crowd is in some sort diversified with the racing men, viz. such as unceasingly roar bets, lay odds, and back fields; with the tight-trousered trainers and stunted jockeys of the barbs; yea, and even with 'Mossoo,' that is chiefly your lively Gaul and your ponderous German, who delight to garnish themselves with thin boots, befrogged coats, small hats, and lightly mounted spectacles; who covet decorations and all the forty species of the plant called after Jean Nicot, of Nîmes, and who ever cry in the tongues of their lands voyons and wunderschön.

And here it is to be remarked that it is a celestial sight to see the colours of the damsels' raiment; for they are as a rainbow set against the sky-reds, blues, yellows, and greens, tempered with the sad and subfuse hues of the gallants. Of these primary colours are to be discerned (and, that I may not lie, they are to be found in the Eastern Annexe of the Exhibition), amongst reds, the orient carmine, and the aneline crimson, that is to say the new pink; of blues, signifying constancy, the lazuline, the Eugénie, the aneline purple, or mauve, and the Humboldt; of yellows, the aureolin, like unto mustard; the cyanoline,which resembleth railway grease; the cadmium, or powdered ditto, whereof when compounded with the sober sassafras and fustic must the famed beurre frais' shade be confected; and of greens, notably the sprightly viridian, and Scheele's, or arsenicated green, affected by those whose hair is of a Pickersgill - cum - Venetiano tinge. Above all these prevail the celestial white, which verily signifieth joy and pleasure.

For dresses the damsels wear the frail tarlatanes, the muslins, the grenadines, and the silks of moiré, of glacé, and of Foulard; made up, as it were, of nine hundred and fifty and three ells, wanting a nail: thus are the gallants kept at a distance by these gowns, for they are hooped, flowing, round, trailing, flying, flounced, furbelowed, fluted, starched, ruched and laced gowns. Their bonnets favour a spoon-bowl sideways, and set around them, and in the pleasant peaked cavity between

them and the masses of plain, plaited, crisped, coiled, fuzzy, or unguented hair are such gewgaws as bows, knots and beads; flowers such as roses, violets, heart's-ease, lilies, grasses, and leaves; and fruits as grapes and cherries; yea, and perched on the outside of some, as if to eat of those fruits, are even the Passaros de Sol, or Birds of Paradise, concerning which Aldovrandus did charge honest Pigafetta with falsehood, in that he declared they had feet.

Thus bravely attired do the damsels and gallants discourse merrily together, speaking first of the weather and of compliments; next, of the virtue and propriety, efficacy and nature of being at Ascot; and then, with lisping, drawling and simpering, of sets and partis, with nambypamby, fanfaronado, tweedle-dee, hark-to-twaddle, kiss-the-gold, snubthe-snobs-smartly, and sacrifices in such sort to the goddess Belgravia, as to hear the which without fidgeting one must needs stand in the Gamashes, or Boots of Patience.

Who cares for the first race or two? Not even the betting men, who are earning their bread in the enclosure opposite; for they are shouting themselves hoarse over Cup transactions. A bell is rung, a ruck of policemen walk in a thin blue line,' as best they can, and cry, 'Clear the course.' There is a preliminary canter, a start, sporting men only know where !-query, is this a case in which extremes meet ?-a few cries of Here they come!' Blue!' Blue!' Red!' No, Yellow wins easy!' and a glimpse is caught of some jockey's cap as the horses gallop past. These are the only fragments of knowledge that can be gathered concerning the minor races by the ordinary mortal whose standing is on the low ground. It is pleasanter for him to occupy the time in sauntering among the ranks of vehicles, from the drags and barouches of the upper crust of society congregated near the winningpost, through the descending scale of family carriage,' brougham, jobbed clarence, stage-coach, 'bus,shay,' tax-cart, and wan,' which extends

in either direction from the culminating point. It is wiser for him to do so, since lunch time is close at hand.

Good people all who take entertainments, perpend a while, we pray; for on these occasions you generally pity the wrong objects. It is true that you often see racers wofully whipped and spurred, but no sooner is the struggle over than they are caressed and tended, and the traces of punishment are removed as carefully as if Miss Todd's coachman himself were in command of affairs. Stable lads sponge away the marks left by Fordham's terrible right heel and left arm. Trainers pour drink out of a Rhine wine bottle down the horses' throats, until, amidst all the head-tossing and champing, it is wonderful that the neck is not bitten to glass crumbs, whereby the beverage, whatever it may be, would be freely tinctured with Prince Rupert's drops. As for the tramps, they batten on your rich fragments; remember that, for a day or so, even the unluckiest of them will fare about as sumptuously as the majority of lap-dogs are accustomed to do. Any importunate gipsy will now get, for the mere asking, sixpences and shillings from those who at other times would scarcely give her a halfpenny to ward off starvation. No, these are not legitimate objects for your compassion. Rather pity men who come down from town somehow, and trust to find some one who will give them a luncheon, but don't-briefless barristers, stray college youths, young doctors, subalterns living as nearly as they can on their pay-any, indeed, whom you may know to be good fellows, and can guess have very slenderly furnished pockets. If some Samaritan does not offer them a hunch of bread, a junk of meat, and a sup of drink before four o'clock-for the poor creatures will live in sanguine hopes until that hour-with heavy hearts and blighted prospects they will then have, in newspaper phrase, 'to patronize some Boniface, who so liberally caters for the public appetite; or, in plain English, to pay three shillings and sixpence for coarse cold meats, stale, damp-crusted bread,

unwashed tumblers, knives brown with the vinegar stains of ages, and a mingled odour of brandy and water, smoke, tent, and trodden grass.

Even

Who is it that always wins the sweep? Why, the rich man, or the 'screw' of the party, or somebody's friend who dropped in to lunch at the time it was being made up-any one, in fact, but your own worthy and deserving self. You repent of your half-crown at the moment of drawing from the hat the bit of crumpled paper which is sure to reveal the number of the King of the Cannibal Islands, or the Sister to the Wizard of the West colt; for experience shows that winning horses never can have such names. Lucky do they think themselves who have this day drawn Asteroid or Investment-decidedly the two popular favourites--though it seems strange that Asteroid should be so great a one when Carbineer, who beat him two days back, is in the race. the ring consider that Carbineer, Investment, and Fairwater have a better chance than Asteroid has. But Asteroid wins, nevertheless; thus affording an example of what are called, with pleasant irony, 'the glorious uncertainties of the turf.' Yes, assuredly there are uncertainties on the turf. Those who saw the finish for the New Stakes report that more jockeys than one were evidently unwilling to be too forward. In another race a horse called Cairncastle seemed to be winning easily, when he was pulled in apparently so barefaced a manner to avoid swerving,'* the lad said, when summoned before the stewards next day-that he was only fourth! However, it is useless to pry into the wheels within wheels of turf machinery, or to distress ourselves about the very dirty hands that sometimes move them. We are only pleasure-seekers, and care not a sixpence who wins or who loses. People who have a fancy for betting know the amount of security they can expect, just as well as those who go to fashionable morning benefit concerts with an attractive pro

*In absence of any material evidence to the contrary the case fell to the ground.'— Bell's Life.

of rest, and meditatively chewing a blade of grass. Belphegor lifts his little girls off their stilts, and the trio snatch a hasty meal. Now and then, in a last desperate effort to work off stock remaining on hand, a ragged fellow offers a c'rec' k'yard an' a markin' pencil, gents.' The hoarse roar no longer rises from the betting ring. The lower grades of bookmakers, who take up their position in pairs near the ladies' stand, are also silent. The betting-lists at the entrances to the refreshment booths are closed. The chain-sellers, the Indian juggler who breaks stones with his thin, lissome hand, the ballad singers, the keepers of U. O.

tables, knock-'em-downs, and ditferent games of skill, and all the thousands on the course, from Royalty to riff-raff, experience for a few minutes the luxury of peace and quietness. But this halcyon time is soon over. The distant red flag falls, and "They're off.' Asteroid leads nearly the whole way, and wins a good race by a head.

Scarcely have the jockeys been weighed, and the horses led to their stables, than down comes the rain in so steady a manner, that it appears likely to fall for an hour or so. What a totally unexpected and admirable opportunity of making for the first train home again!