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TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

In our next number will be commmenced a new sporting Novel, to be continued monthly, by John Mills, Esq., author of “The Old English Gentleman."

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'Cestrian." Write-if you must write-to the Editor of the "Old Sporting Magazine," in which the misstatement was published. We do not require to be told that "Charles J. Ford, Esq. is not master of the Cheshire hounds."

If our correspondent, at Hull, had so written that a letter could be addressed to him privately, he should have heard from us by return

of post.

"Bee's-wing" can have his request complied with; but how is it he has become Doeskin of Hunter House? Will he write to us in confidence?

The Editor will write to "Puckeridge." Is he understood?
The coaching suggestion shall not be lost sight of.

The Ring. We have received a long communication from Manchester on the subject of a shameful riot that occurred, a few days since, at a prize-fight in that neighbourhood. We are happy in being enabled to inform our correspondent, we have it from the highest authority that it is the intention of government to take immediate and rigorous measures for abolishing the practice of public prize-fighting.

To all those who are addicted to the cacoethes scribendi, we commend an inkstand, just invented by Messrs. Perry and Co. This new and useful invention, termed "The Patent Perryian Gravitating Inkstand," will be found to preserve the ink for an incredible period, and, from the nature of its construction, dust is entirely excluded.

Vols. I to VIII., bound in fancy cloth boards, and lettered, are now ready.

3

HYDE MARSTON;

OR, RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPORTSMAN'S LIFE.

BY THE EDITOR.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH-CONVEYANCING.

"Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves.
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes.

Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves."-VIRGIL.
"Men make their own the labour of the steer,
And flannel vestures of the sheep they shear.
The bees do gather store of honey sweet,
To make bon-bons

For lazy drones,

Not for themselves to eat."-FREE TRANSLATION.

HITHERTO these recollections may have seemed less germane to their indicated purpose than they ought to have been. But the early experience of the sportsman is, of all knowledge, precisely that of the least value. As the circulation of notes for small sums is interdicted by act of parliament, so should comments be restrained apropos to little or nothing at all. The boy and the youth go forth to flood and field for no object beyond that attained in the pursuit of wild enterprise and healthful excitement. To such, woodcraft, like virtue, is its own reward. Manhood comes, with its store of worldly wisdom and keen perception, that seeks to turn to account all the issues of life, and, lo! the speculator in pleasure rivals in diligence and application of means to the end proposed, he who knows no corner of the earth too distant for the exercise of his industry. What stores of genius have been brought to bear on the horse-dealing of amateurs! Management, before which Talleyrand would have hidden his diminished head, has been lavished in laying the train for a game of blind hooky, and minds that might have done honour to the woolsack have wasted their sweetness on the intricacies of a handicap.

Up to the period of my visit to uncle Tom, at Paris, I had looked upon life as on the scenes of my first pantomime. Before my return to England, if I had not learnt to regard it as a tragedy, in which all men and women are "merely players," it had certainly struck me as a presentment wherein many of the vicarious characters were anything but comic. From my mother-of whom I have sketched a slight outline-I inherited quick feelings, a sanguine temperament, and a disposition for adventure so strong, as almost to make excitement necessary

to my existence. From my sire a spirit of perseverance, or―to call things by their proper names-of obstinacy, that taught me to regard resolution-or stubbornness-as a cardinal virtue. Thus made up, I was sent by a kind but most indiscreet father, with sad odds against me, into a world, wherein to do well (I write with sorrow, but conviction of the truth), the recipe is contained in the Frenchman's prescription, "Pour bien vivre il faut avoir un mauvais cœur et un bon

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After a short sojourn among the household gods at B first having accommodated the parental position "as well as could be expected," I set out for the north, with Maher beside me, in one of Burnand's buggies (Burnand was an awful fellow at the et cæteras of his bills, but it must be admitted he did turn you out a Christian conveyance), and, in front, one of the best pieces of horseflesh it was ever my fortune to see in single harness. As something in the experience line attaches to his history, I offer an apology for staying the narrative to introduce it here. "Paulo Majora," on whom I subsequently committed foul murder (as will appear in the sequel), by driving him at midnight into the Severn, between Tewkesbury and Gloucester, was an undoubted "Trister," as his high and ragged hips, short clean legs, and "nicked" tail, demonstrated to the knowing in the equestrian "habitat." He came into my possession some months previous to my French excursion in the following manner. He had been bought out of a string that was passing through Shrewsbury, by one of the coach proprietors, who found him so ferociously vicious, that the only use he could make of him was in the chaff-mill, where he was worked sometimes a month at a spell! Even there he was found too dangerous, and was sent to B kennels. Being fat, they gave, I believe, thirty shillings for him, and turned him into the boiling-yard, preparatory to his being turned into beef. There I accidentally saw him, looking all over a collar nag, barring his eye, which, as Mrs. Malaprop says, resembled that of an allegory on the banks of the Nile." On the occasion of that visit to the victualling department I chanced to be accompanied by a favourite bull terrier, between whom and the "doomed one" a singular friendship was struck up-a kind of beastly love at first sight, even Maher remarking—“Our Venom makes up uncommon to the 'knacker,' she does, by I mane, it's a fact.”

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It seemed so monstrous to throw such an animal to the dogs, that, resolving on an effort to reform him, I caused him to be put into a shed, as the first step. On the following day I found him there, with Venom coiled up under his nose, forming a four-footed tableau of Damon and Pythias. He was now transferred to a stall in the carriage

stable, Venom taking up her quarters under his manger. He was next harnessed and driven in the break-Venom bounding in front, as if to show the way; and in a very few days he stood, without even a groom at his head, before the hall door, between the shafts of my tilbury, with Venom perched on his quarters! I make no attempt to explain this very remarkable instance of "animal magnetism;" it is related just as it happened. The horse, subsequently, became perfectly gentle, and, though he always went more "kind" in his work when his canine friend was his companion, I never wore an inch of whipcord on him during the three years he was my sole "gigger."

vous.

The start for the north was in anticipation of Doncaster races, where I was about to make my début. Twenty years ago the great Yorkshire meeting was in its high and palmy state. As a circulating medium it had, probably, not its equal among all the racing rendezSituated in one of the wealthiest districts of England, and the most sporting, the way money flew about upon the greensward, and I fear it must be said, on the green baize, was like a restoration of the golden age. As a resort of the speculative, it certainly then enjoyed, if, indeed, it does not still, a far greater popularity than Newmarket or Epsom. There is a centralization about it favourable to business, that no other general meeting possesses; and more good things have come off there, quietly (or, at least, successfully), than at any similar trysting.

Great industry, indeed, has, of late years, been manifested in the south to achieve something that should bear comparison with the "Bessy Bedlam" and "Plenipo" contingencies; but that which can scarcely be effected in Surrey by a stroke, however bold, comes off naturally, as it were, in York. In 1842, for example, it was announced, as sure as mathematics, that Coldrenick would win the Derby; but when he made his appearance without a vestige of "abominable viscera," and ran after his horses like the clown in the circle at Astley's, people did give their opinions in somewhat forcible language, while Coronation and Attila lost their Legers in a manner satisfactory to the most fastidious. This reputation procured, as I have said, pre-eminence of patronage for Doncaster among the industrious of the olden time, as well as in later days, and will probably uphold its name in future generations. The occasion of my first appearance there was one not without its catastrophe, nor without those engaged in it, whose career had, from its commencement to its end, a constant influence upon my fortunes. Does chance mingle with the operations of the divinity that "shapes our ends?" Has philosophy an answer for the question?

Monsieur de Balzac, a French writer of great celebrity, in a series

of tales designed to expose the corruption and depravity of the social system of Parisian life, describes, in elaborate detail, the various quarters of that metropolis, and the distinctive grouping together of its different classes, as expressive of the gregariousness inherent in mankind. Thus, in every city, may be marked out, as in a map, the landmarks of each trade, profession, foreign colony, or religious sect. This is true, in its most extensive application, of London, whose tree of commerce bears universal fruit, and whose gigantic branches stretch forth to every point of the compass. From its earliest foundation, more or less altered to suit present circumstances, might be traced its various settlements: its Jewish quarter and its Irish, its catholic and dissenting, its legal and medical; its wealthy idle and legislative, its industriously accumulative, or scientific quarters. Little France and Little Britain, Cheapside and Whitechapel, are, indeed, now misnomers of their respective districts; still every one acquainted with our metropolitan localities will make a pretty shrewd guess of the whereabouts of an individual, of whose country, religion, and occupation he is cog

noscent.

As, in a kitchen-garden, the cook's assistant resorts with confidence to the beds and patches whereon thrive and multiply the herbs and vegetables which are to constitute the chief merit of his stock-pot; so the London inhabitant unerringly culls from the separate tribes and colonies of the aggregate society those who contribute to the satisfaction of his need, or of his superfluity.

The language masters for his children will be planted round Leicester and Golden-squares. The artist will be sought and found in Newman-street, or in the Kentish and Camden Town suburbs. Saville-row and its neighbourhood concern themselves with your physical; Bedford-row, its circumadjacents, and the inns of courts, with your moral obstructions. Collocated in the by-streets, around the great hotels and thoroughfares of the West End, the French emigrant of some means, the speculator and the adventurer, the homme à bonnes fortunes and the poor gentleman, were wont to be found as easily as one's tailor or hatter in Bond-street. There was Swallowstreet, to which numbers annually migrated: there are still Jermyn and Bury-streets, and fifty others, whence, in national confraternity, the French and their habitués resort to the various eating and play-houses of the vicinity.

It was, then, in a ready-furnished house in Swallow-street, that Launcelot Ridsdale, the confederate of so many of the superior class of gamblers of the country in which the spirit of gaming may almost be said to be inherent, had fixed his abode on his return from Paris. The aspect of its interior was significative of the profession of those through

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