THE OMNIBUS.

"There he sat, and, as I thought, expounding the law and the prophets, until o drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown horse."-BRACEBIDGE HALL.

WAY BILL:-The Two Thousand Day-Races of the Month-A Day at Croydon-The Yorkshire Show-The Agricultural Hall Horse ShowSale of Foxes at Newmarket-Velocipedes-The Yorkshire Hound Show.

HE Saturday before the Two Thousand found us once more on the Great Eastern platform, which was thronged by familiar faces. Mr. Graham, the owner of Regalia and Formosa, was on his way to watch the fortunes of The Drummer; and Porter was there, in charge of Blue Gown and the young Asteroids. The false spring had at last given place to the true, and every tree was bursting into life. "Lambs were glad, nosing the mother's udder," partridge pairs were wooing in every other field, and a cock pheasant would occasionally stalk solemnly out of his brake, and across some snug home-paddock, as if there was no first of October in his Calendar. The woodlands were gay with primroses and anenomes; the chesnuts were busy rolling the wheat, or taking a turn at the harrows; and occasionally a tractionengine moved slowly along a road, dragging its thrashing-machine behind it. The strange, spurious season had gone at last, and Nature had begun the publication of her All-round-the-year in earnest. man-Broxbourne-bound-was carrying down five hundred small eels in a flag-basket, for introduction to its streams; but the majority were anxious to land larger fish than that. Belladrum was improving, like the girl who was "given up by two physicians, and despaired of by her father, a retired physician;" but Wild Oats was wholly gone; and Mat. Dawson's Derby dream, if he ever had any, was again ruthlessly dispelled.

Two quiet days in the country, wandering up and down strawyards, handling shorthorns and admiring Southdown countenances, and sitting by while lambs' tails are cut off, and we are off once more on our way to Newmarket. Two travelling sires meet us on the road, and their conductors are duly questioned. On the score of blood, they are not far out in their eulogies. One of them, Prince Louis, is by Stockwell, from Hesse Homburg; and the other is Jim Crow, by Leamington, from a Gladiator mare. Farmer after farmer comes forth from his

homestead, and sets his face towards the Heath, under that Italian sky, and some who have gone on earlier to do their marketing, are followed by their servant with the cob in knee-caps. This is a great day for dinner-parties in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and year after year the farmers meet at the same hospitable board, and settle the Derby." Except on these days, the district troubles itself very little about racing. They have the weightier matters, not of the law, but of corn and mangold-seed, to trouble them when they assemble each Tuesday in the little racing metropolis. On we go, and soon after we have passed the deceased Mother Onion's," we catch a sight of three muffled figures toiling along in the hot dusty morning, with a mild but sickening east wind in their teeth. Custance and Parry had a long lead, and a hundred yards behind came Daley, with his faithful white fox terrier at his heels, and looking dreadfully beat. John Osborne had countless congratulations upon his marriage during the week, and everyone seemed to speak as if the thought of his taking such a step was the very last thing that man would have dreamt of. The confidence of the stable in his horse had brought him first favourite at last. Many have clung to little Thorwaldsen as the better of the two; but the stable seem to have no doubt on the point of Pretender's superiority, and Mandrake and Tabouret are both good time-keepers.

What with dust and vehicles, the town was fairly choked at course time, and the crowns poured freely into the pouches of the heathkeepers. The Jockey Club might spare a few of them for a watercart or two; bnt their ideas of self-taxation are limited. Some said they had never seen such a crowd before, but, as it struck us, there were not quite so many on horseback as usual. Those which did come varied enough in their styles, as there were some potters riding their steeds merely with halters, and sitting on a bit of carpet. Jerry Noon, on a black which he might have hired from one of these road-side dealers, was as remarkable an object as any. We thought as we watched the Mazeppas in their headlong career, of a letter which a man-cook wrote lately, and which was produced against him when he was defendant in a breach of promise action with a plumber's daughter: "I am just here on the banks of the Thames, after cooking a dinner for 200 people, but without you I cannot be happy, if I had all the world. I was on horseback this morning, and I did post him along, and let him know who was on him." Carriages and foot people seemed more plentiful than ever. A round-faced edition of Starling has sprung up in scarlet, and on a grey; and there was also a little man in black on a gaudy chesnut, who laid about him with such energy and promptitude that a man rushed at him, there was a short "battle of the standard," and his whip was taken from him, and he was obliged to apply to a sergeant of police to get it restored. He then talked immensely at his despoiler to keep up his dignity, and rode away much comforted. The Laird justified the price given for him at Durdans, by bringing it back in the first race, one of those 300 sovs. stakes which belong to an antediluvian age, It was over the Beacon Course, and the pair fairly rolled in from distress. Throughout the week the stakes were badly filled, and now that Lord Glasgow has gone, and the Jockey Club have chosen to ostracise the Duke of Hamilton, entries will grow

weaker and weaker in the heavier stakes. People were quite prepared to hear that the Duke resented his treatment. Who his three censors were seems to have been ascertained by an exhaustive process, as everyone else felt the thing to be wrong, and disclaimed it. The labours of the three moralists had no public endorsement, but they may feel inward peace for all that. The older hands saw no reason to descend on a young fellow who bought so pluckily, entered so freely, and went so straight to the winning-post, on account of a few eccentricities; and really the outside world thought him quite as much worth having as the combined three who put him out. What is it to us if he does drive donkeys four-in-hand occasionally-according to the papers?

Eleven St. Leger or Derby winners, not counting Formosa, have won the Two Thousand; and now the candidates were in line at the post, for the sixty-first time. A century seems to have rolled over us since we stood by the side of the cords, seven and twenty years ago, when the Great Eastern had hardly crept up to Bishop Stortford, and Owen Edwards stood at the door of his Chesterford hotel, and had pair after pair out from those now-deserted stables to pass on the peers and commoners as they sought the Heath in those calm and exclusive days. It was then that the great, clumsy Meteor, who was generally lame all round, came lumbering home with Bill Scott on his back; then there was that vindictive finish, as far as rivalry goes, between Ugly Buck from Danebury and Lord George's Devil to Pay, and never was man or lord more annoyed than the latter when his old trainer beat him. And so we get on to the last days of Bill Scott on Sir Tatton Sykes, and "The Squire " wasted to 8st. 7lb. for King Charles, is cannoning his horses from mere weakness, getting blown up by Nat, and drawing only scant comfort from the Jockey Club when he complained of the language. The light-boned Pitsford went well to his own foot-rattle, and Hernandez and Mountain Deer both hung at the finish on the hill, up which West Australian and Stockwell went as straight as a rifle ball. Then comes that day of days, as far as excitement went, when St. Hubert met Lord of the Isles and was just beaten a head, after "taller talk" on both sides than we have ever heard before or since. The gouty Vedette bowls away like a cricket ball, with the true Voltigeur action in his canter; Promised Land wins almost in a trot, and Diophantus cuts down Ket. tledrum most mercilessly, although there are no turns in the course. Heenan, with the rich relics of Tom Sayers's hall-mark under his left eye, looks on admiringly as The Wizard goes to the post; and then General Peel hangs suspiciously on the hill in the hour of victory, and convinces Sir Joseph Hawley that there is only a small heart in his big frame.

And so we go on through Gladiateur, Lord Lyon, the proppy Vauban, and the dead-heaters, till we reach the era of the Pretender. Wild Oats is settled, and done with by one fell stroke from a steel pen, and the despised Belladrum, instead of coming straight across the Heath, creeps round by the Cambridge-road like a horse of mystery to the last. At length a bit of yellow tells that he is coming along the ditch side. There is a rush of horsemen, like a wild charge of Cossacks, to meet him, and, when they do leave him, we see as beautiful a horse

as ever eye looked at, and with very little lacking on the score of condition. Goater in green on Brambridge was one of the first at the post, but his horse had very wooden hind action in his slow paces. Martyrdom was one of the beautiful quality sort, "too pretty to be good," as many would say. Hermione was a sleepy-looking dog, with rather lop-ears, and neither the Duke of Beaufort nor The Drummer are large horses, but smart and mere plating form to the eye. Pretender is like a nice light-weight hunter, with his quarters not exactly in keeping with his fore-hand, and, when you get behind him, we never saw a horse walk with his hocks so wide, or move them in a less taking fashion. However the wide walkers can generally stay, and as in this and "The Wests" case, they can cut down a hill when occasion calls for it.

The line of nineteen was completely broken before the Bushes were reached, and Belladrum at that moment with his magnificent form and stride was a glorious sight to see. His head was down and he was tearing at his bit, and coming along nearly half a length in front of everything else, as if he had "the knife" in his detractors at last and was determined to punish them. We never fairly realized the grandeur of a thorough-bred horse at full stride before, and it was no light thing to have seen it, and Master M'Grath race into his first Waterloo Cup hare, in one and the same year. Still it will strike us that Belladrum was not going quite kindly at the Bushes, and if any one had told us that he had refused to try later on, we should have quite believed him. The Merry tactics were hard to understand; if this was the horse that had been a roarer since October, never was horse made so fearfully free with by his jockey. But the crowd closed on him, and on the hill we saw the arms in yellow go up and the whip fall, and the blue jacket of the Bridegroom glided up to him, and had him safe the moment he reached him. The pair were far away from everything, with Perry Down and Martyrdom hard at it for stake saving. This is the first year that this race has been run under improved conditions, although the second money, £200, is at least £300 too little out of a stake, which amounts to £4,500 in most years. The Pretender party were in high spirits, and certainly it is time for the Derby to go North again as it has not been north of the Humber since Blair Athol's year. In old days, when the Nithsdale and Annandale clans met to fight on Dryfe Sands, a number of the Nithsdale men were found dead with a sword-cut across the face, made by a stroke peculiar to the Johnstones, and called a "Lockerby lycke," and certainly Belladrum caught the full benefit of it this day.

It was a most remarkable slaughter throughout: Great Metropolitan and Suburban winners seventh and thirteenth, and the horse which he had run the first Derby favourite to a neck only eleventh, Prince Inperial and Tenedos's trial utterly reversed, and the resurrectionist second. Mr. Sadler may plant another laurel on the grave of old Ferina, as her son Pretender has achieved what St. Hubert couldn't do. The old mare, one of the last of the Venisons, was shot full of years and honour early this month. She threw them in every shape, but they generally made 300 gs. and upwards, and among the 400 guinea ones was Hunting Horn, by Surplice, a perfect wonder for substance, but

never able to move even in the show-yards. To show how judges differ, he won the Royal Agricultural Society's prize at Warwick, and at Middlesbro' he was sent back at once without a mention. It was the fancy for their own horse, Adventurer, which made the Johnstone and Jardine stable buy Pretender at Doncaster for 400 gs. The new sale-ground has been in luck. In its first year, Mr. Tattersall sold a St. Leger and Oaks winner there, and the next produced a Two Thousand one.

There was a regular gallop to catch the 4-25 train; but, though cab-horses went their best, and "annihilated time and space" after a fashion, it just steamed out of the station as the first three vehicles arrived. We generally see a tag annexed to newspaper accounts speaking of the wonderful order at this station, but we may ask where it is. At twenty minutes to six there were at least 200 people crushing and yelling to be booked for the London train, and only one little window open for the purpose. At last another window was opened, but the train departed before a score or more could get tickets, and they were left to chance. At last a train drew up, and no official seemed to know where it was going to. One said "Colchester," another said "London," and after divers appeals, it was finally decided to be London. From that point things went straight-the Lynn train was waiting, and picked up the waifs and strays, and London was gained at half-past nine. If Lord Salisbury, the worthy chairman, wishes to learn the great trick of "how not to do it," he need only prop himself against the luggage receiver's counter in that outer office, and watch the wild-beast show on these occasions from half-past five to six. he did not soon alter things, he is not the chairman we take him to be.

If

If

People seemed to have forgotten all about Mr. Studd, and how, after "the bond, and nothing but the bond"-" twenty-one years' lease""Mr. Studd is adamant"—and all that sort of thing, he " caved in" on the advice of his steward, and consented to sign for seven-when they met once more on the Downs. The razor-edged zephyrs of March played to a pretty tune upon those who had a weak spot in their bronchial tubes, but there was a great day's sport, and we never remember any Epsom meeting opened by a race between a Derby and St. Leger winner. There they were (as a bystander observed) "with the Oaks chucked in," Blue Gown giving Formosa 10lbs., and two years away to Vespasian. Considering the weight, it was a very fine performance, although Blue Gown barely stalled off the mare by a head. Wells was rather caught napping, most certainly the backers of Alpenstock were, as after their good trial, they had taken it quite easy, and then found that the public had got the money, and that 4 or 5 to 1 was their monkey's allowance. Last year, despite the prestige of Tabouret, Mr. Tattersall found it very difficult to sell a Rataplan, and here Alpenstock and The Drummer, both by him, finished first and second in a field of twenty. Sweet Sound certainly made 400 gs., but then she was as nearly as possible full sister to Kettledrum (whose dam has a colt by Macaroni this year). Of the five or six others, only two reached a hundred. Carnival and Macaroni, those names which once seemed linked in a perpetual bracket, had each