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into a very accommodating precedent. For one of the stakes the pair that found favour with the ring were, by some ill-management, not at the post when they ought to have been there. After all was over, the starter said somebody told him they had been sent back to their stables; to which there was (of course) a demurrer, and then a sort of a shindy. The case being referred to the stewards, they ruled that, as they" the horses-"were not called upon to go to the post, the bets against them were off." How such a law might be turned to profit I cannot conscientiously point out, having a vivid fear of Peter Pindar's story of the ostler and the oats before my misgivings. Doncaster was brim full of gentle and ungentle company; of the latter, a whole Norfolk Island of London thieves took advantage of the cheap trains, to keep their hands in during the dull season in town. The Champagne was the first mistake of any eminence. The winner was Augur, the last in the odds. The favourite, at only a point of odds against him-Homebrew'd-out of the Goodwood stable was beaten bitterly. The Great Yorkshire Handicap was won in a race whose issue might have had a more artistic look if the weights had been fished out of a hat: Confessor" in a canter." The Leger was won by John Scott and Newminster in a similar style. There is generally a feature about this stake: a genuine sporting character-good, bad, or indifferent. Sir Joseph Hawley having won the Derby with Teddington, to vary the practice of the preceding three years was to win the Leger with Aphrodite. Hernandez having lost the Derby, was on that account to win the Leger. Newminster having "cut-up "like dog's-meat at York, was suspected naso adunco at Doncaster-as if nothing in nature was capable of training on except the President of the French Republic! Why was the Whitewall champion held so cheap? he is, at all events, as well-bred to run as any animal in existence. The doings about the Cup have been anticipated as were Aphrodite's for the Doncaster Stakes. They laid 4 to 1 on her, and she won their odds for them hy half-a-dozen lengths. When will philosophy determine the stuff of which man's morale is compounded? Sir Joseph Hawley is taking leave of the turf-which is the same as if you said he was turning his back upon ten thousand a year; and Lord Glasgow is as full of running as the T.Y.C.!

There is nothing to interrupt our going straight to Newmarket, except a passing tribute to the spirit-the true, the befitting spirit with which Eglinton Park Races were put on the scene. Here we have "Caledonia stern and wild" contributing upwards of twelve hundred pounds towards a sport, for which it is impossible to suppose she can have a natural bias. George Marlow, got-up for a ride on the Flying Dutchman, must look like the inhabitant of another world to a Highland gillie, born and bred in a kilt. The First October Meeting at head quarters was a good average. The interest, however, was very various. I might, indeed, have said the principal-for the value of the stakes differed awfully. A field of three "flying coursers"-to quote Mr. Batty's style descriptive-equitated over Newmarket Heath for a score of pounds to the winner is infra dig., and no misapprehension. The Grand Duke Michael Stakes the Mountain Deer won, beating Anspach; but the mare's subsequent running for the Town Plate proclaimed her form to be much deteriorated. The Triennials are grateful introductions to the materiel of the course. They pay the proprietors of good

horses as a set-off against the handicap havoc, we ought to be obliged to their institutors. One of these savoury morsels fell to the share of Hernandez-albeit the worst esteemed of the party he ran with. Another, the Nigger carried off: a third Red Hind. The cynosure of the Second October week was the Cesarewitch: handicap. For this, seventy-three "animals" were entered, and a field of six-and-twenty went. The lot was "scratch"-that's the fact: and the betting to match. The operations, indeed, were beyond algebra: nine-tenths of the list houses in Great Britain and Ireland were on the spot to "assist" at it. A vast sensation waited on the victory of Mrs. Taft-wherefore I cannot tell. She is six years old, by Don John, out of a half-bred mare-those cocktail pedigrees!-and carried six stone-fourteen pounds a-year. It is true there was Woolwich; but he gave her a year, and the weight of a good portmanteau. Moreover, she had been picking up the crumbs with heavier lumber up. Altogether, it was about as likely a consequence as one may reckon for from the current premises of handicaps. The two-year-old stake-the Clearwell-won by Kingston, I don't think afforded a line to be relied on for coming

events.

The Houghton Meeting wound up the "list" season, with the Cambridgeshire Stakes-a great coup for the profession. The winner was never in the market; so that every penny paid into the houses was profit. Truth having won from end to end in a canter, was straightway objected to; by some, on the score of age; by others, on the score of identity. That these insinuations were weak inventions of the enemy, was presently shown; and Mr. Phillips got his money. But is this practice of making a man "eat dirt" à discretion to continue ? Will nothing be attempted to restrain disappointed people from offering foul offence with impunity? The Jockey Club should look to this, or it will find its way into Westminster Hall. The racing lasted, as it always does at this meeting, for the six days of the week. It was ample; but as a fact part and parcel of the policy of the turf, not without cause for anxiety. Disunion had evidently begun its work, and men that our great national sport can ill spare were looking cold upon it for consciencesake. The crisis past, things may right themselves again; but there is present peril. It would serve no purpose to recapitulate the performances of the two-year-olds, or to set speculation agog as to the future. In these cases the patient may best minister to himself-a principle, be it said, of English practice, which has proved itself a great popular specific. The coup d'état does not suit our constitution; nevertheless though we be slow, we are sure. The scheme of trading in races is illegitimate it is apart from the purposes of sport it is altogether inconvenient. What a comment on the crying absurdity of a November meeting was the exhibition of one of these anniversaries last year upon Epsom Downs! Betting for the million was a most mishievous conceit it has already begun to cure itself. In materiel the turf was never half so strong as it is now: the problem of the necessity of popular amusement was never more emphatically illustrated. It is not well for a nation to neglect wholesome occasions of recreative association. Friends and countrymen, I bid ye with my whole heart a Happy New Year! The means to ensure the wish are in our own hands. Shall we not be grateful for the grace!......

OPENING OF THE WINTER EXHIBITION.

-"WEATHER PERMITTING”—

BY SCRIBBLE.

Hurrah! how it pours! "Now is the winter of our discontent" about to disappear for a time. What a glorious sound to listen to, after these biting frosts-that pit-pat, rattle-rattle, against the window! There are other very pleasant symptoms, too, of a change of weather: all the females of the establishment--from the mistress to the scullerymaid-have relaxed sore throats; all the children, too (except the eldest boy, who is like me) are in bed with swelled faces. Hail! ye harbingers of thaw! little bottles of pale rose-coloured cough-mixture, labelled for "Miss Amelia❞—one spoonful every half-hour, or oftener if the cough is troublesome. It is astonishing how selfish women are in trifles; they cannot conceal their satisfaction at a hard frost; they look as rosy and smiling at the anticipation of a clean, bright, hard, dry walk, as if there were no foxhounds in existence. This is rather too bad and not content with enjoying their own blue-nose propensities, they insist upon your sharing them. I think they are the very worst judges of a fine day possible: they know nothing about it: they dislike wet, heavy wet-what a happiness they were not born ducks! Myself, I'm the least selfish fellow alive, and an intense admirer of the domestic intelligence of women. You may imagine this, when I tell you that I have been known to pass a long morning, shopping, in the carriage with my friend the Duchess of Doolittle, and even wound up the evening in sorting worsteds for Lady Emily Newbiggin. The Duchess-admirable creature !-got me as far as the Strand, in search of some cheap linen for the Duke's new shirts (the times are so bad); but the coachman, who is a great swell in his way, pretended ignorance of the locality, not having been engaged to go "heast of St. Clement's." I only mention these little facts to show that I really do appreciate women in their proper place, and on proper subjects, as shirts and worsteds: on the weather they are bête to a degree.

The reader (not that I care three straws for his opinion, gentle or simple) will make a mental figure not over complimentary, equivalent to the contact of thumb with nose—at this slight mention of the Duchess and Lady Emily. He may rest assured-vulgar beast!—that no author, with any regard for his reputation, ever knows any one below the rank of a baron: if he does, he only notices his commoner friends when he wants to borrow money, or in a back street, or over a mutton chop and a pint of sherry in August or September, when the world is out of town. Who do you think would buy my books, if they treated of John Smith, or William Jones, or Mrs. Biffin? No one-unless, indeed, some man of really high rank and fashion, and more than average common sense, got tired of his externals for a time, and shook hands in print with the infirmities of his meaner fellow-creatures. love the aristocracy and so do you, and you know it; so take your mental thumb from your bottle-nose, and make up your mind not to hear of anything but lords and ladies (perhaps a very very distinguished member of parliament occasionally) in any accounts of my acquaintances.

C

I

This has been a digression, and, like many other digressions, a very profitable and agreeable one. Who could write a book without them? I'm not going to invent runs, and brooks, and fences, and falls, to amuse the public. I might as well be asked to invent open weather at once, which we've only just got at the end of some very uncomfortable frost.

"The hopes and fears
Of boyhood's years"

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are as nothing-mere bagatelles, when compared with the hopes and fears of some middle-aged gentleman who witnesses alternate frosts and thaws such as we have had during the past month. Place yourself in his situation: fancy yourself (difficult as it may be) a real lover of hunting; or fancy yourself (no difficult matter at all) an intense admirer of your own legs and feet in leathers and tops; and a lover of fashionable sport, or horse-exercise, or the club at Melton, or a good breakfast and dinner with a parcel of men, or the coffee-room part of a hunting-field; imagine, too, that you've gone through some difficulties, or some lengths, to get your favourite hobby-and you won't like a November without sport, and often without a meet, any more than I do. A stud of hunters costs a great deal-I do not mean money, but various concomitants which a long purse cannot always avoid. You have got your horses-at least, you believe they'll carry you: if they remain right, they will; but you have also got a house at Brighton-and a wife, dear soul! who adores you, i. e., next to the house at Brighton, and the point-lace you so cruelly refused her, because you never saw such hocks on a horse in all your life, and you must have him." The lady will have a house in Northamptonshire, besides the one at Brighton, London, in the Highlands, and your own place in Flintshire (which is not quite your idea of a hunting country): she has also a taste for old china; doats on Wardour-street curiosities; and has seen such a love of a diamond necklace at Turner's, that 'tis lucky you saw the hoeks first, or the diamonds would have won in a canter. As it is, you'll have no peace till the next London season, and then only at the house. Fancy-if you have an imagination-having waded through all these troubles, and left that adorable creature, whom you swore to love and cherish for ever and ever, in strong hysteries, because you wont increase your hunting establishment by a lady's-maid, footman, page, two parrots, a monkey, a Chinese monster, a governess, the Honourable Frederick Pickle and his four sisters. Fancy having fought and conquered for what? why, for the pleasure of finding the middle of England-merry England!-covered with snow on the 5th of November, and seeing not half a dozen runs worthy the name, in as many weeks, amongst as many packs of hounds! Yet such has been the case this year. Doesn't it give you the jaundice to read of it ?-when you expected to hear or to see in print the name of some thick-headed bumpkin cousin or friend, whose prowess in the field is ever on the tip of his own tongue, to find "a beggarly account of empty boxes:" not horse-boxes-they have been full enough.

case.

You great people appear to me to have rather the worst of it in this Little people are accustomed to be disappointed sometimes; and two or three horses are not the same expense as fourteen or sixteen: not that I think expense is ever considered in large studs. The men

who inquire the price of oats are the poor men, the men who pay as they go. It is in the abstract a greater bore to have sixteen horses doing nothing, than to have only three in the same predicament; but the disappointment to the poor man is just as great-perhaps greater, as he is frequently dependent on his winter's sport for his only amusement; whilst you, my aristocratic friend, can run backwards and forwards from your box in the provinces, to your box in London, and instead of shaking in the one sort, are shaking the other sort of box to a tune more amusing than profitable. Don't imagine either, our heavy swell, that you are the only man possessed of a wife, with a monkey and a Chinese monster. There's a Chinese monster in every house, only it comes under another name.

By the way, this reminds me of Binks; and if I could give you his diary entire, what a wonderful amount of sporting intelligence, novelty of idea, and insight into domestic happiness of the middle classes, the world might acquire! Breach of confidence is not one of my faults, so you must content yourself with some extracts.

Binks put in his first appearance in the hunting-field on Monday the 3rd November: his stud, selected probably with much care, but little judgment, consists of four: 1st-Sugarplum by Sweetmeat (so he says) is evidently out of a cart-a light taxed-cart; and by certain sears on his hocks, shews signs of having been one too many for the eart at some time or other: he's a strong, raw-boned, ragged-hipped horse, and would go at anythink (as Binks insists upon calling it); but he looks no more like a hunter than the man in the moon. 2ndDrayman was bought from a brewer, who hunted him in Essex: just what he's fit for a very useful horse; and having said that we've said all: it means that he is strong, and looks as if he had been fed upon grains all his life. He jumps timber moderately well, and always drops his hind legs into every other sort of fence. Never buy an useful one, if you can help it, for a midland county: they're only fit for the plough, literally speaking. 3rd-Happy-go-lucky is a long-legged brute, with a handsome head and tail, and over-worked fetlocks, fit to carry a light boy to a pack of harriers and 4th-is the President, the only hunter in the whole of the team with a strong suspicion about his wind, and a very mild-looking off hind-leg. In fact, though a good sort, he's very like the French gentleman's horse, whose legs were excellent :-"Dat is, tree vare goode indeed, bot de oder not qui―ite so goode!"

But stay, I forgot Binks. Oh! here it is! I wish he wrote and spelt rather better. To be sure his abbreviations are convenient, though not quite so orthodox as one could wish

"Monday, 3rd Nov.-First appearance in any field: rode the President-14 miles to go to meet-did it in an hour and a half— trotted all the way-lazy beggar! President didn't seem half alive at the sight of the dogs. Sewell Wood: prime place-stopped there nearly all day. If they want to kill a fox why don't they shoot him? -could have killed him ever so many times: drove him back every time he showed his nose outside. Uncommon neat set, to be sure! don't seem to look at the fox or the dogs much-suppose they're accustomed to it-smoked all the way home-roast mutton and ginpunch-capital day!

"Wednesday 5th.-Never had such a pain in the back in all my