there, and the little man who smashes potatoes on his head; together with several indefatigable exhibitors of the purse trick. One of these latter amused us greatly. He succeeded in selling a purse with three coppers in it for half-a-crown to an amiable-looking giant, the size of whose brains evidently did not correspond with that of the rest of his body; and as the victim did not seem quite satisfied, he proceeded to sell him another. Worked on by the assurance that the operator would give no one else in the crowd such a chance, Goliath actually parted with a second half-crown, and, as a natural result, made up his sixpenny-worth of coppers. This was a little too much, so turning to the crowd with a sternly virtuous air, he said "I'll expose you, you scoundrel; I'll spoil your game. Gentlemen, I only got threepence in each purse!" "Threepence! did you say threepence, sir! Then you are very fortunate: most people only gets three-halfpence," was the immediate retort, and during the peal of laughter which followed, the discomfited purchaser beat a hasty retreat.

The Surrey Grand Open Handicap Steeplechase-we like to give the full title was a great contrast to most of the other events. Though the field lacked quantity, the quality was undeniable, and as the half-dozen walked down to the post, it would have been hard to pick a better looking lot of steeplechasers. Comus, indeed, wore huge bandages, and seemed out-classed; but the others were "all there." Old Alcibiade with Col. Knox in the saddle looked wonderfully well, though "10 to 1 offered" did not augur favourably of his chance. Captain Machell walked down by the side of the favourite, Gardener, who appeared to far more advantage than he did at Tattersall's in March last. Mr. Edwards and Tusculanum seemed full of go, though the former showed several traces of his nasty fall the previous day; but Brick was quite the "gentleman" of the party, and George Holman never rode a better race. Alcibiade required a good deal of rousing at his fences, and was done with a mile from home; and Holman, coming with a rush at the finish, beat Gardener by a head; thus entirely reversing the Warwick form with Tusculanum. After this the remaining events seemed very tame, and we were by no means sorry to land at Charing Cross again.

The patrons of cricket were at one time dreadfully afraid of the rifle volunteer movement, and now some of them are quite as fearful of the seductive powers of Velocipedes. They have perhaps some reason, as it is hard for sensation-loving mortals to resist the announcement that they "can be made for either sex, speed exceeding 30 miles an hour for £20, and greatly exceeding 50 miles an hour, and self-propelling for £100." The problem of perpetual motion seems to be solved at last, and we cannot wonder what we hear that magistrates are said to be missing when most wanted in the provinces, and are reported to have stolen away to London, to have a lesson in guiding their new machine, upon which some are beginning to grudge no adornment that money can give. When the roads are once infested with them, there will no doubt be accidents in plenty from horses starting at them, and they will be made the subject of bye-laws in boroughs, and public acts like the steam thrashing machines. The strong minded females have hardly begun yet, but Miss Bekker and the rest will no doubt

shortly declare themselves as to whether they come within the great feminine Petition of Rights. The gentlemen who are always ready with their proof that Mr. Gladstone is the Beast in the Revelations, have fixed the Prophet Ezekiel with a knowledge of velocipedes in his vision of the four wheels, chap. i., v. 15-21. "And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them:...... .whithersoever the spirit was to go they went, thither was their spirit to go, and the wheels were lifted up over against them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels."

Taken as a whole, the hunting season has been a good one, but distinguished by solid rather than very distinguished sport. Leicestershire, which opened its season so sadly with the death of Lord Somervile, and closed with Lord Wilton's accident, has seldom done better. Mr. Musters has been the man for the place, and his huntsman, Frank Gillard, has also proved a decided success. Mr. Frewen tried to mix up politics with hunting, but happily the election spirit died out, and better counsels prevailed. The casualties elsewhere have been of the most varied description, in the field and on the way to cover. One poor fellow actually cantered against a tree, when the hounds were merely trotting across a park to the house, and dashed his brains out. Last season one of Lord Hastings's whips met with a strange death from an encounter with a stag, and Jem Maiden ended this last season in hospital owing to a severe tear from the tusk of a fox scalp, which hung from his saddle. The last calamity was the sudden death of a farmer with the Oakley. The same fatality has extended to the bar even in their private rides, as Mr. Justice Hayes and Chief Justice Cockburn had falls from their horses, and Mr. Druce, Q.C., was killed. We hear that the lamented gentleman came twice if not thrice back to his stable that fatal morning, in order to change his bit. There have been some unfortunate cases of hound and fox poisoning, but they have been taken up so promptly by the hunt, that no resignations have come out of them. Mr. Anstruther Thompson and Mr. Scratton disappear, we trust only for a time, from the list of masters, and now no Hills "dwells in the halls of Ivor," or rather hunts the Heythrop country, with which the name has been connected for so many seasons. We never remember such a complete change of huntsmen, and the young men have got all the best of it in the shifting of the cards. In fact, it seems likely that several of the seniors will have to "stand out." Peter Collisson will, we believe, not be sorry to leave the Cheshire for the York and Ainsty, where they have only four days a week, and the horses are not sold up every season, a practice which falls hard on huntsmen and whips, who have something more important than horse-making to attend to. Dick Christian, who can go like his celebrated grand sire, when he has the chance, is the new first whip to Mr. Tailby. The partition of Herefordshire has been very nicely managed; and Mr. Franklin has kept Mr. Musters's old country remarkably well together.

We fear that the hound shows will rather jostle each other. They had struck root at the Yorkshire,Show, although a section of the council declared war to the knife against them. This year there was less chance of success in consequence of the dispiriting effect of the Ure

tragedy. Still the Beverley people were very anxious to have it, and they carried their way by one. The society give no money, but allow it, we believe, to come off in their yard. By way of a fresh difficulty, the Lincolnshire men intend to hold one at Lincoln, the week before, and the week before that the Royal Agricultural or rather the Manchester Committee try their hand. It is with the greatest difficulty that masters can be got to consent to send their hounds at all, and this unfortunate clash looks ill for the cause this summer. Lancashire might very well-not being a fox-hound county-have confined itself to harriers, beagles, otter hounds, smooth fox-terriers, and greyhounds, and had a capital show; and it seems hard that the Lincolnshire Society should virtually try and cut the throat of the Yorkshire. They would say, and we believe, do say that the Yorkshire should have given up the idea for a year, as the county was not quite in tune for it, but a thing once given up is hard to revive, more especially against intestine opposition. The Yorkshire sorely need it as the spectacle of the Wednesday morning, as the four-year-old and upwards hunter contest is of the Thursday. The fact is, one good hound show a year is ample, and Yorkshire took it up so promptly when the Cleveland dropped it, that it has the first claim to support.

The Yorkshire show has as usual a great list of horse classes, and out of the thirty, just one-third are for hunters. Their prizes reach £316 besides the 100 guinea plate for the hunter from four years to eight years old best calculated to carry 14st. over Holderness. In the adjudication of this cup, two masters of fox-hounds will assist the judges. We don't know whether they intend to test them over a drain, but it was a saying of the late Mr. Bower, that no horse need come into Holderness, unless it could jump seventeen feet of water. Those deep drains are not like ordinary streams, for in nine cases out of ten if the horse doesn't funk the man does. The five-year-old hunters are as usual in a 12st. and a 14st. class, but 101b. more is allotted to the latter, and the only regulation as to breeding is that they must be by a thorough-bred horse. In the six-year-old hunter class there is no restriction either as to breeding or weight, but in the Holderness Cup particular attention is to be paid to "breeding and quality.'

The Agricultural Hall come out very munificently for hunters, and give a 25 guinea medal for the best hunter in the first four classes, which receive £365 in the gross. "Fine action and quality essential" is added as a rider to the riding-horse class, which must exceed fifteen-two, while cover hacks and roadsters, and single-harness horses are not to exceed that height. There are two classes for park hacks and ladies hacks, one not exceeding fifteen-two, and the other not exceeding fifteen-one. The park cobs (high steppers), are not to exceed 14 hands. This year, in fact, much more pains seems to have been taken so as to get uniformity in the classes. There are two prizes for the trotting sires, but only one of £50 for the thorough-bred one; and the pony stallions may not exceed thirteen hands. Among the extra classes, we find "a well appointed tandem of horses or ponies," and "a four-in-hand of ponies." The "new rule" is to the effect, that no exhibitor can show more than four horses, unless they are animals

"

of extraordinary merit. Breeders and farmers who make hunters will have a preference for stalls in case the entry exceeds the accommodation of the Hall.' It perhaps would have been better if "a hard and fast line" had been drawn and each exhibitor limited to three. There is a good deal of truth in "the postscript," which runs thus: "The manager after five year's experience, ventures to tell his friends amongst farmers, that they are likely to be disappointed if they ask dealer's prices for even their best horses. Dealers gave credit, chop, and exchange to meet the demands of their customers, besides having to bear the expenses of establishments in town and country. Horses at the Agricultural Hall are sold for cash. At the five previous shows, exhibitors have frequently had to take horses home, because they asked on the first day twice the price they were willing to take on the last." It is well known that the fact of the Prince of Wales arriving has sent up prices all round the building, and horses and ponies have been priced to His Royal Highness eighty per cent. beyond what would have been named to an ordinary purchaser, as if royalty and bullion were convertible terms. Royalty pays a market price and no more, as some great tradesmen have found to their cost when they had to haul down their gilt lion and unicorn, as a punishment for their extortions. It is proposed to introduce a water jump this year.

The story of the sale of the vixen and cubs at Newmarket is, as far as we can hear, on this wise: They were dug out at first along with the dog-fox at Cheveley Green, which is occupied by a Mr. Allison. The old ones were chained up in the stable with the cubs, while the master of the hounds was communicated with. The dog-fox broke his chain, got away and was shot, and the keeper, without more ado, took the vixen and cubs to Newmarket, and having a frugal mind first showed his charges at a penny a head in the cart and then sold them for £6 10s. How Mr. Allison explains his keeper acting without his orders, when the master of the hounds had been written to, we know not. It would have taken him all his time to explain if he had been in the market that day, as the Suffolk farmers were most indignant at the whole thing. There seems to have been some keeper treachery elsewhere. A farmer in the same neighbourhood, who was anxious to save the cubs of an outlying vixen which had been on his farm for three seasons, went to dig her out, and found her lying dead at the mouth of the earth poisoned by a rat. On digging into the earth, three more cubs were found lying dead, but the other five of the litter were saved. Not many miles from there, a sow badger was dug out two or three years since, and carried to a barn, about two fields from the cover, where she was confined in a box. In the course of the night, she escaped both out of the box and the barn and it transpired afterwards that the boar badger had scented her in her captivity, and had actually bitten his way into her and "let her go free.

As the reader may easily imagine, the noise of slamming up the window had the instantaneous and unintentional effect of thoroughly disturbing my precious charge, more especially as she caught the echo of the oath that accompanied it.

"Good gracious, dear Guy," she anxiously exclaimed, "is there anything the matter? What has happened to put you out so?"

Why, to tell you the truth, Agnes,' I calmly replied, with feigned laughter, "I have been troubled with a nightmare, a living one, in the shape of an old lunatic, who I was stupid enough to admit here under false pretences. The guard was to blame, for he knew his customer, and should never have taken the liberty of asking me to let him get in."

"Why, Guy, dearest," returned Agnes, with an air of considerable alarm, "What are you talking about? admit who? let who in? Surely, there has been no one here. You are not quite awake, dear, are you?" she playfully inquired.

I then explained to her all that had really happened, excepting the purport of our conversation, and his disagreeable story of his own adventures at Gretna. Being as it were woke up for the night, thoroughly roused, there was nothing for it but to devote myself to the attention promoted by the duties of that true love, the current of which ran so smoothly. There naturally arose under the circumstances during this affectionate téte à téte, speculations as to the state of affairs at our respective homes. For my own family I had no fears, as I reasonably imagined that no doubt Mr. Layhard, so strict a man of his word, had smoothed the rough edge of my parents' and sisters' uneasiness, by acquainting them of my safety and intentions. With respect to the fury of the irascent colonel and the ridiculed captain, his aidecamp to the Court of Cupid, in Chancery, whatever were my own feelings and I own I had certain misgivings with regard to their giving chase to us -nevertheless, I treated it lightly and jocularly, and impressed, in the most persuasive manner, my timid companion with the absolute necessity of not looking back, for that as soon as we were securely married, matters would quickly begin to balance themselves without our worrying about what now could not be helped. It was with some difficulty

Z