was in every mouth at the close. The son of Sweetmeat is as well known on northern race-courses, as Billy Purvis the play-manager was at the Northumberland fairs. We only needed a match between Lord Lyon and "Trip" at 10lbs. over the Rowley Mile, or one between the chesnut and Achievement at evens over the same course, to bring down the legitimate curtain in triumph. "Frip's" running shows that we were not far out when, after seeing him climb the R.M. hill so well, we believed implicitly in The Rake for the Derby. As regards the Cesarewitch, it is remarkable that the Yorkshiremen who lost so much by Plaudit in the early part of the year, should win so much at the finish with his tutor! The only neat joke about this race was made in Banter. It was to the effect that a turfite went about behaving outrageously to every one, and that, when asked his reason for it, he replied that he wished some one to kick him into the middle of next week, that he might find what would win the Cambridgeshire, and make his book accordingly." One thing is certain, the "army of observation" on the Ditch on the Cesarewitch day did not make much out, as they have done in the case of Malacca and others. Savernake's unlucky career must be nearly at an end. To judge from training reports, he never seems sound for six weeks together, and £1,215 is all that is likely to stand to his credit with Weatherby. He is a standing instance of the absurd allotment of second money in great races. When the Jockey Club did take up the question for in the Derby they might have said £500 and £100 instead of £350 and £150. It is understood that the same arrangement could have been made for the St. Leger, but that Mr. Chaplin objected. Having run second himself, perhaps he will now be more sympathetic. The wonder was that they would take the step at all when the Sporting Life pressed it so strongly on them. The "distribution," like that of seats in the Reform Bill, is allowed on all hands to be very imperfect. They have now manipulated the Two Thousand as well as the Derby, but in the former the second only gets £200, and the third his stake back. Why do things by halves when they were on the right track at last?

When they were also about the weights the Club might have gone further. "The hard and fast line," which might most naturally occur to them, was to raise the filly weights in the Derby and St. Leger to the colt weights, and the others in proportion, which would have made 8st. 7lbs. and 8st. 12lbs. Had they done so, both Wells and Aldcroft might with hard pinching have had another season of it, whereas now it seems impossible. The young jockeys are very strong at present, and, in fact, there perhaps never was more general talent in the saddle at all weights, but still men like the above two are a sad loss. "Tom" and his rushes were almost unique, and Wells rode uniformly well; whether in a match or a crowd.

Among the eccentricities of the month, is the conduct of the Jockey Club to Mr. Blenkiron. Disguise it as we may, that gentleman gives. £3,000 to the Newmarket racing, and only gets an unpleasant slap on the face in return. It is impossible to believe that the words "the rules of the Club will not admit of it" mean what they strictly imply. One might faney that the members were bound by some charter, instead of being a Club of gentlemen who can adopt what rules they like, and

"suspen standing orders" if they like to meet a peculiar case. They are auswerable to nobody but themselves, and can of course relay their rules as well as make them. As we read it, the phrase adopted is a mild way of veiling the unpleasant fact that the motion was lost on a division; and as the rule of the Club is to be guided by the majority, the expression is merely a pious fraud, or play upon words. If this be so, it argues great carelessness on the part of the stewards in rot ascertaining whether the motion could be carried before Mr. Blenkiron was subjected to such annoyance. He did not scck or expect any public recognition of his liberality, and he might at least have bee spared this slur. In very ill-timed proximity to this decision there comes a warning voice from the Club that people who have no business there have often got into the stands where only noble foreigners, people of rank, and ladies, &c., &c., are welcome.

The coursing season has set in very merrily, and Mr. Warwick needs an iron constitution to go through his travelling and saddle labours. He is already engaged for 16 meetings between this and Jan. Sth. He judged at the South Lancashire meeting, standing on a ladder. Mr. Gibson's luck was as untoward as ever in the Scottish National St. Leger, as five of his kennel went down in the first round. Improver won the Douglas Cup, as his sire Patent did before him. The Hon. Mr. Arbuthnot did not make a very encouraging debut with the grandsons of Seagull, which he purchased at Aldridge's in the winter. Mr. Saunders, of Nunwick, another welcome accession to the leash, divided the Whitehaven Cup with his Sam and Santa Margu-rita. The Grand Master blood did for others in Co. Louth what it has not yet done for Mr. Gibson; and the Canaradzo blood took the City Plate at Carlisle with Saffrano, and half the Brampton with Crossfe!l: Calabaroono and Vermont Raider came out as successful maiden sires at Ashdown. Bothal has gone quite ahead in its second year, with 114 subscribers to its leading stake, which came down to 64, and Jane Anne by Bonus as the winner. The Bentinck Cup, so called in honour of the Duke of Portland, over whose 13,000 acres it is run off, was divided between Patent Lever and Elsecar, both by Patent. Langholm by Owersby, a kennel mate of the former, won a good stake the same day at the Wigtownshire Club. At the South Lancashire, Mr. J. Berry, who won the Oaks last year with Betsy, won the Derby this year with John by Saladin-Polly (whose own sister Blyth ran up for the Oaks), and again carried off the piece of plate which the winners run fot. Brigadier and Royal Seal were names of note in the Scarisbrick Cup, but Royal Seal beat the Waterloo Cup winner, and was beat herself in her third course, and victory rested with Crossfell. Old Canaradzo is more than ten years old now, and his blood runs as well as ever, Chloe's lot by him to wit-Clarissa, Cheap John, and Cinderella did very badly at the Wiltshire Champion; while those out of her by his son King Death did much towards redeeming their shortcomings. Luxemburg was only drawn after an undecided course in the fourth round of the Great Western Cup, and Charming May was beaten in her third for The Bracelet by Helena by Calabaroono the runner-up.

The jingle of falling crockery and the shouts at fallen honour are noises so jarring and distressing, that it is painful to discuss them, and yet we must, for both have been broken by a faux-pas, and both must be repaired or replaced. The first is a matter of money, the second— well! so is the second. Broken! No word so effectually proclaims the termination of a whole, as this fatal exclamation. It announces an unmistakable proof of depreciation for the future; for whether it be a pipkin, or matchless china tea-pot, a low costermonger, a limited liability bank, or a high change capitalist, that has suffered through careless handling, the market value of the one and the credit of the other are injured by the fall, and what remains of either are the fragments of mended, patched-up, riveted objets de vertu. The baked earthenware of the potteries may occasionally escape with an unobserved chip, rendered invisible by the cunning cement of some clever manipulist; but the living, moving, restless clay of speculative man, feels the open wound of broken faith upon each cold breath of suspicion; if restored he is never the same; he has lost the ring of soundness, there is a piece wanting; one spot, "one damued spot, which all the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten," still remains unhealed.

As applied to the turf, now at fever heat, the term "broken" has a keener and more exterminating effect. In its character it is comminuted, and the shattered member is almost at the first diagnosis declared incurable, and either effectually removed, or a long time pronounced necessary for recovery; indeed, should the sufferer ultimately re-appear on the scenes of his misfortune, he is too often afflicted with that peculiar limp, noticeable in the gait of a "short leg," or stands alone in the background of doubt.

In sporting parlance, "broken" or "broken down," is received as the final bow of either man or horse on the theatre of racing, and to whichever the accident occurs, they are equally viewed and spoken of as "settled," "extinguished," or "gone," terms in that community of" sympathisers," synonymous with "dead;" would I could add buried! The funeral, however, is too frequently postponed, and the "corpse" kept alive in profound secrecy by the "mourners," until the last ray of profit has evaporated, when the dread confederacy are compelled in honour" to blow up their Guy Fawkes, beyond that point in the Zodiac of betting, known as the other side of Jordan ;" then, when the smoke has cleared away, it is discovered that some one or more are "broken."

66

If this were all, if this were the sole evil, the Hydra-headed monster might be met and contended with, and the groans of the "broken" would not be so often heard on the wheel of misfortune; but no Hudson Bay trapper ever devoted himself more studiously and intensely to

Z

the capture of the richly-prized furs of the sable and ermine, than does the cunning" black leg" abandon himself body and soul to the devising schemes for ensnaring the man of honour, who, skinned to perfection with the address of an Indian scalper, at last throws up his arms in despair, and exclaims, "I am broken!"

For many years past have I watched the coming in and going out of the butterflies of the Heath; it is a sad catalogue of the same thing over and over again, for there is less variety perhaps in the life of a racing man, excepting in detail, than in any other where the consequences are so important. On his first appearance, with the manycoloured down unsoiled, his flights are gentle and imposing. Shorn of his wings, he slinks away like a grub. Confident in himself, the young, rich, and high-born enters the arena unprepared, saved with a dashing spirit, pride of birth, plenty of ready money, and that love of sport and innate love of betting natural to most Englishmen, to do battle with the wily and experienced swordsman, the touch of whose metallic foil is an indelible and "palpable hit." Flattered, tempted, even caressed on his reception, he soon strips to it manfully, and throwing off all reserve, brings himself to the level of a professional. "Coached" by a wealthy "leg," he is for sometime safe in his investments; protected by some d-d good fellow, he can't do wrong; he is master of the game, reads up the calendar; weights, dates, and names are at his tongue's end; the problem is solved, and he is fit for a double first in turf honours. At last, poor fool, he thinks he knows something, that he has really been admitted behind the scenes, and helped to pull the strings. Behold him now, the fruit is ripe, the tree is shaken, and it falls on his devoted head. His "leg" Mentors still guide him in his confusion, until three more "certainties" properly administered complete his delirium, when he tumbles to pieces "broken," and is seen no more. What a fearful and crushing sentence-"to be seen no more!" He may commit suicide, enlist, or seek shelter in the Antipodes; but here "he must be seen no more." His education and moral courage, if he has any, is all that he has to fall back upon, or support him; for if he is a man of honour, he has parted with everything, even to the last farthing, to meet his engagements and keep his word unbroken. No mercy, no pity, no condolence, no helping hand is held out to him, no sympathy or assistance offered. He finds himself at the moment literally alone and deserted: "I give thee sixpence? I'll see thee d-d first." The crockery of honour has been fairly, or unfairly smashed, and the wreck is not worth the picking up, and sticking together again.

The whereabouts or hiding-places of the departed have long been a subject of much speculation and mystery to the shrewdest observers. Home, friends, society, the world, at least the world they were born to, is lost to them; they must make a new one out of the best matter they can knock up from the ruins of the old one. The continent or foreign service are, I believe, the chief receptacles of the fallen; but surely, would it not be an act of the tenderest charity, these "racing times," for some of the successful, those who have safely landed their "monkeys" and "ponies," to provide a hospital for the "broken," some final resting-place and refuge for their hopeless and disspirited brother sportsmen Alas! what a horrible and appalling spectacle! Imagine

A procession of wretched, dejected, and heart-broken Frankensteins! victims of the leviathans of their own upraising! Some few of the half-bred discarded seek consolation and exist "promise-crammed," hoping against hope, dragging on a sottish life in the purlieus of publichouses, waiting for a "good thing," a "turn of luck," Aunt Dorothy's long-promised legacy, or "a moral," whichever coming to hand first, being doomed to be squandered amongst the lowest of the low; thus the poor asses of a mad infatuation saunter through life, and crawl out of the world on all-fours, to the great relief of themselves and all connected with them.

Occasionally it happens that a genuine fallen star turns up in the most unexpected manner, and in the most unlooked-for localities. Not long ago, in a ramble through the country, my annual custom during long vacation, I chanced to run against one of these exploded meteors of the "upper ten," who had withdrawn from the ring after a severe and hard-fought battle, which had terminated in his signal, but not ignominious defeat. The following sketch of his after-life "in retirement" may perhaps prove interesting, and explanatory of what I have previously stated respecting the dangers of the unequal contest that awaits the adventurous high-bred turfite.

There is a small out-of-the-way village on the bold coast of Norfolk, with a remarkably convenient haven or port attached to it; but so seldom is it heard of, or intruded on, that it is lost in its own seclusion, and only to be found on the county map, it being out of the grasp of "Bradshaw," or any other time-table, or finger-post directory. It is situated off the line of everywhere, leads to nowhere, and is famous for nothing, not as yet even its own charms; in fact, it is simply composed of fishermen's cottages, a few necessary shops, a chapel, and some straggling residences of rather a better class than you would expect. Some wealthy speculator or fanciful physician may one day convert it into a swarming sea-side folly at present it is free from the vices of society and the foibles of fashion. I know of no spot so secluded and picturesque, certainly none healthier; and its inhabitants, a simple, hardy, fearless, and open-hearted race, are as yet uncontaminated by friction with the outer world.

Finding myself within a five-mile walk of this "happy valley" (for so low does it stand that, until you are close upon it, it is almost hidden by the ridge of high ground that surrounds it), I packed up my knapsack, and marched boldly forth in search of the new Elysium. Nor was I disappointed, for once in the way the picture had not been overdrawn, its natural attractions not exaggerated, and the primitive state of innocence and simplicity of its inhabitants refreshingly striking. According to instructions I put up at the little inn, the only one established for the accommodation of the master-fishermen, whom it supplied with those creature-comforts occasionally necessary in winter nights, affording them at the same time the convenience of a parlour to transact business, to have a friendly chat, or smoke a neighbourly pipe in. But one newspaper or journal ever circulated around this unsophisticated company it was the Shipping Gazette, which told them of relations far away, and vessels known to many.

The house, I quickly perceived, was of its class most respectable, particularly clean, and in every way agreeable. The landlord, himself