Wednesday Dec. 12, Tatton Park.-Found at Ashley Cover, and had a good 47 minutes, and killed at Ringway, near Castle Mill. A fine old dog fox.

Thursday, Dec. 13, Tabley Hall.-A fair day's sport, but an unlucky day, running three foxes to ground.

Monday, Dec. 17, Aston Hall.-Found in the Grange Cover, and had a good woodland run of 1 hour and 5 minutes, and killed the fox in Bird's Wood. Another fox was viewed over the railway, and was run to ground at Dutton Hall Farm. Found a third fox at Whitby Gorse, and had a clipper for 47 minutes, and lost the fox near Stretton Village, owing to wrong information at a check. Very fast.

Thursday, Dec. 18, Pool Hall.-Found at Pool Gorse, and had a good run to ground at Church Minshull-very fast. Found a second fox at Aston Gorse, and soon lost; the fox had gone too long. Found number three at Hills Gorse, and had a sharp ring of 25 minutes, and killed our fox.

Friday, Dec. 21, Cholmondeley.-A fair day's sport; killed one fox. Saturday, Dec. 22, Mickledale Hills.-Found at Mickledale Hill, and killed a fine old dog fox at Helby's Hill; 1 h. and 10 min. A good scent. Thursday, Dec. 27, Church Minshull.-Found at Aston Old Gorse, and killed at Minshull; 37 minutes. A good run; racing pace.

Friday, Dec. 28, Sattersford Bridge.-Found at Union Gorse, and killed the fox at Kinderton. Time 25 minutes; fast.

Monday, Dec. 31, Norton Priory.--Found in the Railway Cover, and had a fair hunting for 45 minutes: supposed he got to ground. Found a second fox at Sandemore Cover, and had a capital run of 2 hours and 10 minutes, and changed fox in Darsbury Cover, where there were three foxes before the hounds. A good day's sport.

Stopped hunting, with frost and snow, from Monday, Dec. 31, to the 7th of January.

Tuesday, Jan. 8, The Obelisk.-A hunting run of one hour from Halford Moss. After that, hard frost, and ground covered with snow.

For lack of something better to do in the frost, those of the M.F.H.'s who were "associate commissioners" appeared in the Raphael Chamber at the "Kensington Boilers," and you heard them true to themselves, as they passed down the Vernon Gallery, where three copyists were busy over Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman, discussing the state of scent up to the frost. It was a remarkable gathering, and very much astonished the 320 looked when their gracious Prince read them a paper barely ten minutes long and then dismissed them. Tutors had left their pupils, professors their thigh-bones and hydrostatics, statesmen their portfolios, millionaires their desks, artists their palettes, and sculptors their chisels, and some had lost a whole day's work simply for that. Mr. Mechi was in great force as usual, and shook hands with everybody in his jovial way, and everybody went away not one whit wiser than they came. A printed paper said that there were to be four horses "specimens of the breed of the country" at Paris, but affixed no remarks to "dogs." Perhaps on the whole it was the most distinguished, the most purposeless, and the briefest meeting ever held, and that is something to say. Surely Mr. Cole and the Commissioners might have managed matters very differently if they had chosen to give them. selves the trouble.

Special commissioners have been most busy and ironical, and prophets have been most daring and polite in letting us know all about the great events four or five months before they come off. Plaudit's leg plaisters have been a most fruitful theme with our controversialists, who bandy the compliments of the season pretty freely over them. Forcible language is in vogue now; e. g., in answer to a correspondent: it you've nothing to complain of;" and no blinking the word at all. But we live in a wonderful age. One writer says that the plaisters are on the crack's legs merely on "preventive service" principles, and that those who don't know that this is a common practice talk "bunkum nonsense." Then we have, per contra, "Every person with the most superficial knowledge of racing affairs is well aware that plaister bandages are not put on perfectly sound horses, whatever bunkum nonsense' may be talked of to the contrary," and so they go on pitching into each other. Outsiders very naturally say that all these assurances that a horse is sound don't go for much, when the writers confess that they cannot see the horse's legs for these plaisters. Bobby Hill used to gum-bandage every horse he had during his Aske reign. It is remarkable how many take it for granted that the Richmond horse will win "The Guineas," and how sceptical they are about his Derby chance. Many of the Newmarket men seem to fancy D'Estournel more than The Rake, We hear that the former is a very nice, smart nag, and a good deal like his grandsire Sweetmeat. We saw nothing in The Rake last year to remind us of Wild Dayrell, but we must have thought differently of his looks when he was sold as a yearling, or we should have hardly written he "pleased us not a little, and is full of his sire." At this lapse of time we cannot remember his yearling looks, but we should have not made the same "sire" remark respecting him when we saw him either at Northampton or Newmarket. Between those two appearances, never did colt change and furaish more. As for Achievement, it certainly does take a long stretch of fancy to suppose that the mare who couldn't get home up the hill from the bottom at Newmarket at the end of six furlongs, will take very kindly to the Epsom finish. If it wasn't roaring that sent her all abroad there, it was an utter inability to stay six furlongs with The Rake. She could not have been so cut up by her race with Plaudit, as the backers of the Richmond colt would make out. As long as she was on level ground or coming down hill she seemed to "command" The Rake and the whole squad well enough.

On the other hand, trying the mare's form through Pericles, it would seem that either the hill at the finish of the Middle Park Plate regularly found her out as a roarer, or else that giving 4lbs. to Plaudit and coming away from the rest of the field with him in the Clearwell had overtaxed her. She gave the Duke of Newcastle's colt 7lbs. in that race on the Tuesday, and he was only a very bad third. Next day she gives Knight of the Garter 4lbs., and just beats him by a neck, and when Knight of the Garter and Pericles ran together two days after over the T.Y.C., Pericles in receipt of 3lbs. gives the Knight a length beating. This running would make Pericles about 2lbs. better than Knight of the Garter, and within half a neck of the mare, if he had met her at 4lbs. in the Middle Park Stakes, whereas she had given him 3lbs. more in the Clearwell, and had run away from him.

It

seems to us to be pretty plain that she tried Plaudit very high, on the Tuesday, and that she exposed her pipes pretty decisively when she had to come out of the bottom on Wednesday. Our own impression is that we may see them the Two Thousand and One Thousand winners, but that the Epsom mantles will fall on other shoulders. All the line that she could give between Plaudit and The Rake, to each of whom she conceded 4lbs., ended when she reached the foot of that fatal hill, and we may thank Mr. Blenkiron for this delicious mystery owing to the capital trying course which he chose for his Plate. If a horse can do that well, like Old Forth "we may take a good deal on trust,' and to our eye The Rake looks more like going a distance than the Richmond colt.

There may be good dark Derby horses, but when we remember how many shirkings and visits to Judge Clark's box that memorable ascent has caused, it is not an every-day matter to see a two-year-old colt come up it away from his field, like an arrow from a cross-bow. Such a race is one of those landmarks which all true lovers of the turf like to look back upon in the years to come. It is not once in three seasons that one sees a great racing point apart from mere jockeyship. Teddington cutting down his Derby field from the post was one; Voltigeur catching The Dutchman inch by inch for the Doncaster Cup from the Intake turn another; Longbow v. Pelion's long rally for the Eglinton Stakes another; and so was Lord Clifden's long suffering in the St. Leger. Fine and close finishes we have in plenty, but they don't make up turf history, and if The Rake never wins another race, his Middle Park hill-climbing will be always remembered. Marksman has still many friends who hope on against hope. It may be mere fancy, but we cannot get over our first Northampton impression that, barring his temper, which seems quite as troublesome as that of Italian, or Aristides, or Phlegon, he is not a stayer, and will never care for much more than a mile, even if he does choose to try. Perhaps we shall next see him run in his clothes, as Zoroaster did. The Hermit has done all that has been asked of him cleverly enough, since he tried to take Achievement's measure and got cut down in a canter for his pains. Still we cannot fancy, to look at him, that he has quite class enough, and as it is difficult to make D'Estournel as good as Hippia on paper, that form will hardly do to swear by.

Of all tempests in a tea-pot there have been few to beat the Croydon Cruelty case. Mr. Colam lived in a rainy season of chaff, from the time he got the lift in the Croydon gig to see the fatal spot, till the opportune advent of the January entries took him off the rack of the newspapers. The Pall Mall Gazette, in which he trusted, was a sad deceiver, and gave him anything but " a straight tip" about the meaning of the word "persevere. His Man Friday, the redoubtable Simeon Sell, threw quite a new light on the science of sounding, and his skilled witnesses, the cowman and the veterinary who "does not hunt more than six days a week," were all in strict keeping with Simeon. Barring the Society, who had to pay costs and digest a reprimand as well for their officers' inefficiency, Sir Francis Head got off worst, with his three hours in the "Black Hole." Of course the Baronet wrote a letter, and, in fact, nearly everybody wrote a letter. Voightlander's owner wrote a letter, so did Mr. Crawshaw's sham uncle, and

so did Mr. Crawshaw, who was by that time solacing himself far from the scene at Hamilton Palace, to deny that he had such a foolish old uncle. Still, the finest bit of comedy was the knacker's evidence. All the testimony as to men jumping it, and ponies jumping it, were neutralised by the fact that the knacker's far-seeing soul, or rather nose, scented a carcase in the distance, and that there he was with his cart biding his time in "such high faith and trust" by the side of the "sensation fence." There is no doubt that hunting men hate this sort of bastard-jumping, and prefer a fair hunting line of country. At all events, such fences, which are not half so dangerous as many of the Liverpool grips, will no doubt be built more artistically in future. Mr. Colam, or his predecessor, did their duty well in the case of the maimed fox case some years ago, and he has scored well since Croydon in his match with the cockfighters. One thing is certain, that this excellent society will guide its ways with more discretion in future, and probably receive more support than ever from those who sympathize with it in its Croydon defeat.

The Ealing case was a much stronger one against the authorities, as no one can pretend that 14st. 7lbs. and 15st. are fair weights in a steeple-chase. Giving a heavy-weight Duke a chance of a mount is no excuse for them; but Mr. Colam's breath had been so completely taken at Croydon, that he couldn't improve the occasion. This was done to some purpose by the newspaper correspondents. Owners were indignant at insinuations, officials fired-up in reply to leaders, a tremendous "dummy" letter appeared, signed by "A Member of Tattersall's," and, finally, a great discovery was made as to cruelty in shooting Old Oswestry. We know some one who was on the spot, and we are assured that, instead of protracted agony, the poor horse dropped at the first shot, and so instantaneously that the crowd actually cheered the shooter, who did it with a gun from one of the locomotive shooting galleries. The cap missed fire the first time, and that was of course magnified into two shots. One shot also put the other out of its pain, so any capital made out of cruelty in this stage of the proceedings was as fictitious as most of the accoun's of Tom Sayers's funeral. The delay was in consequence of the difficulty of getting a gun. Many of the crowd saw the other horse shot and then came breathlessly through the mud to be in at the death of Old Oswestry, who stood by himself with a white handkerchief over his eyes. It was a sad comment on welter racing, and never was ground in a more fearful state, so that every pound told.

Lord Exeter's death gave the frozen-out memoir-men an opportunity which they embraced only too gladly. Twelve years ago a great Turfite might die, but from twenty to fifty lines written on the spur of the moment was his only tribute; whereas, now, a really representa. tive Turfite will have his column and a-half, which has been carefully digested from the moment that his fatal illness first broke upon the world. No wonder that modern turfites are so well up in the records of the past, when they are rifled and burnished up afresh as each old hero departs. Lord Exeter seemed to change very little until after his seventieth birthday, and then he went down so rapidly, that on the last Two Thousand day we hardly knew him. He had no sympathy with the new régime, and no doubt loved the old pumps and the hovels of

stands better than all the "water-towers" and "bird-cages" to which they have given way. Although his "icely regular" face was no index to his feelings, he must have groaned internally over the Breadalbane invasion from Yorkshire, and the crush of the Philistines from the metropolis, who shout their slang adjurations to each pet jockey as he goes past on the three great carnivals of the year. "The pale patrician" seemed quite out of his element, save when he was inside the Ditch stables with his jockey, and the cloud of horsemen were shut out from participation in those delicious hidden mysteries-those "few last words." However bad his stable form might be, he always looked as if he was guarding some treasured secret in a casket, and no one would have got a "Burleigh nod" or a wink out of him. He was a glorious sportsman, never despairing when things were at their worst, but sending his entries and paying his forfeits with the calm philosophy of " Lord George." When people valued the stud all round at £30 to £40, something of Lord Exeter's" would be seen going to the post with "the postboy" up, and then the shout would be heard, and caught up with delight along the cords-" Lord Exeter wins!" Such pluck will always be popular because it is so rare. Others might cut it, but "Exeter" held sternly on his way, sent down another batch of yearlings from Burghley, and hoped for better times. When the surprises" did come, everybody was delighted, and if people talked about his lordship being proud, they knew in their hearts that "we are all proud of him." Perhaps if there was a little more such pride we might have a little less of milking and other dirty tricks, and rather more loyalty to trainers and jockeys. It is astonishing what such "delightful condescension" will stoop to now-a-days.

แ

His lordship's was a character upon which those who watched him differ very widely. As to his cold proud temperament, his inflexible integrity, the profusion of his stud in old times, and his fearless entries, there can be but one opinion. Still some will have it that he was a clever tactician, while others are just as positive the other way. The latter say that his obstinacy spoilt him as a racing man. He would let no one lead him. If he knew that the world were saying that he was sticking to a soft strain, that was just the reason he would stick to it, cost what it might, rather than let people think he had been persuaded or jeered by them into changing his course. He set exclusive prices both on his yearlings and his stallions, and to this fancy he was true to the last, when The Crescent and The Cross were put at £15,000 jointly! Once upon a time, a trainer had no great chance with his Lordship, as he would hardly deign to consult with him, or even take him into his confidence; and very often when a horse had been got quite fit and ripe he would mess him about with trials till he was so stale that he could hardly beat a donkey. In fact, he liked trials quite as much as races; and if he wasn't quite sure as to which was master, he would run them over the same course the reverse way, and try if that would alter it. The backers of Stockwell declare that the horse owed his Derby defeat entirely to this insatiable love of putting horses together. After the Two Thousand the chesnut had lampas, and teeth troubles; and, as he couldn't eat, he couldn't work. Ha ever, Harlock got him very fit, considering all things, but his lordship would try him very high on