New Moon, 6th day, at 5 min. past 10 morning. M.W. 3 Moon HIGH WATER rises & London Bridge. sets. morn. aftern. h. m. d. h. m. h. m. h. m. morning 1F Warren Point (Ireland) Regatta. r 3 4925 RISES: 10 15 10 46 2 S Cr.-Harrow. M.C.C. v. Harrows 8 18 26 1 2011 1511 45 Sirth Sunday after Trinity, r 3 5027 1 42 No tide 0 10 4 M Cr.-Lord's, Gt. Eng.v.Gt. Kent's 8 1728 2 10 0 36 1 0 5 T Newmkt. July Meet. Worcester R.r 3 5229 2 46 6W Old Midsummer day. 7 T Worcester Regatta. 8 F Cambridge Term ends. 9 S Oxford Term ends. afternoon. s 8 16 N SETS. 4 10 43 1 20 1 40 202 20 2 35 3 0 3 15 3 35 3 50 4 10 4 30 4 50 10 Seventh Sunday af. Trinity.s 8 13 11 M Cr.-Lord's. M.C.C. v. England. r 3 58 511 2 5 5 5 30 12 T Mansfield R. Lowestoft R. s 8 12 611 19 5 50 6 10 13 W Liverpool Races. Maidstone Races r 4 0 14 T Cr.-Westm. M.C.C. v. Westm.s 8 10 15 F P. of Wales Y. C. Reg., Blackwall.r 4 16 S 17 s 8 Eighth Sunday after Trinity.r 4 18 M Cr. Lord's. Gentn. v. Players. s 8 19 T Stamford Races. Rl. Mersey Reg. r 4 20 W Royal Western Reg., Plymouth. s 8 21 T Nottingham Races. Brighton Reg.r 4 22 F 23 S s 8 r 4 24 Ninth Sunday after Trinity. s 7 25 M Cr.-Lord's. Sussex v. England. r 4 26 P Goodwood Races. Teignmouth R. s 7 27 W Goodwood Stakes Day. 116 9 41 3 5 3 30 1217 10 2 3 50 4 15 59 18 10 20 4 35 4 55 15 19 10 35 5 15 5 40 56 20 10 50 6 06 20 r 4 1821 11 6 6 40 7 0 28 T Goodwood Cup Day. Torbay R.s 7 532211 24 7 20 7 45 r 4 21 2311 44 8 16 S 40 s 7 5024 9 15 9 45 29 F 30 S Morning. 31 Tenth Sunday after Trinity.r 4 2425 0 1110 2010 55 14 Goodwood.... 26, 27, 28 & 29 8 Stourbridge.. ....... 18 & 19 Downham Market 12 & 13 ... 27 THE RACING SEASON-JUNE. BY CRAVEN. “Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words." -King John. The week following the great meeting in Surrey was what is called in turf vernacular "a pull" quoad the course. There was a chicken tryst at Newton, but nothing to interrupt the process of drawing breath, save that other "drawing" contingent upon racing enterprise which, albeit in no poetic vein, but too often "-wafts a sigh from Indus to the Pole." Saving his presence, it must about these presents have been "bellows to mend" with Mister Davis. "That gentleman lost seventy thou sand pounds by the week," said the papers: putting as a fact calling for no comment a passage in the life of an operative which throws into shade the fiction of Monte Christo-always assuming that such a dollop of money was duly paid. This is alluded to in no disparaging spirit, any more than was the origin of that Midas financier, whilom told in these pages as 'twas told to me at Newmarket, the scene of action. My informant was of good repute in that his naturalized town, and so I ventured to adopt his record as true. But then in these pages, and by this pen, the system of racing "sweeps" and lotteries was exposed and denounced, and finally done for. Publichouses were suggested as inconvenient places for the promotion and practice of public gambling. This made men whose withers were wrung wince; and now, instead of crying "Hold! enough!" they have begun an onslaught that promises to take the last kick out of them. Their organ is grinding in this wise upon the Turkey subject-very like a goose. Instead of letting well alone, it lets drive at an adversary who will presently set it singing on the other side of the mouth. "Like Don Quixote's tailor, he works for nothing and finds the thread." The leading journal of Europe has seen fit to advocate free trade in liquids. This don't suit "the trade"; so its advocate lifts up a licentious voice, and vituperates in allegory of blasphemy, In the fervour of its zeal it charges with a parody on the Omnipotent's Commandments!...." The Times never tires of repeating-The influence of moderate counsels is better fitted to prevent aggression than a show of influential resistance'...That is Bob Acre's opinion...It is what every coward thinks... Great geographer!... Deep politician!... Sound philosopher!... Admirable moralist!... Pious Christian! Thy novel or original Decalogue teaches us You shall murder. You shall violate. You shall bear false witness. You shall covet your neighbour's house, and his wife, and his maid, and his ox, and his ass, and everything that is his....This and worse you shall do for justice' sake, and for God's. The Times returns the compliment with the courteous contempt of silence. But straightway the Thunderer proceeds to strike the fetters from spirituous liquors and swipes, and there shall be free trade henceforth in malt drinks, brandy, rum, geneva gin, and all potables. The Licensed Victualler is no more: monopoly is defunct, and the publican dead : "You take my life When you do take the means whereby I live." The Victualler's organ piped, and off danced his trade. When people live in glass-houses they get the worst of "bethumping." Harry Tailor-peradventure a relative of that "Billy Tailor" who, according to the song, was a gay young fellow"-was tried at the Old Bailey Sessions last month for robbing his masters. Mr. Ser geant Wilkins, the prisoner's counsel, said "There was no doubt he had been led into the commission of acts of dishonesty by the temptation afforded by those abominable places, the betting houses in the metropolis. It appeared that the prisoner had betted to a small amount in the first instance, and having lost, he increased his stake, when, being again unsuccessful, he was induced to make use of the money belonging to his employers to cover his losses."...... At the Mansion House, on the 17th ult., William Woodward, clerk in a banking house, was charged with having stolen £100, the property of his employers. Mr. Bodkin, for the prosecution, stated that the "prisoner had been brought into difficulties which led to the offence by his connexion with those villanous betting houses, which had been the means of ruining such numbers of young men.' Coincident with these and countless other similar modern instances, eloquent of the state of the Olympic market, has arisen a scheme of new and poignant "dodge." It seems this novelty in "nobbling consists of business transacted at second-hand-the "nobbler" theorizing the wrangle, or imputed misconception, or hypothesis of absence at the settling, which his deputy "operates." The abstract value of this invention of the enemy lies in the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of kicking an offender by substitute. If it should come to pass, by especial grace of your good angel, that you blunder upon the broker to a book in which you are interested, who, of course, is wide awake to "slip" you, and he "takes the liberty to suggest that there is some misunderstanding here;" or "that it's all right, and he'll see about it"; without being specific as to time or place, will it mend the matter for you to intimate that he is a scoundrel-a fact familiar to him since he put off his pinafore-and that you purpose punching his head? That's what he is paid for: a fair day's work for a fair day's wage: simply it is a consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence. So, at least, they say at the Corner-that rendezvous of respectability, the entrée to which is only available for the aspirant who can produce a good character, as preliminary to his being taken in. Now, the rumour runs that the Secretary of State for the Home Department has it in contemplation to muzzle the betting-list division -leviathan, little fish, and all-by a coup politique. An Act of Parliament is to pass which shall limit all dealing in bets to contracts upon "tick "-ready money to be illegal traffic. This will consoli date the pre-existing provision which protected dealers and chapmen from the possibility of loss, with the "velvet" assigned to their customers, which involves the impossibility of gain. Such is the "fix" which has been devised out of two negatives; nevertheless, in face of all these untowardnesses, business in the odds is looking up. agency is not on a footing with the custom. "The play's the thing With which I'll try the conscience of the "-Ring." This found wanting, the demand will secure the supply.... But the It gratifies me to find that the opinion I have always expressed of the Derby course-for which the racing interest is indebted to the liberal hand of its munificent patron while yet he was spared to do it honour, Lord George Bentinck-has come to be participated in by those of sound judgment and long experience. One-by no means the least in authority among them-thus dealt with it, in his remarks upon the victory of West Australian: "The pace at which this year's Derby was run was indifferent, to my thinking, as all Derby races have been, for the first quarter of a mile, since the new course has been in operation: one and all are afraid of the hill." My conviction is that it does the very thing it was designed to obviate it has undoubtedly led to more false-run races for that most important of all the issues of the year's calendar than did its predecessor. To call it difficult is far from expressing the reality with which both the horse and his rider have to contend. It is desperate-a forlorn hopeconquered far more "by luck than good guidance." The axiom which treats disparagingly the probabilities of a "stern chase" is infinitely more applicable to such an occasion when the performers are race-horses than when they are ships. Some tempers give way on seeing the hiatus which separates them from their field, and refuse to lessen it when they are called upon. Others rush it, and beat themselves by the extremity of their strain. To beat a horse "anyhow" at the beginning is antagonistic both to the principle and the science of the course: this, more or less, the new starting ground for the mile-and-a-half at Epsom ensures.... and the remedy will be found more obstinate than the disease. Take it for all in all, it is the worst suited piece of surface in Great Britain used for modern racing of any pretension. Passing the provincial business of the week separating the two great metropolitan meetings, with fine weather and gracious anticipations we seek the Royal Heath. With two railways from London into Windsor, the appliances of transit are ample. The opening of Ascot Races was a brilliant one-the Court, it is true, was not there to "rain influence," but the Royal sympathies, it is believed, do not harmonize with horse racing; hence loyalty, to say nothing of the deference a lady's taste commands, made that less a cause of regret than for courteous congratulation. Year by year the equestrian pageantry-the pomp and circumstance of equipage for which this aristocratic rendezvous was once so celebrated-become small by degrees, but far from "beautifully less." Alas! and well-a-day! the glories of "the Road" have "ended in smoke." To tell of the pleasant pilgrimage from the point of steam debarkation to that of present attraction: of the Park-of the Merry Wives: Bottom and the Fairy Oak-would be a labour of love, but not the less of supererogation. Not to know these argues a most lame and impotent conclusion: courtesy forefend that such should be our deduction from so fair premises. Daring is the casuist who deals with life's logic "Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart and from the heart we took Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives, Nor knows not, when from out its cradled nook What may the fruit be yet?—I know not-Cain was Eve's." I don't know whether others have made the remark, but to me it seems as if Ascot's chivalrous anniversary were always distinguished for weather eminently delicious or absolutely the reverse. Two years ago, on the Thursday, the environs of the Royal, Stewards', and Grand Stands, were covered feet deep with the material which in mild winter furnishes the load of a scavenger's cart. This season the highways and byeways were like Saharas, and the course was as hard as the pavement of Portland-place. The list it is that of Tuesday-is plethoric, and somewhat in this state were the issues which of its items came to pass. The Trial Stakes, open to all ages, had a full field, with but few admirers. Of the trio that found favour, Ephesus was first in the ring and Ariosto "first in the throng." It is not obvious what is got by trying with three year olds carrying 7st. 4lbs. at midsummer; but these are myhts-unsuitable for the million. A Sweepstakes for two year olds, to which the nominations were half-adozen, came off a Match, won by Boer, with all manner of odds on him, beating Lamprocles as West Australian would the courser of George the Fourth in Trafalgar-square, were they to be brought out to test which was the speediest. Her Majesty's annual offering"The Gold Vase"-wherefore so denominated I know not-mustered nine at the post of the fifteen entered, and turned out disastrously for the dodgers leary. The odds were 6 to 4 against Rataplan-who, it will be remembered, showed prominently at Epsom, at Ascot carrying 1 st. 4 lbs. less; Pelion was a point worse, and liberal prices against anything else. The judge placed them, as they rated in the oddsafter a sufficient dose of ad libitum in-and-out coquetting over the course. The Ascot Derby followed-Derby weights and ages-16 subscribers and three runners, whereof two were out of Lord Exeter's stable. They backed Ninnyhammer to win-which he did-and so the industrious once more had their trouble for their pains....The Ascot Stakes, which, being handicap, was of necessity the piece de resistance of the le-I beg pardon-the layers of the odds--out of 95 named induced a baker's dozen to “fall in." Now here came "compensation"-the fool's fond Consuelo." They laid-and people took-6 to 5 on Lady Evelyn-poor dear lady Evelyn, a returned transport-7 to 1 against the son of Lucy Banks and Cotherstone and so on, in ascending scale againt everything else, except Lord Palmerstone's Buckthorn-the winner!...This is the salt speculative, which, put upon their tales-catches flats.... The Welcome Stakes 1 |