Our Leger table was not, or rather is not, now so much affected by recent performances as might have been expected. Planet certainly has at length advanced, but so long after the home triumph was achieved as to induce one to believe "the fact" may since have received private confirmation. Lord Eglinton's pair, on the other hand, appear to stand quite independent of the Goodwood results. If we come to consider how good a second Eryx was to The Hero, and how bad a one Van Tromp was to Planet, it would be difficult to account for the positions at present occupied by these two unquestionably formidable nags. There are, however, often wheels within. wheels; and Van Tromp may be the horse still, though if "all's well," we should say "more t'other." With the Danebury stable, the kick is in no such doubt, despite Foreclosure being quietly backed for some money by keen hands. At the price, too, we should prefer him to Cossack, about whom we cannot entirely forget the "moral impossibility" with which Derby winners seek Leger honours. At any rate, with the odds on one, the field-and a strongish field, too— ought to win till it's over. The Sussex returns will give the reason why Red Hart retires; and Mr. Martin of course feels the effect of the sudden rush on Planet-a demonstration equalled, if not excelled, by the important move made in support of a hitherto unheard-of Philosopher. The Derby betting-what there is of it-is all running; the odds as true as a die to the races past. Surplice, after going clean away from everything, is first favourite as a natural consequence, especially as Assault succumbs, after a terrible race, to John Scott, who thereupon obtains once again a strength that, with his art, may work on to a supremacy. OCTOBER, 1847. EMBELLISHMENTS. THE CLANDON HARRIERS.-ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY T. BROUGHTON. "HARD HIT."-ENGRAVED BY J. SCOTT, FROM A PAINTING BY WOODCOCK AND SNIPE SHOOTING.-BY L. LLOYD, ESQ. 235 245 248 249 260 CHAUNTING FOR THE MILLION."-A TALE OF LONDON THE STAGE OF LIFE; INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS; AND TRA VELLERS ON THE ROAD.-BY CHARLES M. WESTMACOTT THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST; OR, A FEW WORDS FROM THE 290 THE TURF REGISTER, 1847.-TEN BURY-SUTTON PARK-BIBURY CLUB-STOCKBRIDGE-BROMYARD-NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE 6W YORKSH. UNION HUNT RACES. s 5 27 27 7 T CHESTER RACES. r 6 1228 4 8 F s 5 2229 5 10 1 27 1 45 9 S r 6 15 N 10 Pineteenth Sunday af. Trinity s 5 18 11 MNEWMKT. SEC. OCT. MEETING. r 6 18 12 T Cesarewitch Stakes Day. 1 5 51 2 33 2 45 s 5 13 3 4 1 4 20 13 W COCKERHAM COURSING MEET. 14 T PERTH RACES. Witney Fair. 15 F 5 710 8 Morning. 16 S Newport (Pembrokeshire) Fair. s 5 17 Twentieth Sunday af. Trinityr 6 29 811 18 MAMESBURY CHAMP. COURS. M. s 5 09 19 T BENDRIGG COURSING MEETING. r 6 3210 20 W Harborough Fair. s 4 5611 2311 2 r 6 35 12 2 5311 35 midnt. 7 35 8 15 0 19 9 0 9 45 1 35 10 Twenty-first Sun. af. Trinitys 4 48 15 5 27 25 M NEWMKT. HOUGHTON MEETING. r 6 4316 6 7 30 S 31 r 6 4618 7 47 Twenty-secondSun,af.Trinityr 6 542211 53 RACES IN OCTOBER. 0 55 1 15 1 40 2 0 2 25 2 50 3 10 3 35 3 55 4 20 4 40 5 0 5 25 5 45 6 15 6 40 7 10 7 40 Our motto is an Irish reading of the well known social aphorism of Shakspeare "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions." Whatever the logic, the philosophy is sound, and established by a long line of precedents-the more the pity. Moreover, its application is universal it has reference to all the employments of life, and its enjoyments as well. In my racing article last month a couple of grievances were especially dealt with, and these shall serve to illustrate the truth of the Gallic proverb which I have selected, both as the motto and thesis of my present paper. They were, of course, apropos to my subject-the pastime of horse-racing, and its general mise en scene, known by that comprehensive figure of speech-the Turf. The first step-the transit to the place of sport-I had occasion to speak of as having been too frequently in my case exemplary of the axiom, c'est le premier pas qui coute. My wayfaring in search of full many a pleasant Olympic tryst had been begirt with peril. In the instance I would here relate the passage down was a facilis descensus-a delicious flight behind a Leeds express engine, of forked-lightning speed; but the return-the revocare gradum-that was a squeak for Avernus! It was in a carriage of the Midland Counties' that, hard by the junction of the Nottingham branch with the parent line, I heard a grinding, as of some planet ejected from its orbit: a grating such as "the great globe itself" might give forth, should Phoebus break an axle during his morning drive. We had broken or dislocated an arm of a limb of our locomotive; one of the wheels of the tender had displaced a shoulder, and having cut through a series of vast iron bars-just as a hot knife passes through a pat of Epping butter-we were brought up "all standing". -as the nautical people express an action whereby you are suddenly reduced from the perpendicular to the horizontal. Nobody was killed, because the tender was good enough to smash instead of the engine. Had the latter got off the line, as the former did, we should all have been dashed to pieces down an embankment, except those that might have been dragged whole from the bottom of the Trent. So, at least, the men conversant in such matters asserted, while smoking their cigars, and promenading among the ruins of the rails, spiflicated as aforesaid. Now passages like these may be all very well for individuals ambitious of Juggernaut. But I am not among the number, and beg respectfully to remind Mr. Hudson and his corps of the Midland Counties, that there is, in every sense of the expression, a heavy responsibility on their shoulders. Moreover, no set of travellers in creation was ever less fitted for a trial of the nerves than a party returning from last Doncaster races. For four mortal days they had been sur rounded by sights of human suffering such as never probably were concentred in one spot since the days of Bethesda. The excursion from the town to the race-course was like walking an hospital three quarters of a mile long, containing a miscellany of disease, deformity, and mortal misery nowhere else to be met with on the face of the earth. Coming from the contemplation of a company sans arms, sans legs, sans eyes, sans noses, sans everything, is not a favourable moment for speculating as to the probability of being yourself in a concatenation accordingly. ance. Thus much touching the eccentricities of the road: now a word about the ring. Speaking of that association, in my last article on the turf, I designated it as a circle wherein the possibility of winning is confined to a class, and the certainty to a clique. I was dealing with the rule one whose exceptions are indeed few and far between. Take the ring, as it may be seen at Epsom or Doncaster, as a sample of the system to which it is applied, and you find it almost wholly composed of individuals called, by courtesy, the profession. Not a dozen gentlemen publicly practise betting: many-too many indulge in it, indeed; but by means of agents or commissioners. A few, as I have said, may be seen labouring in their unseemly calling--a custom, let me assure them, that would be infinitely more honoured in the breach than the observDo these win in the long run? Does anybody-(did anybody ever)-make an honest penny by racing? Here or there some exception starts into notoriety-gold chains, purple and fine linen; but his gains are estimated like the history of the Three Black Crows. Set down a leg, having credit with the crowd for £20,000, as possessed of a clear tenth of that sum, and you'll not under-write him much. If Pope Pius the Ninth were to affirm, on the virtue of his corporal oath, that a gambler of any country under the sun, bona fide the right owner of £10,000, then and there within his immediate control, continued to play with the intention to pay should he lose it, I should venture to think his Holiness was lying-under a mistake. Some few years ago a gentleman, who had had extensive dealings on the Derby, preferred letting his account stand over for a few months, and went to Paris, instead of Tattersall's, immediately after the Epsom meeting. Circumstances making it convenient for him to return, he was welcomed at Hyde Park Corner one Monday afternoon, where he pocketed several thousand pounds, instead of disbursing a considerable sum, which he would have been expected to have done had he remained in the capital of Great Britain, instead of emigrating to that of Belle France. Now this party was a member of the clique that reduces winning to a certainty, by a process as simple as it is secure. Should the reader suppose I am letting out a secret of the prison-house-the subscription-room at the Corner-I beg to inform him that the fact is as notorious to all whom it concerns as Sidney Smith's estimate of Pennsylvanian principle. Well, all the cash thus brought to net was forthwith put to the credit side of the man-fisher's account current, and he became therefrom a mighty capitalist. The million would have given him trust for a like amount sterling he started a stud; lived en prince; hail-fellow well met with the nobles of the land; and, in short, did the entire animal on an unlimited scale. Perhaps when the turn of luck alluded to fell to his share, or his shrewdness, or to whatever else brought him round as aforesaid, a moiety of the hawl was mortgaged in Paris, to creditors |