and, following in the steps of his more initiated comrades, he fails to realize the hopes and expectations of his fond and confiding parents. Medical students are frequently found, like beagles and greyhounds, in couples; although they sometimes may be seen, like foxhounds, in packs: on these occasions they hunt their game to earth, with persevering industry. The French students ditto; but these latter form a heterogeneous body of brawlers; the term étudiant applies to law, divinity, and commerce, as well as medicine. The same turbulent spirit, however, animates this troublesome community as the one which operates on the sons of Esculapius in the Borough. Some star, hitherto undiscovered by a Newton or a Herschel, hangs over them, and under its influence do they act. It is to be hoped, however, that a new light will break in upon the London and Parisian students, and that they will cease to make themselves notorious, save by their talents, which should be directed in a more reputable channel than being involved in night rows and drunken riots; for it is to be lamented that with so many bright examples in their own profession, they should appear to take delight in setting decency and decorum at defiance. Let them avoid slang and swagger, noise and vulgarity. The distinctive marks in a youth of sense and good breeding are simplicity of dress and a quiet demeanour. The style adopted by the medical students of the present day is at variance with good taste, and subversive of decorum. That they are young men of good education cannot be questioned; and being so, they must of necessity know what is due to society; and all we say in conclusion is-let them practise it. T. SPORTING LIFE FROM LONDON. BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. Hunting-Shooting-Pigeon Shooting-Tennis-Steeple-chasing-Fishing-Boating -Cricket-Larking at the Harrow Hunting-Grounds. Some one used to say that the shortest way to every place was through the metropolis; and that more amusement and sport could be had from it than from any other spot in the whole world. Now, certainly, if that argument held good some five-and-twenty years ago, with what additional force does it now come into operation, since the introduction of steam power by land and water! With this conviction, then, upon our minds, we are about to lay before our readers the " sporting life" that may be had from London; and if our delineation is less graphic than that of Life in London, so admirably pourtrayed by Egan and the writers of the weekly publication of that name; if our arguments are less logical, and our columns not quite of the Corinthian order, we still hope to throw out a few "wrinkles" for the consideration of those whose tastes or avocations induce them to pass the best of the year in this modern Babylon, and who fully bear out the Anacreontic Captain Morris in his sentiments of town and country life: "In town let me live, then; in town let me die ; But to our sports. We will commence with the winter. Act the first, scene the first, must introduce our hero to our readers. A firstfloor in St. James's Street, or Pall Mall-the Honourable Wentworth Mordaunt, a young man about town-James Matchem, commonly called Jem," his head groom. Time, 12 o'clock at noon. Period, November 1st, 1845. Curtain rises, and discovers Mr. Mordaunt at his breakfast. The table, as the fashionable papers describe it, groans under the weight of his luxurious repast: tea, coffee, deviled kidneys, grilled bones, cold pies, fish, curaçoa. A rap at the door is heard. "Come in," says the Honourable Wentworth, putting down his newspaper. Enter Jem. 66 Well, Jem: I shall hunt on Monday, The Queen's hounds meet at Slough. You can start by the 9 o'clock train. How are the horses?" Quite well, sir." 66 "Robin Hood better go on Monday; Swing will be ready for the Baron's hounds, in the Vale, on Thursday; and Eoline will be just the thing for the Oakley, on Friday. Potsheen can have a week's rest, as he has not quite recovered that last day with Mr. Drake's." This slight dialogue will shew our readers that with four horses a man may hunt twice a-week, from London, with two packs of foxhounds, and twice with two packs of staghounds-her Majesty's and Baron Rothschild's. Indeed, he may, if he has a proportionate stud, hunt daily from London. Tring, which is arrived at by the Birmingham Rail in an hour, is within five miles of Mentmore, and is the very centre of Baron Rothschild's, the Oakley, Messieurs Lowndes's, and Drake's countries. Slough, which you reach in five-and-thirty minutes, takes you within distance of the Queen's and Sir John Cope's hounds; Northampton, to some of the meets of the Pytchley; and Leamington, to those of the Warwickshire; in short, whatever may be said or written against the rail, there can be no doubt that for cockney sportsmen it is the greatest boon imaginable. A Londoner may breakfast in London, hunt in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, or Warwickshire; see a deer run into, or a fox killed; be back in London for an 8-o'clock dinner at the Clarendon Hotel, White's, or Arthur's; and get in time for the ballet at Drury Lane. I remember well the time, some thirty years ago, when, to hunt with the royal staghounds within five-and-twenty miles of London, it was necessary to send your hunter on over night, to start yourself at 8 o'clock, to post that distance, and perhaps not to get back to your town residence until 9 o'clock at night. I happen to have a memorandum of the expense of one of these hunting trips of 1820, which, if compared with that of 1840, would give a balance in favour of the latter : 1820. Expenses of horse to Botham's, Salt Hill, and back to London, including Chaise to Salt Hill and back to London, gates, and boys 1846. Horse and man to Salt Hill and back, per rail to Slough ... £ s. d. 1 1 0 0 5 0 1 6 0 This, carried on twice a-week during the hunting season (as an honourable member of the House of Commons used to say), "would make the tottle of the whole "sixty-seven pounds in favour of modern conveyance. Another advantage in hunting from London is, that you may at all times hire a first-rate hunter by the day. Messieurs Tilbury and the present proprietor of Jackson's Hunting Grounds, Harrow Road, are the best men to go to their horses are always in the highest condition, and the bridles and saddles such as no gentleman need be ashamed of. The grooms, too, furnished by these "purveyors of horse-flesh," as the fashionable tradesmen now describe themselves, are steady, sober, wellconducted men, who will take their master's horse quietly to the cover side, and who will not follow the advice given by that celebrated specimen of the fraternity in " High Life below Stairs" to his fellowservant, as a hint to grooms: "Never allow your master able To judge of matters in the stable. If he should roughly speak his mind, Or to dismiss you seems inclined, Lame the best horse, or break his wind." The advice to coachmen, from the same authority, is not less piquant : "If your good master on you doats, Ne'er leave his house to serve a stranger; But pocket hay, and straw, and oats, -- I think I have now said enough to prove that the lovers of the " noble science" may indulge in it to their hearts' content, from London. I now turn to another sport-shooting; and by the assistance of the rail a man may reach his friends' covers within fifty or sixty miles from the metropolis in ample time to have a day's sport, and return by seven o'clock to dinner. If money is no object, a London man can rent some manor within distance of town, and carry on his amusement with nearly as much facility as if he lived on the spot, and with a few additional advantages-namely, that in rainy weather he has the town instead of the country to dwell in, and that he has clubs, exhibitions, theatres, concerts, dinners, and balls to while away the spare time, instead of a stroll through a dripping wood, a ramble across the ploughed lands, ankle deep in mud, or a lounge in the miry farm-yard. In shoot ing from London, your dogs and guns are left with your keeper; and all you have to provide yourself with is a change of dress and linen, and a hamper of provisions for lunch. If you adopt, too, the prevalent fashion, and turn dealer in game, you may bring back with you the produce of your day's bag, and find a ready sale for it at the great London mart. A well-stocked manor, rented at moderate terms, without the expense of keeping up a house or farm, would bring in a very fair return to the tenant, independent of the gratification of amusing himself and his friends during the winter months. No sooner does the merry month of May set in than there is another sort of shooting most successful to the "man about town." I allude to pigeon shooting and although, except for the excitement of gambling, it is a tame amusement compared with that of the field, still it furnishes good practice to the novice, and enables the more experienced “gunner to keep his hand in. Sparrow-shooting, too, which is ever to be had from the trap near London, is also excellent practice; and, to make it more difficult, a set of six traps should be procured, two of which should contain a pigeon and a sparrow each. As it is uncertain which trap will be pulled, it gives a man the knack of keeping his eyes about him, and making him a quick shot. A day, then, at the Red House, Battersea, the Old Hats, on the Uxbridge Road, or at some other of the suburban pigeon battues, will furnish an excellent diversion for the lover of the trigger, who makes the metropolis his head-quarters. But as this amusement is of an old date, we must digress, to lay before our readers some of our antiquarian researches upon the subject. According to Homer, we find that pigeon or dove-shooting was one of the sports of the ancients, for we find the following lines in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, describing the funeral games instituted by Achilles, upon the death of his friend Patroclus, and which consisted of the chariot race, the fight of the Costus, the wrestling, the foot race, the single combat, the throwing the discus, the shooting with arrows, and the darting the javelin. "Those who in skilful archery contend He next invites, the twanging bow to bend : The hero fixes in the sandy shore: To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie- The poet then proceeds to describe how "skilful Tencer" cuts, with his arrow, the cord that tied the bird to the main-mast, and how " expe. rienced Merion" "Directs the shaft above, And following with his eye the soaring dove, Amid the clouds the piercing arrow feels. Quite thro' and thro' the point its passage found, Return we to the modern sport. The first day of the meeting of the Red House Club generally takes place at the Inclosure, Battersea, early in May; but pigeon-shooting, like many other sports, is rather on the wane. We can well remember the time, some fifteen years ago, when Lords Litchfield, Ranelagh, and Bury, the Honourable George Anson, Captains Ross and Bentinck, with Messrs. Biddulph, Osbaldeston, Gillmore, Shoobridge, McDonogh, Anderson, Phillipson, &c., were the principal performers. Gold cups and sweepstakes of 300 sovereigns were then contended for. Without wishing to be invidious, we cannot help selecting a few feats that came under our own observation. In 1829, Captain Ross won the Annual Gold Cup, killing sixty-five birds out of eighty, at four days' shooting; twenty birds each day, at twentyfive yards, with five traps. Mr. Osbaldeston killed fifty-eight; Captain Bentinck, fifty-six; Mr. Anderson, forty-six ; and Lord Ranelagh, forty one. In the same year Captain Ross won two handicap matches, a sweepstakes of fifty double shots, twenty-five each day, twenty yards, five traps, by killing fifty-seven birds; two matches and a sweepstakes of 300 sovereigns. Lord Macdonald's shooting is too well known to require any faint eulogium of ours, as is the " Squire's ;" and Lord Litchfield and his brother, the Hon. George Anson, are among the first of " gunners," whether after wild game or "blue rocks at Battersea. The same remark may be made with equal justice to the above-mentioned "Lords and Commons," many of whom are still flourishing, and equally successful in the field as in the times we write of. Some extraordinary instances of pigeon-shooting are to be found in sporting records. It is stated that a Mr. Elliot, of Rudgwick, in the county of Sussex, undertook to kill fifty-five pigeons in fifty shots; and notwithstanding the high state of the wind, he killed forty-five. He never missed a bird; but, owing to the boisterous state of the weather, his shot scattered. He was only allowed one gun, the touch-hole of which was fairly melted. A game-keeper of Sir Harry Mildmay's shot six pigeons out of ten, with a single bullet. He afterwards hit a cricket ball, with common shot, twelve times successively, though bowled by one of the quickest bowlers in the Hambledon Club. But it would fill pages to give all the feats of the trigger; and we must therefore refer our readers to the records of former days. Suffice it to say that at no period has shooting been carried to such perfection as it has been in our own times: we allude to the last twenty years. In a late number of your magazine we read of Sir William Massey Stanley's "doings" in the Highlands, and the returns of "killed" during the last season, from Scotland, beat any that have hitherto been made. The Sikhs in the East, and the grouse in the North, have had awful havoc made among them in the shooting seasons of 1845 and 1846. In addition, we find on record that Lord Elcho killed one hundred brace of grouse in one day, upon his moors in Scotland, and that Sir Richard Sutton, upon his Yorkshire moors, bagged one hundred brace in two days' shooting, from his pony. Of mounted sportsmen there are few, if any, who can compete with the Marquis of Anglesey, who is one of the quickest and the cleanest shots we ever saw; and when we consider the disadvantage his lordship labours under in the loss of his leg, it is quite wonderful to witness his prowess in the field. It signifies little to this gallant warrior, whether the game rises in the front, in the rear, to the right, or the left, the well-poised Manton is, in a second, in its proper |