that noble animal the horse! for, no sooner does the filly hear this threat uttered, than she calmly proceeds to join the rest of the field, and is never again seen past the post until they are off in another false start! Bolero takes it as coolly as usual, and is pulled up by the fine horseman on him in a few strides, and Fordham is not far away; but Buck has another once round' to himself, and the glasses are up to see what that is careering in the hazy distance, some two miles on. It is The Flower Safety, of course, and Woolcott rides up to Lord Coventry to say they need not wait any longer for his mare, as he thinks she has had about enough of it; and we think so too! Still there is plenty of time, my good sir, and after another scamper or two The Flower Safety comes trotting back with a bigger lad on her back, and her jockey riding a pony by her side. However, he is definitely ordered off, as the Admiral apostrophises the others as 'a something lot of young fools,' and angrily inquires of M'George if he 'ever means to start them? There is something more in an undertone; and then, 'Give me the flag, sir, let me do it!' But the hapless man lowers his flag instanter, the one in front does the same, and amidst roars of No! no!-It's a start!—It's not!-Yes!-No!' they are off at lastor, at least, some of them, in the most wretched scrambling way, and we hear shouts proclaiming afar that the pots' are upset after all, while a kind of telegram comes oozing down that the lad in the dirty white jacket is first, with twenty to one against him. We had rather not echo the bit of recrimination which follows at the post, but we will try and draw some deduction from the fifty odd minutes we have spent here. No man could have fairly started that field of horses until the Admiral came down, for some of the jockeys took no heed whatever of the starter. If these light weights and half-mile spins are to be continued and here is the great source of all evil-let a steward be always at the post to see fair, but on no pretence whatever to interfere with the duty of the starter any more than he would with that of the judge. Moreover, let the most stringent measures be adopted. Fines are of little use, as they are generally paid by those who order the lads to get 'well off.' The rather let a horse, whose jockey is proved to have taken, or to have attempted to take, an unfair advantage of the others at starting, be as certainly disqualified as if he had crossed or jostled in the race itself. This would spoil the betting on pots,' as bets would go with stakes, and so do away with the great incentive for the evil. An offender might thus be ordered away from the post, or objected to when the race was over; while, of course, the chief evidence against him would be that of the starter and the steward in attendance. One thing is very palpable, that the former must be supported and not bullied, or the little lads will only follow the example, and put their tongues in their cheeks and laugh at him. From all we witnessed on that Thursday afternoon they must reform it altogether,' or no man can long hold so thankless an office."

This was written more than three years since, but we see no occasion to alter or blot out one word of it; while we have given here the starts at three different eras at the three great meetings of the worldon Epsom Downs, Doncaster Moor, and Newmarket Heath.

AFTER.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY A. COOPER, R.A.

Our companion sketch might be a portrait-of "the old horse" of course, who was well in front until within a distance or so of home, where the weight told on him. But he may win a few Royal Plates yet, or even challenge for the Whip. The scene here is clearly on an off day, say in the First October Meeting, with not even a commissioner to tell out the story of his defeat. But Abraham Cooper's reminiscences are still clearly of a by-gone age, although as Sam Slick has it, always in season :-"You seed the crowd a follerin

of the winnin horse when we come there, didn't you? Yes, sir, said I, I did. Well, when colt beat him, no one follered him at all, but come a crowdin about him. That's popularity, said he, soon won, soon lost cried up sky-high one minute, and desarted the next, or run down; colt will share the same fate. He'll get beat afore long, and then he's done for. The multitude are always fickle-minded. great Washington found that out, and the British Officer that beat Buonaparte; the bread they gave him turned sour afore he got half through the loaf. His soap had hardly stiffened afore it ran right back to lye and grease again."

Our

There is a wholesome but bitter moral in the quaint philosophy of the Clockmaker, of which we have yet some every-day illustration.

THE BARON

DE BONCHOSE.

BY A. H. B.

CAPTAIN SMYTHE'S STORY, AND THE DEAD DOG'S TALE.

"Now, Baron, as the harmony is over and the room thinned of its members, I will tell you the adventure that has induced me to advise all people never to buy a dog in the streets.' Personal experience, you know, is the most convincing, if it may not always be the most agreeable of lessons.”

"I shall be vare much oblige to you, Capitaine, I assure you; for, to tell you ze truth, I am a leetle uneasy upon my own purchase, vich I am told is too sheap to be honest dog.'

"Honest dogs, or honest men either, Baron, are not often picked up on the London pavé. However, we must all live and learn: there is scarcely an adventure in life that does not teach us something we should otherwise never have known. Sometimes it may turn out to our advantage, sometimes the contrary; but when a man makes an ass of himself,' as the saying is, through inexperience, and gets laughed at into the bargain, he is apt to eat his humble pie' with ' revenge sauce,' longing to see his smiling acquaintances partake of the same dish, or something like it. It is a spice of human nature, but I doubt

if it helps the digestion. The best remedy is to unburden the mind: relate the affair with all its weaknesses, and join heartily in the laugh against yourself. It is astonishing the effect; the irritation ceases instanter, and you blunt the point of the scalpel; besides which, you obtain a position in the blunder worthy a philosopher. Mine is exactly a case of this description; and I only hope it will cause you as much amusement to listen to it as it does me to repeat it.

"I must first inform you, Baron, that my wife-heaven rest her fidgety soul!--was then alive, and, as she was of an extremely delicate constitution, a most sensitive and nervous temperament, and had immense expectations, it was always my chief study to gratify her tastes and whims in all things, regardless of expense. She was the daughter of the enlightened and wealthy John Glasscock, chandelier manufacturer to the Queen, the rest of the Royal Family, the nobility, and all other National Institutions, besides the chief clubs and the trade in general. It was looked upon by the Smiths in the light of a Belle Alliance, and worthy our great name-which, by-the-bye, Glasscock stipulated should henceforth be written and pronounced Smythe.' She was an only child, and set down by the world as the rich heiress of 'Cut-Glass Vale.' I certainly viewed her as such myself, and went in for her with that idea. How miserably disappointed I have been in my golden dreams I scarcely dare trust myself to mention; for, after some years of doubtful bliss and hope deferred, I found myself the insignificant father of an only child-a daughter. This sort of failure is evidently a hereditary peculiarity under which certain aspiring families are doomed to suffer. It had the effect in my case of totally demolishing all my castles in the air, and putting to flight a host of delicious visions of future indulgencies and extravagance. Glasscock's disappointment and bitterness turned to boiling rage. To be revenged on our weakness, and male-heir bankruptcies in general, he converted his intentions of liberality to his daughter into the resolution to build and endow an hospital for the blind, on principles entirely his own, absolutely settling his plans for its site, and talking loudly of a first instalment of £100,000 immediately after the christening of our luckless babe. Still, as I was under the obligation to him of a very handsome annual allowance, I managed to smother my gall the best way I could; which operation I could almost have performed on the blessed infant also. Nevertheless, in time we doted on our little Tryphenia, although I sometimes fancied to myself -mind that, Baron, to myself-that the rich auburn hair, so much admired and so variously tortured and tonged, approached too near to the vulgarly-named 'carroty;' and that her eyes, so inquisitive and piercing, the fastidious, from certain reddish tinges round the lids, might have stamped as 'ferrety.' Her temper likewise, as she increased in years, turned strangely after her amiable mother's. Such was the every-day state of my domestic circle, uninterrupted in its cheerfulness and discipline; when one morning Mrs. S. (who, to my discriminating observation, was looking rather more peevish-I was going to have said snappish-than ordinary) requested me, without delay, to procure for our beloved Tryphenia a pet spaniel; small-very small; with long-very long ears; and in all respects suited in beauty and behaviour as a companion and playmate for our dear angel. Sweet soul!' she continued; she has seen Lady Millicent with such a duck of

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