantic was the favourite at 5 to 2 against him-observe him, as this animal is continually alluded to in the feminine gender. In a slashing set-to, he won on the post by a neck. He carried 6st. 6lbs. for his three-yearold form Iris, 7st. 12lbs., was nowhere, unless she was last. According to the new average scale adopted for the royal plates, he carried but 3lbs. less at weight for age than the winner of the Oaks. The "Coop" day drew its million; moreover the skiey influences were propitious. The great race had 66 nominations, and nine runners, as the result of the subtlety of a handicap. The favourite was the Black Doctor, with only 2 to 1 against him; his weight 8st. 3lbs, Having in account the loads to carry, the field contained nothing to beat him on paper; and se it was on the ground-he won cleverly by a length. We are speaking of the Manchester Trades Cup. There were four other races, but they do not call for details. Friday, which wound up the meeting, had five issues on the card. The Salford Borough Cup, the event, failed to induce the Black Doctor again to reward his friends-he did not go -and Little Fawn was the winner...... In addition to this sporting provincial tryst, there were some half-a-dozen rural races in the week ...here with four heats by way of variety, and there with the fields distanced, winners excepted. Everywhere the speculation on the approaching week was "stunning." Adopting the moral of Burns'-or rather Braham's "Scots wha' hae wi' Wallace bled"-those who had been done, and undone, on the Derby, resolved to "do or die." Mr. Bentley, in his Miscellany, assures us that during the current summer one Betting-House Rothschild's ledger exhibited a lot of 8,000 wagers laid on, or rather against, one race; whence we are told—" reckoning the average amount of each at £4, which is within the truth, it follows that £32,000 have been staked with him alone, on one race."...... What say you to that, and its inevitable consequences, most gentle reader?

"I tremble while I scribble-'pon my soul!"...... Meanwhile the narrative halts. It is the second week of jocund June-"anon to fresh

fields.".....

Our theme is Royal Ascot. Is it treason against good taste to refer to antecedents? May not this princely festival be contrasted with concurrent modern instances. The bard into whose melodious mouth Lord Byron put" The isles of Greece," compassed his popularity mainly, as we are assured, because

"He praised the present, and abused the past.”

Shall there, then, be no balm in Parnassus for your laudator temporis acti? To such, this our regal tryst was a green spot of the multitudinous turf-an Olympian oasis-as it appeared in the volume of the "Book Calendar" devoted to the races to come in 1852. Therein was duly propounded the carte of a meeting-flavoured, indeed, with a relish of the handicap, but not on fire with that pernicious stimulant. Full fair to contemplate, and sweet with the rare courtesy of courtly grace, was the promise of a golden vase, contributed by the Queen of this our heart-united Kingdom; and, emblematic of the good-will among men, the gorgeous trophy presented by "the Emperor of all the Russias." Were not these offerings worthy the occasion and the purpose? Were they not pregnant with the principle upon which a great national sport was promoted, and which distinguished its institution? The turf was a pastime-it is now a pursuit. Were our grandpapas all wrong, and are we of the third generation all right? Let us not begrudge this problem a passing analysis. Without offence to young Westminster, may it not be suggested that a good style of architecture prevailed in old Nineveh? Is it any disparagement to the choir of Apollo singing at these presents, to claim some poetical merit for the "Iliad?" Is it a justification for Mr. Power's "Greek Slave" losing her temper, that we cannot avoid thinking there is still something to admire in the productions of Phidias and Praxiteles? Mr. Tattersall used to have, in his collection at Hyde Park Corner, and doubtless has still, a delicious picture of Newmarket in the olden time, all phaetons as high as the Monument, cocked hats, pigtails, powder, point-ruffles, and nobles in rapiers, canvassing the condition of their cattle. Little did the chivalry of that bright age anticipate the day when that subtle essence "the odds," that spirit of their own peculiar Helicon, would be part and parcel of the plebeian compound retailed at the tapster's bar! That Punch, aggravated till his bile boiled over, would take occasion to embellish his page with the bay window of a beershop, filled with bottles and betting-lists, the former labelled "gin," the latter bitters!" 66 That such things should be! making the sylvan road "bit" from Windsor-through its classic park, to its characteristic course-like a Queen Anne's farthing, valuable in the ratio of its rarity.

The present season, if not in all its social relations, certainly in the instance within our particular province, has evinced the reaction which was foretold for the successor of Fifty-one. There was not one of the Newmarket Spring Meetings within fifty per cent. of their ordinary average; and the famous Cockney carnival on the Surrey Downs furnished a beggarly account of empty books. Spring, it is true, dal

lied too long with "old Hyems," and May was no month of roses. But there were other untoward agents at work besides the "skiey influences." The abomination of betting for the million beset us, turn which way we might at the corners of the streets it lay in wait, like a basilisk that bides its time; on the race-course it went its rounds, rampant as a roaring lion; and those who cultivated the craft set to their office with Gordon-Cumming stomachs. Nothing was too mighty or too monstrous for their digestion. Man, when he hungers with auri sacra fames, is your moral ostrich. People shook their heads, and asked where it would all end? They had already followed it to the police offices, and thence to Newgate. There we will leave it-" sweets to the sweet and with merry memories of that "lang syne " in which Salt-hill smiles with perennial summer, and eke with vernal glimpses of honoured alma mater in perspective, we will go on our way rejoicing; for is not this anniversary to be marked with a white stone?

are

Assuming "town" to be your starting-post, and Ascot Heath the finish, should you happen to be sojourning at Long's or Limmer's-and, as a bachelor, you may go farther and speed worse in the great metropolis-if you have decided to travel by the South-Western, the first thing, probably, that will occur to you as you rattle over the pavement is that you are driving away from the quarter towards which you are bound. Are there not" sermons in stones"? and may not the moral apropos of the occasion hint that the premier pas of the turf is generally in the wrong direction? As soon as the " compartments all stuffed, and time is ripe, off you go. Observe how everybody incontinently begins to read. Is it low, and only beseeming "vulgar vulgar" company," to look abroad upon nature, the fields, the trees, and the rivers ? What a droll place for study! and how your eyes dart and dive at the lines as they dance and reel to the oscillations of the carriage! Your pardon--this is a desultory style; but make allowance for circumstances. Do you suppose Plato would have limited his muse strictly to philosophy on his way to the Olympic games? For the first time in your life if you were born in the present century-you reach the ground undefiled by dust. How fresh and fragrant is the landscape! how full of odour is the air! how melodious are the birds! No wonder such a scene made Merry Wives" of Mesdames Page and Ford. This alternate cloud and sunshine foreshadows showery weather. Here, again, there is a lesson that may be read with profit-" telle est la vie!" The rain shares with the sunshine the golden glory of the harvest-the liberal libation of the grape-the radiant incense of the rose...... We shall never get on without a bill of the play.

Minus the al frescoes of "cloudless realms and sunny skies," the opening of the royal meeting on Tuesday, the 8th ult., was a rural fete champêtre of charming influences. The air was balm, andthere was no dust! The courtly cavalcade, in all its bravery, inaugurated the scene: the attendance was good, in the quality sense of the term, and the sport befitted the occasion. There were mal apropos showers, of course June wept as April was wont in the olden time. The state of the ground followed suit. In lieu of being as hard as bricks, it was as soft as dough. This necessarily affected the issues materially; as some horses won't run a length kindly through dirt, while others prefer puddles to sound turf. Nevertheless, we are not to

award the prophets the impunity of wrong to which they lay claim under cover of this casualty. If their "fine frenzy "makes no account of rain in these latitudes, its premises are most undeniably bad, to say nothing of the principle. About midsummer racing assumes a character of peculiar interest. The three-year-old stock has by that time become, for the most part, known for its merits or demerits, and then the keen encounter of wit among the talents begins, or ought to begin, if the turf be not utterly surrendered to the evil spirit. The two-year-old stock is making its debut, in earnest form, after the Newmarket Spring series. And the old ones are full of lusty life, or "fit as fiddles" in the vernacular of the stable, though I am unable to say how the contrast sympathises......

And here I crave a few lines' space, to request those gentlemen who anonymously communicate with the publishers on the subject of these papers, to furnish their names and addresses to the editor of the Sporting Review, and they shall be answered-personally.

The list mustered nine events, whereof seven produced contests. The first of these was the Trial Stakes. Half a score ran-the first in the betting, at 7 to 2 against either, being Officious and Hothorpe, and they were first also in the fray, in the order of their quotation-the mare, however, winning in a canter; but as related to Olympian pretensions it was a sorry sight. The second year of the Third Triennial, with its 47 nominations, gave us a quartet at the post-the winner of the Oaks causing the company to be especially select. The Duke of Richmond ran a brace, Harbinger and Red Hind, the fourth being Filius. Songstress, with even betting on her, made the running, and won very cleverly by a length. The third year of the Second Triennial, for four-year-olds, 46 subscribers, and half-a-dozen competitors. Little Midas, with 5 to 2 against him, won in a fine race by a head-having cut out the work-of course. The Ascot Derby had 10 subscribers, and a trio to go. They laid 6 to 4 on Red Hind, a jade with the temper of Petrucio's Catherine. The winner was Convulsion-the last the favourite--in consequence of a tumble over a dog, by which, fortunately, her jockey, Flatman, was not injured, though he had a very ugly fall. This sensation was succeeded by the preparations for the chief issue of the day-The Golden Vase, given by Her Majesty. The muster amounted to eight-the latest betting being 5 to 2 against Frantic, 11 to 4 Barbarian, 6 to 1 against the colt by Phlegon, out of Marinella, and 10 to 1 Ambrose. Thus, when it is stated that Nancy numbered among the throng, it will be observed that she was friendless. Very soon after the flag fell, there ensued a wild goose chase, with Baron Rothschild's champion for leader, and Nancy for " boots;" this, too, with the pace an ordinary average donkey's gallop. As they drew near they were on better terms, and setting to work at their best up the straight ("incline") run home. The Marinella colt had enough left in him to win, beating Little Harry, second, by a length cleverly. The Ascot Stakes, with its 86 subscriptions, arranged eleven at the post. They took 5 to 2 against Buckthorn, and among the others in the market was Lucio, about worst, at 8 to 1. The handicap of the running was on sufferance, for as soon as Lucio went at it in earnest, which he did at the distance, he beat the half score by three lengths, without an effort. Of course, "the ground did it "-what's the odds, so long as there's a scapegoat?