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having to defend the prisoner upon such a dreadful charge as the one now made against him. The learned counsel then proceeded to comment upon the circumstances of the case, and said that it was a melancholy thing that, in order to enable persons in the position of Lord Grantley to enjoy their pleasures and preserve their game, the lives of the poorer classes were to be sacrificed; and he expressed his opinion that it would be much better if there were no game, and that such lordly pleasures should be altogether abolished rather than that such dreadful cases as the present, and similar ones all over the country during the present assizes, should have taken place."

What wretched sophistry is this! To feel the full force of the injustice and falsehood of such arguments, I will briefly advert to the prisoner's own statement. The ruffian stated-"I had my supper; and after my son had gone to bed I said to my wife, 'Oh, how hard it is for us to be in such distress, we have neither butter nor cheese nor sugar,' and whether she had any tea I am not certain, for when we were at supper we had but a piece of bread each of us, with a little tea without sugar or milk; and, as I had spent twopence for the beer, we were quite destitute. It hurt my feelings (!), so I said to my wife, I will go and get a bird or two if I possibly can, for I cannot bear to see us in such distress;' and I took the gun and shot a brace of birds, and thought if I could get a sale for them it would get a little tea and sugar.

He sallied forth-killed the pheasants-was met by the keeperresisted his lawful apprehension-and knocked out the poor man's brains! Here is a wretch putting forth a plea of poverty as his excuse for murder. He wanted tea and sugar. He, forsooth! who had a gun, powder, and shot at hand: and Lord Grantley ought to give up his "lordly pleasures" rather than such a scoundrel should come to harm. He took "the gun." What business has a poor man with a gun, except to knock a faithful servant's brains out, as was the case here; or to shoot him dead upon the spot, as was the case at Marlborough? And, for similar doings "all over the country," it is meet, in Mr. Charnock's eye, that the game should be "abolished." The Globe will probably treat us to its annual tirade against the game laws; and upon these "dreadful cases" by and by.

What is it that men would have of the country gentlemen and their pastimes? They are blamed because they protect themselves against the incipient sheep-stealer, hen-roost plunderer, and eventual horse-stealer (for such is every poacher in the end); and held up as oppressors and tyrants because the refuse and scum of society are punished for their evil habits and practices by their means. Pity that these gentlemen are not equally taken with the fruit in our gardens; the wine in our cellars; the plate on our sideboards; the books in our libraries; and the horses in our stables; for in such cases, with equal justice, would hireling orators and venal writers rise up in their defence. Enough of this;

See, "Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train-
Vapours and clouds and storms."

K K

The lodge which smiled in the spring, and in summer stood cool and shaded in its canopy of leaves and spreading boughs, while the gentle brook flowed murmuring by its side, is a scene for a picture in the frost and snow. There is nothing more grand and imposing than forest scenery in a hoar frost. A thousand images rise around, “as from a stroke of the enchanter's wand;" the trees form themselves into a castle, and the vistas seem as the long passages through which may issue the castellan and his warriors. Imprisoned within its walls, our fancy delineates suffering beauty, and stern, unflinching virtue; soon troop after troop of warriors hasten to the rescue. It needs but the sound of trumpet and pealing volley to fill up the imaginary scene, and the regular siege and sally, the storm and fall of the castle follow. But let us descend from our altitudes;

"For waking Reason deems

Such over-weening phantasies unsound,

And other voices speak and other sights surround.”

Honest Lawton is on the look-out for wild-fowl to-day; he has gone through the hazards of the midnight fray, and the railway heroes are safe in the county jail till the spring assizes. If there is no better water than the Miller's Reach for fish, there is none better for wildfowl. The stream is serpentine and the banks of the river intersected with pools and reed beds; a finer place for duck and widgeon was never seen. And they are so quiet there, unscared by guns and human footsteps, in the very heart of the preserve, it were strange, indeed, if we had not a perfect decoy along the reach. Some of the various tribes stay and breed with us, and many is the flapper I have brought down in summer mornings who had evidently first essayed his flight before me. Two or three shots for the hall is the limit of Lawton's doings at home. The strings of teal and ducks which rise up in all directions upon the first bang! bang! in the reach, show plainly enough that a splendid day's sport awaits us at a distance down the river. And it is so; four or five couple of ducks, as many or more of teal and snipes, with widgeon, pochard, and half-bird, crown the labours of the day. The morrow is a day indeed; it is the pheasant-day at the keeper's lodge. Those who have shared such, know well enough what it is: it is the crowning day of all. When we had such a day I once shot so true, with heart so light, and every nerve in tune, that I look to it as one of the halcyon days of my existence. Forty-two pheasants did I bag at forty-five shots, nineteen hares out of twenty shots; I seemed as if I could miss nothing. I had a new single gun-Smith's, of Prince's-street, Leicester-squareand the keeper's retriever, Ben, was not a whit behind. It is over! the grand day at the lodge! generally the last of the season.

May, 1844.

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From the incessant clamour raised against it by certain parties, I confess it was not without some want of confidence that I ventured on a detail of the rise and progress of the steeple-chase, and attempted, in so doing, to prove it, both in importance and respectability, worthy of a place in a sporting periodical and of a sportsman's notice; but when we come to look back to the gradual increase, and almost general opinion given in favour of it, within the last fourteen years, I see little cause for concluding that I have treated the subject at greater length than it deserved, particularly as few or no other public writers have called attention to it, save and except to abuse it. Having, then, traced it step by step up to the first open sweepstakes in 1829, all from that period is comparatively plain sailing; and the latter, as I could wish it ever was, the most grateful part of one's self-set task; my space, however, compels me to confine this concluding paper to but a brief review of the principal events of the past, taking them in chronological order and season for season.

In 1830, we find St. Alban's taking the lead, which Tommy Coleman and Co. continued to keep for a considerable time, that ancient town being long regarded as the Newmarket of the steeple-chase world; matters commenced here with a twenty-five guinea stake, won by Lord Ranelagh's Wonder, who subsequently divided the honours of the season with Niagara, over a country in every instance within easy reach of the metropolis. I must, however, once more warn the reader from imagining that these were mere "city affairs," as amongst others who figured as jockeys on the different occasions were Lords Claricarde and W. Fitzroy, Honourable A. Berkeley, Colonel Standen, Captains Mac Dowall, Blaine, and Becher, and Mr. Codrington.

The next year, 1831, was on the whole anything but favourable to a sport yet in its infancy, the three principal chases-St. Alban's, Harrow, and Finchley-being all carried off by the same horse, the celebrated Moonraker, the Lottery of his day, who was soon transferred to the stables of Mr. Elmore, equally well known as one of the first amongst the first. For the Finchley chase Lord Clanricarde did the horse and his owner the honour to steer him. 1832 was equally if not more to the advantage of Mr. Elmore,

the first of his across country (cracks, Moonraker, again winning the St. Alban's, the Finchley, and also the Barnet; being in fact only beaten once, and then in a match arising from, and which took place a week after, his victory at St. Alban's. It appears that the owner and friends of Mr. Evans's Grimaldi were scarcely satisfied with his being rated only second best in the steeple chase, and that immediately after it they offered to stake £500 to £450 that over a like distance, with the same weights, but a different jockey up, the "gallant grey" would prove his superiority. This offer being as spiritedly accepted, Mr. Osbaldestone was substituted for Mr. Mostyn, and the pair met once more in the neighbourhood of Harrow, when Seffert with all his fine riding was unequal to cope with the Squire, or perhaps it would be more just to say he was only the worse mounted; though it was thought the knowledge of "the clipper" he had to contend with acted as anything but an improvement on his performance. The Northampton chases can be traced back to the spring of this year; the first attempt, however, was not the best, and no ways indicative of the excellence attained in succeeding seasons by the Pytchley practitioners.

St. Alban's, in 1833, had two no contemptible rivals in Northampton and Amersham, at both of which places heavier stakes were offered for competition, and the fields which showed for them as good in individual excellence, though not so large. Captain Fairlie won the St. Alban's, with Antelope; Solloway the Northampton, with the Daring Ranger; and Anderson the Amersham, with Arbutus. In addition to these open stakes were three strong matches in Warwickshire, in all of which Colonel Charritie and his horse Napoleon were concerned; in the first "the Emperor was pitted against Mr. Whistler's Countess for £500 and beat her; in the second, against Mr. Clutterbuck's Clipstone for £400, and in the third for £1,000 against Grimaldi, on both which occasions he was defeated; but, through one of those mistakes of so frequent occurrence in this sport, in riding the last both Mr. Osbaldeston and Captain Becher went wrong, and the Colonel drew his money.

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1834 was a year which will be long looked back to with pleasure by the admirers of steeple-chasing; such as hitherto had opposed it, and declared with a confidence meant to carry all before them that it was an innovation which could not last-an evil that must cure itself-held their peace when they beheld meetings rising in all parts, -St. Alban's increasing its attractions, Northampton working on, Cheltenham, Bedford, and Stourbridge breaking forth, and, to crown all, the brilliant finish to the season over the Vale of Aylesbury-a chase, the announcement of which drew thousands on thousands to witness it, and collected to run for it the picked horses and riders of the United Kingdom; a chase which, for numerical strength and general excellence of the field, the admirable selection of the country over which it was run, and the brilliant effect with which it went off, far exceeded anything of the kind previously attempted, and established it as a sport both of the lords and the people. The success which accompanied Vivian and his accomplished pilot on so many subsequent occasions was sufficient assurance that the best horse won this, and that when the pair were in proper trim it was next to im

possible to beat them. It was at Aylesbury, too, that one of the best sportsman ever known made his public debut on this side of the channel, and himself more generally known to us; this was the Marquis of Waterford, who thus early gave proof of his gallantry by charging the river, supposed by all who saw it, but the stewards, as impracticable, and treated as such by the rest of the field; indeed his Lordship's fate by no means lessened the numbers of those who had previously formed this opinion, for his horse Lancet, though he went as fearlessly at it as his master put him, was for three hours in the stream, and, when landed, for three weeks in the town before he was deemed sufficiently recovered to return to Melton; where, if I recollect right, he soon aftewards died from, if not during, a run with the Quorn; the effects of which told so seriously on Lancet that the application of his namesake was no avail. It will, no doubt, be in the recollection of most of my readers that the Marquis was not satisfied with his defeat, which he attributed to his mishap, and that he immediately challenged the conqueror for £1,000, naming Cock Robin, another favourite in his stud; this was decided in Leicestershire, and though the second horse made a better fight for it single handed, old Vivian' and the Captain kept their laurels untarnished in a country, over which, if man and horse can go, they may rest satisfied they can go anywhere, or "by the Lord Harry! do all but fly!" Mr. Anderson of Piccadilly, I believe, first started the idea of the Buckinghamshire steeple chases, and it was mainly through his exertions that so good a beginning was effected.

The steeple-chase, like coursing, divides a season between the close of one year and the commencement of another; and thus the first Aylesbury steeple chase taking place in December, 1834, and the second in February, 1836, a clear twelve months, though not another season, elapsed before the succeeding chase came off. In this leapyear, 1835, Captain Fairlie a second time won the St. Alban's, The Poet, the winner of it the previous season, dying on the field of his former victory, from a severe injury in jumping a fence near home. Waltham Abbey, Brocklesby Hunt, Ware, and Norfolk (a chase in 1834 was run at Scole) were amongst the "first appearances," and Cheltenham creeping on with two stakes, and large fields at the post for both.

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Though '35 had scarcely realized the expectations entertained from the style in which its immediate predecessor finished, and the grumblers once more had begun to show themselves, '36 settled all doubts about the matter: not a town or a village that had hitherto got up a chase withdrew from the list, while the number of fresh entries more than doubled that of chases previously established. Of those already "not unknown to fame, we find Aylesbury offering two stakes, with £100 added to each, and old Vivian and the Captain again putting in an appearance for both, and no ways disgracing their first performance over the vale, by running (and so ringing the changes) second for the first, and first for the second. Lord Waterford, also, not dismayed by his first misfortune, came again, and improved so far as to run in third, after keeping a good place throughout, on Yellow Dwarf. As a refresher, I may add that Saladin won the first or "Heavy-weight Stakes." Next to Ayles

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