another to have read, from the living volume, the tale of consuming agony begun in bitterness, terminated in despair!

Occasionally during the season, a tall man, very distinguished in his deportment and scrupulously plain in his costume, may be seen strolling around the yard, always with a cigar alight. Rarely, if ever, he is found to enter the Room. That is Colonel Peel, one of the most influential supporters of Racing now upon the Turf. There is something eminently characteristic in family keeping, if I may compound a term, in the sporting establishment of that gentleman. All is based upon the original purpose, the legitimate design of Racing as really a national sport. He is a very extensive breeder of bloodstock, has his private trainer at Newmarket, William Cooper, one of the most respectable men there, his private jockey, Arthur Pavis, a diamond edition of an olympic hero, and his livery is the orange and purple. Whatever be the object that mingles him with the embranglement at Hyde Park Corner, he appears but as a spectator, as carefully aloof from its actual operations as one might be supposed to keep whom chance had associated with a party busied with no savoury office. With a princely fortune, he is a subscriber to all the great stakes, as, having elected the Turf for a pursuit, it is but fitting he should he does not bet in public, at least but seldom, and to a small amount; what his private speculations may be, of course I have no means of judging; but this all who run may know, that, in the good taste which pervades his sporting menage, and the high principle by which all its details are directed, they have before thein a very finished picture of an English gentleman at his recreations.

While in our analysis of Tattersall's many who, like Colonel Peel, command our entire respect, will be found, though far more for whom we can alone feel unmitigated disgust, here and there will occur a specimen of an intermediate genus whose classification may come under the head of "Legs eleemosynary." This is a strange variety of the bipes implumis, exhibiting a species, whose voluntary pursuit is at utter strife with its natural propensity. I do not think there are many samples of it in existence even now, and history is silent about any having been known before our time. We read that old Elwes would pick his dinner off a dunghill, and at night jeopardy his thousands at play.; still there was a glimmer of manhood about that. But the "Leg eleemosynary" is as divested of all mortal spirit as a bunch of dog's-meat. To him, your bone grubber is a fellow infinitely aristocratic. This at least makes his merchandise of honest offal, while the other is a mendicant of vampire carrion. As there will be few who can divine the occupation of this drone of Satan's hive, I will sketch it as briefly as I can. He is to be seen anxiously hovering about, when there is an appearance of bonâ fide business being transacted. His ear, all alive, catches the terms upon which a bet about being booked has been effected. It may be that a grim, hungry Leg has got well on he lights up with a ghastly smile: now the " eleemosynary" sees is his time: he pounces on him: cajoles, implores, and does him finally out of a little fish a shade under market price. Having thus tickled one Leg out of a bet, a point or

two under the current odds, he is off on the instant, lest the rate of exchange alter, and hedges, with the pull in his favour, with another of the fraternity. It would seem as if it was the nature of gaming to generate an atmosphere in which all its followers, without distinction, become intoxicated. The system which I have described would imply a degree of cold-blooded method beyond the influence of all other earthly moving-but it is not so. There is a regular concatenation of these wager-ghouls who live upon the brains of each other, until the refinement of their gains has no representative in the current coin of the realm.

Again, it is perfectly familiar among betting men that there are some frequenters of Tattersall's and the provincial Rings, who never lay out their money at the prices that are generally current, and these get on at their own figures. I dare say it will strike the reader as impossible that a class, proverbially astute, submit, nay volunteer quietly, to be done out of three or four per cent. by parties known to them as regulating their traffic exclusively upon the principle of having points in the odds conceded in their favour; nevertheless such is the fact. One of the most industrious of these indefatigable is old Spring, the well-known ex-box-keeper of Drury Lane, who, having got together some forty thousand pounds, now ruralises in his Tusculum between Brydges Street and the Strand. In the sear and yellow leaf, and almost blind, there is scarce a race-course in the South at which he is not to be met, following business as anxiously as though his existence depended upon his daily gains. His manner and vocabulary still retain the flavour of sword and perriwig, a dash of the olden time mingles with all he says and does. What secret spring of nature first moved him to his present calling is as much a mystery as the impulses of Etna or Vesuvius. It could not be love of gold, for of that he has more than he needs, and his habits are not those of the miser who hoards simply that he may hoard. The ex-box-keeper is a bon vivant, loves his dinner and his bottle, and enjoys them to boot. It cannot be for excitement that he toils, for it is clear he rarely, if ever, stands to an event, save a certainty. I often amuse myself by watching him. Perhaps the scene is laid at Newmarket. It is morning, and standing opposite to the Star, his accustomed hostel, I have him on the dead set for a trainer on the return from the heath. To see his manœuvres to catch, or after one is fairly captured! How he works to dodge to wind-ward or forge a-head of him. And now he rigs the pump, first gently goes the sucker, and then pipe all hands to the engine. Poor old boy! I would not handle thee and thine eccentricities too roughly, but of a verity thou mightest lay out the little principal of life that remaineth to thee in a more profitable invest

ment..

There is a clique seen at Tattersall's (a very limited one, for it is too un-English to possess many members) consisting of would-be Legs, boobies without brains or shame, who kill their Mondays at the Corner simply "to boast of vices which they don't commit." Having nothing to do, there or elsewhere they set up for Sporting gentlemen upon a capital of a double-breasted green coat, a blue neck-cloth, and a Mackintosh without a waist. The majority of this hermaphro

dite body is composed of superannuated clerks from the public officessingle instances of the ci-devant jeune home very shocking to any contemplative mind. There is one of these, a detaché of Somerset House, that gives me the ague when he crosses me. He is a little old meagre man, who, by the connivance of his tailor, transforms himself into a figure as unnatural and unholy as the slaty monster of Frankenstein. His back is towards you, and you settle with yourself that it belongs to a youth of fifteen; he turns, and oh, horror of horrors! you have a little wizened face like an ourang-outang's in his grand climacteric. Should he read this faithful portraiture of himself, and venture but to hint that I have stinted him of his fair proportions, let him but muster courage to stand a wager, and I'll take his own odds, that I back him into any theatre in the metropolis for half-price.

Passing strange as truth has been declared by one who knew, better than most men, the scenes of party-coloured life, on no spot of civilized earth does it stand forth, out-heroding the wildest fictions, as at Tattersall's! Mankind has been exhibited as evincing stoical endurance under all the ills that flesh is heir to save one, "keep your hands out of its breeches' pockets." But observe it at Hyde Park Corner, with its pouch unbuttoned, the precious freight ready to leap into the palm of the first hungry villain that will clutch it. I am prepared to anticipate that many who read this will set it down to the account of ignorance or spleen; let them bear with me a little longer and I shall not fear either sentence. For the purpose of being within the memory of every man connected with the Turf, and consequently open to instant detection should I vary, however minutely, from the simple fact, I will confine the examples that I bring to support my position, to instances taken from the events of the last five years. Of the flood of chicane, swindling, and scoundrelism, whereby, in that short period, the Turf has been so often devastated, the springs are shown to you as readily as would be a cloudless noonday sun. A difference may exist as to the tributary streams, but of the fountain heads there is but one opinion. Let a stranger visit the emporium of sporting traffic upon any public day during the year, and, upon application to the first groom-boy he may accost, shall be pointed out to him the movers of every Racing robbery for the last dozen years, meditated or perpetrated, without the least reluctance or emotion, except indeed at the ignorance which the enquiry would betray. Leaving generalities, let us now look into details.

During the last five years, to which I propose confining myself, Doncaster (as more remote, the safer arena) has been the principal scene of operation with the Legs. There, to begin with 1832, as ignominious a sample of rascality was openly exhibited as ever human ingenuity invented. In that year's Leger, Beardsworth (surely I need not say who he was) had a colt named Ludlow, that had run very promisingly, and was backed for that race to a considerable amount at 12 to 1-low odds because the field was good. On my arrival at Doncaster some odd rumours reached me, which were soon put to rest by Beardsworth declaring in my presence, that his horse was for sale,"to race or to boil," for 50001. The instant effect of this announcement was to send him back in the odds to 100 to 1 against

bim. The object in this case never was to sell the horse, because that could have been easily done, under the rose, to the Legs, who would have bought him to lay against; the purchase money being so easily made right by subscription from such parties as had already betted that way. The ruse was accounted for in many ways,-no doubt it was a very productive one, for, bad as the character of Beardsworth was antecedently, this at once enveloped him in infamy. Public indignation could scarcely be restrained within any bounds at such avowed scoundrelism; an explanation was insisted upon, when one of a private nature was offered to the steward, Lord Uxbridge, by one of the brothers Bond, Ephraim I belive. This would not be listened to by Lord Uxbridge, and eventually, upon being called upon in the public betting-room for a solution of the "disgraceful farce," Mr. Bond admitted that Ludlow had been purchased by himself, brothers, and a fourth party, but who that fourth was never came to light. The horse started and lost of course--and men were found besotted enough to regard their losses upon such a race as debts of honour, and to pay them! Messrs. Richardson and Wagstaff came in for their proportion of the credit of this affair-but what of that? Beardsworth indeed is dead, and his memory is spoken of when any monstrous malefaction needs illustration, but the rest are all "honourable men" by the currency of sporting courtesy. As I promised, when speaking of Mr. James Bland, a further notice of Mr. Charles Wagstaff, it will serve here as a rider to the Ludlow farce. I have already premised, that he is by no means indebted to nature upon the score of personal endowment, but she has given him one essential requisite for his calling-lungs that could split the sides of a tap-room; and he does not hide his candle under a bushel; often, when the wind has been fair, have I, at the saddling stables on Newmarket Heath, heard him occupying his business at the Duke's Stand-a brace of honest miles and no mistake. But is this stated in individual reproach? Surely not. The industry of the one cannot be wrong in a pursuit which is regarded fitting as concerns the many. Wagstaff must be a man of talent, and as such entitled to our consideration. I say it advisedly, that in his own particular circle at Cambridge he was not, at least some five or six years ago, considered as possessed of any great command of capital; and yet, when the interests of himself and friends required it, he came forward and gave the Marquis of Sligo three thousand guineas for his horse Fang, another Leger favourite that was not destined to be the winner. The Saddler, another horse that belonged to this gentleman and his party, was unfortunate upon one or two occasions in not quite realizing the full amount of public expectation. Illnatured people were found to grumble about these matters, but we know there is nothing at which spleen and disappointment will stop.

In 1832, nearer home, Racing affairs were a little under a cloud, inasmuch as rumour was busy about the winner of the Derby. Some said St. Giles was four years old, and some that he was five! I offer no opinion, but I am bound to say, that having had recently a conversation with the best authority as to his age-I mean Mr. John Scott, his explanation was perfectly clear and convincing. When I

Ост. 1837.

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want to put a Yorkshire Turfite upon his mettle, a word of suspicion about St. Giles is sure to answer my purpose. I used him lately to draw out a leading trainer from that county, and the result was the following: "We can win a Derby without having recourse to such tricks as you allude to, but they have been tried with the Leger and failed. I know that Sir Hercules ran for it at four years old, and could make nothing of it then. There was Pilgrim too, that I detected, that had been raced as two years old when he was three, and as three when he was four. We have had the game played more than once in the north."

In 1834 Plenipo, after beating the best lot of horses probably ever seen in the south of England, was sent to Doncaster. If ever there was a racing certainty, it was that, barring accidents, he must win the Leger. He was well, and on the Thursday, at Tattersall's, the last betting day previous to the race, backed at even with the field, when a commission arrived from a certain party, to lay against him to any amount. That he was made safe may be gathered from the fact, that Connelly, his jockey, told me he expected every moment, as he rode him up to the post to start, that he would have lain down with him on the course. In 1835, the Queen of Trumps stood as high for the Leger as her great predecessor had done the year before. On this affair a downright robbery was attempted, without any more precaution than if the parties concerned had called to you to stand and deliver at noon-day in Regent Street. On the day before the race, a gentleman waited upon Mr. Mostyn, and offered him sever thousand pounds for his mare-by no side wind, be it rememberedbut actually accosting him, as Tom Hood would say, "like a crocoIdile with the bank notes in his hand." Mr. Mostyn was man of the world enough to know that cash was cash though Beelzebub should present it on the fork of his tail; but he knew also, that there was such a thing as honour, and therefore he coupled the sale with a stipulation, that "the Queen should start, and start to win." Of course this formed no part of the bargain contemplated, and there the negociation ended.

These examples, without tediously multiplying them, will answer my purpose, which is to show the unaccountable fatuity by which men of supposed common sense expose themselves to the certainty of being victimized by knaves, as well known to the sporting circles as ever was Jonathan Wild to the runners of Bow Street. That cheating at horse racing has been practised by persons in a far different condition of life to the professional Leg, is too notorious to be insisted on here. But the anomaly is, that your Leg can cheat, or try to cheat, as often as he pleases, and return to the charge again as if nothing had ever happened. He shall openly plunder nineteen men, and, while rifling them, the twentieth shall offer himself for a victim. One rich sample of this, which many of the Ring will call to mind, I will offer in proof of my last assertion, that nothing short of actual felony is too monstrous for a genuine Leg, or sufficient to banish him from professional practice. The party active was Beardsworth, at the time playing first fiddle on the Provincial Turf; the party passivehe who has to record his folly. After winning the Leger with Bir