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THE NEW YEAR.

BY CRAVEN.

"I rest, then, here-not rich, but free;

With water from my spring; with bread of rye:
In gay saloons there's many a sigh-
There's many a laugh beneath the tree:

And I, for my part, laugh at anything,

I wept too long, 'tis time to laugh and sing;
For wiser now than in my youth, I hold

That in this tinsel world below,

In which our days so soon will have been told,
And where all things are empty show,
Content is better far than gold."

JASMIN.

Half of the nineteenth century is gathered to the past. How many of us shall be such as it is, long ere the other moiety be also numbered among the things that were! These are grave thoughts, for those especially with whom they are unfamiliar. Leaving out of question, as matter too reverend for these pages, the subtle sympathy between the mortal condition and the life to come are we not too apt to neglect, if not to read amiss, the human moral of "time and the hour?” “ Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni." And wherefore "eheu"? Have not the years in their cycles done well by us? Look at the harvest of the half-century whose threshold we have just crossed. Progress is the patrimony with which the past endows the ages to be born-a heir-loom of the present descending by right of inheritance to the future. We grow in years, we grow in knowledge also; and as it is with the individual, so is it with the system. During the present century what marvels have been wrought for the convenience and embellishment of man's estate! Ours is the age of science, enterprise, and capital, leagued together for practical purposes, and the accomplishment of great social facts. Time "has done it all." Greece and Rome put forth the flower and blossom; Britain has gathered in the corn and oil. Is our step less elastic, our strength less proud? Let us bear in mind that there are fairer things than blossom or flower, and better treasures than corn and oil. Such memory will give grace to the New Year so often as it shall be our fate to welcome its recurrence. A cheerful spirit is the most grateful sacrifice the creature can offer to the Creator...

46 upon such facrifice

The gods themselves throw incense."

Did the past twelvemonths bring sorrow and suffering in their train? call to recollection not alone the miseries but the blessings that marked their career; strike the balance, and be thankful. It is thus that wisdom teaches us to live on, drawing auguries of the future from experience of

the favour of the past. And thus let us go on our way, and pass through our pilgrimage rejoicing. Man's covenant with his Maker is faith.

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"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetæ,
Si quis erat dignus describi quòd malus aut fur,
Quòd machus fovet, aut sicarius, aut alio qui
Famosus, multâ cum libertate notabant."

Prominent passages in the pantomime of life, are legitimate themes for
the essayist. Peradventure he deals with them in a vein partaking of
the burlesque-philosophy is none the less sound because it is dressed
in motley. Seven years ago I had, or imagined I had occasion to write
as follows......" Any one who might take the trouble to examine a file of
the daily journals from the commencement of the present century would
find that we had in that period reached a great national crisis some four
or five hundred times. He will read that we are incontinently to be
annihilated for the want of bread," (at the present moment the Protec-
tionist papers assert that the glut of the necessaries of life must trans-
form this fertile island into a howling wilderness),
66 or that the threatened
inundation of corn will be as fatal as a second Flood. He will be
horror-stricken to learn how the streets of the metropolis are fast be-
coming desolate, while the lecture rooms of anatomists are as fat as lar-
ders at Christmas: and astonished by the assurance that the prosperous
state of our agriculture, and the flourishing condition of our commerce,
only the more surely proved that the ruin of the country was at hand.
With these facts before my eyes, and the admission that in quantity,
value, and excellence, the materiel of racing has reached a climax to
which it never before approached, people may think I am joking when
I assume that the present position and prospects of the turf are far from
ominous of its permanent prosperity.". "But it is no joke for all
that on the contrary, it is a great question, and one that needs being
promptly and energetically dealt with. How does the present system
of English racing operate? It multiplies the chances against those who
keep race-horses, exactly in the ratio that they adopt the principle in
which it originated—namely, as a national sport, and the pastime of
gentlemen. What has, but as yesterday, been the result of the present
gigantic gambling in betting round? That the first men in the
land have started their horses to lose, and required large premiums for
allowing them to start at all. What think ye, country cousins, of the
pleasures of a young noble who employs a couple of clerks to keep his
betting books, and to lay their debtor and creditor account every morn-
ing on his breakfast table? What of the jocular phrase 'rope-making?'
which meaneth that the nag you have backed upon a proper estimate of
his qualities, is 'pulled' to qualify him for a handicap.'

Well, a lustrum and more has elapsed, and, to borrow the words of Lord Bolingbroke, "how shall we play the last act of the farce." The "gigantic gambling in betting round" of seven years ago has increased and multiplied seven thousand fold. In lieu of the Norwich Telegraph, which then carried four in and twelve out, to Newmarket, on the occasion of "the Meeting weeks," we have now special trains as long as Piccadilly, and as thronged as "the husbands' boats to Margate in the dog days. In reviewing the racing season of 1840 I thus expressed my feeling upon the scheme of public betting-" All the legitimate purposes of the

1

turf are being made subservient to one end-to afford facilities and hold out inducements to heavy betting. Within the present century a society known as 'The Ring'-a set of western Thugs-has grown into existence, by whose strange influence the integrity and common sense of those, whose honour and tact in all else are unimpeachable and conspicuous, appear hopelessly paralyzed. While breath remains to me I will never let pass an opportunity, or fail to make occasion when I can, to give expression to my abhorrence of the system of legging,' whether practised by the patrician who has won the silken garter for his knee, or the plebeian who is a candidate for the hempen collar for his throat. Racing once a vital instrument of national prosperity, will soon be little else than an engine worked by a company of cheats and swindlers, for their private emolument.".. "Oh! my prophetic soul." ...... As a comment on these foregone conclusions, the subjoined extract from a weekly sporting paper of last month will not be out of

season

THE TURF REMEMBRANCER, OR POCKET PROTECTOR.-We have seen a prospectus of a very useful little work under this title, which we have no doubt will obtain very general circulation. It is proposed that it shall simply contain an alphabetical list of gentlemen troubled with "short memories," who have forgotten to attend to those pecuniary matters so interesting and so indispensable to the patrons of the Turf. The addresses or places of "business" will be given with each name; and, when members of Tattersall's, the names and addresses of the gentlemen who have vouched for their respectability will be added. With respect to provincial gentlemen, their professions and localities will be duly registered, with notes descriptive of their persons and practices when deemed necessary. Particular attention will also be paid to persons figuring under the "betting list" class, as well as those who deal in sweeps, and whose defalcations and swindling pretences require that their names and dens of imposture should be known. "The Pocket Protector," according to the prospectus, is only to be supplied to subscribers, and the communication of names to the directory is to be accompanied by the genuine names and addresses of the parties interested; who shall also guarantee that when occasion shall arise for discontinuing the party in the list published, due notice thereof shall be given. The work, it is stated, is to be published once a month during the racing season-each number being revised and corrected. A great many names have already been communicated, but we think that all should have fair notice of what is intended before publication takes place. From the increasing speculations on the Turf, and we regret to say the increasing number of persons who bet with the intention to receive, if they win, without the power to pay, if they lose, we have little doubt that the best consequences will result from this publication. The size of the book will enable it to be carried in the waistcoat pocket; and as a "text book" at all racing meetings it will be found invaluable "those who read may learn," and avoid at least some of the sloughs which wait to receive them.

This is a pretty significant "squib:" the old saw says "there's no smoke without fire." As I anticipated-" to this complexion it has come at last." Like all violent things, however, it cannot continue long; the fraternity will swallow up one another in process of time, unless an earthquake should interpose and swallow up the system.

Quite in keeping with the spirit of the age is the proposed passage in Olympics at the Pyramids: some of our steeple chasers will have a "shy" at the great wall of China one of these days. Whether it shall come to pass or not will depend, I apprehend, upon the character of the

venture; John Bull will assuredly run, if it be worth his while. Should it take place, and "The Faithful" do that what is lawful and right by the "Christian dog," I cannot, upon any known data, for an instant doubt the result. I have heard the issue questioned because of the distance to be done in the case of every Arab that I have seen race in this country, the farther he went the more he was beaten. The courser of the desert has thews of steel and a constitution independent of fatigue ; but he cannot live with the stride of the English thorough-bred horse. It is the pace that kills. We know what our racers can do, both as regards speed and the faculty of "staying." Tranby's performances in Mr. Osbaldeston's great Newmarket match may be taken as a fair, but not a flattering average of what may be expected from animals of his class. Old Euphrates, Doctor Syntax, Beeswing-scores, hundreds, that we have all seen race-could have done as much, and more. Is there any record to be relied on of an Arab that has accomplished as much as Tranby did on the R. C.? As to numbers, the Pacha will have small chance with us. Some idea of the force from which we can pick may be arrived at from an inspection of the Book Calander of "Races Past," for 1849. Of that stout tome, forty pages are occupied by the names of persons who ran horses in Great Britain in the last year! That the money will be forthcoming, there is no doubt: if His Highness should wish to make it one or two hundred-thousand pounds, as they say in the P. R., "he can be accommodated." As to the honour and glory, and all that, it's moonshine. "Nous avons changez tout cela. If run at all, it will be run for the money.

But as a trial of the British racer it will go for nothing whatever in the result. The class or horse, so denominated, is literally as well as nominally, bred for the turf. A dozen miles over sand and stones do not furnish a criterion whereby to test the property or the purpose of our thorough blood, as applied to the service of the course. Our Hippodrome is a lawn of living velvet, and the animals trained for it are as dainty as the scene of their exploits. But English thorough-bred stock has a wider range of action than mere flat racing. It furnishes the staple for our steeple-chases-stern passages of equestrianism, which, were Mahomet again in the flesh, and mounted upon Pullaway for the Liverpool Grand National, "might give him pause." From some of our studs appropriated to that energetic sport there might be made "elegant extracts" that would come up, probably, to the Oriental standard. However, the glove has fallen into fair hands; the flower of Albion's chivalry rush to the rescue; once more her belted knights shall beard the Paynim......

"Charge, Chester-field: on, Clifden: Stanley, on!
St. George for England, Peel and Eglinton!"

Having alluded to steeple-chasing, as one of the popular pastimes of our island, it claims a notice in this survey of its sports at the close of the nineteenth century. I have never been its advocate; but I would fain be spared the charge of being its opponent-if indeed such can be objected against me-without fair sporting grounds for my objection. We hunt, it is true; and the aim and end of the chase is "a kill." We shoot, and course, and fish; and existence is the forfeit paid to our skill and success. Is this to be quoted as an argument in support of a

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