tures, "Tom" proceeded: "Now Sir ! There's Mr. Bethell of Rise." The daring impudence of the thing tickled the subject of it, precise and schoolmaster-like as he might be, and when Mr. Hodgson came and apologized in the morning, he treated it as a joke. He was 93, and Sir Tatton always rather pitted himself against him for length of days; but the old Sledmere oak was the first to fall. A very different character died on or about the same day, in "Bill Broom," who fought that tremendous battle, in which he almost vanquished Tom King, and carried his fine aquiline nose undamaged from the ring. He was worn to a shadow with consumption, and could only crawl about at the last Croydon Steeple Chases. When his friends condoled with him. on the ground, he simply replied "I'm sent for."

With the exception of the deer travelling to Windsor Castle as a refuge, there was not much to mark November with the Queen's hounds, save a smart scurry from Bedfont Gate. There were several falls, and one horse broke his back, by dropping with his hind legs into a brook. A correspondent writes thus of the scene at the Castle: "The hounds did not follow the deer into the Frogmore grounds, but were stopped at the river between the Albert Bridge and Datchet. It was certainly a curious sight to see him nibbling the ivy growing against the keep. Picture to yourself how the love-sick Surrey, or David, King of Scotland, or, carrying your fancy a little on, how the fair Geraldine would have opened their eyes; and well might her Majesty ask how Cranbourne ever got there. It was much more intricate than the apple in the dumpling. We all regret he did get there, as he spoiled our run. This deer is the one which is regularly once a year caught near Oxford." We are glad to hear that Mr. Davis, that " Palmerston of the chase," is in good health. He began with the Royal Harriers, in 1801, and with the Stag Hounds, in 1814, and on January 15th he will be seventy-seven. To expect him to be as hard as of yore, at his age, is to expect impossibilities; but those who have to do with it will not hear of his resigning, and this feeling does them every honour. As for "Young Towler," and his doggrel, the Hunt know how to treat him as he deserves, and they fully appreciate the pretence of being a friend to a man's face, and then wantonly wounding him if you can through the papers. It reminds one of what the fair huntress, Mrs. Chetwynd, said of her dog Spot's conduct to her: "He first devoured me with kisses, and then with fleas." One paper very properly struck out all the offensive parts of the verses, and spoke out well the next week on the subject; and the other, which did print them, could have never given the matter a thought. With the Belvoir the weather has been changeable; but the scent on some days has been very good. The best day was December 14th, from Coston Gorse, which produced the finest fifty minutes that they have had in this country for years, ending with a kill in the open. So far, they have killed 37 brace. The Quorn had a capital thing from Bunny on December 5th. It was the first day that Mr. Gilmour was out; and, unfortunately, he got a bad fall. They had a capital day from Bilton, on December 6th-forty minutes with their first fox, and killed him; and thirty-six minutes with their second, and killed again. They had also a capital day on the 13th, killing the first fox after a very fast forty minutes, and the second after 1 h. 20 mins. Melton Mowbray and Leicester are

getting very full indeed, and the fields are very large. Coilisson is proving quite a second Joe Maiden to the Cheshire. They have had good scent, and plenty of rain. Nov. 28: Found at Newton Gorse, and killed in the open: racing pace, without a check for 21 minutes. Dec. 5: A fast 20 minutes from Middleton Grange, and killed; then followed a 1 h. 5 mins., with a second fox from Bird's Wood, which they killed-scent first-rate. Dec. 7: A racing 15 minutes from Cocked Hat Cover to ground; and 30 minutes and 56 minutes, both to ground, from Filow Gorse and Page's Wood. The latter was especially fast, and the hounds were never once cast. Dec. 8: A first-rate day. Killed first fox in Chesterton Wood; lost second after 15 minutes; found in Hurleston New Gorse, and had a rare 1 h. 30 minutes to ground. Only ten saw the finish. Monday, Dec. 12 : A good 1 h. 25 mins. from Calverley Park to ground, near Hurleston Smithy. Found a second fox at Calverley New Gorse, and ran him very fast for 20 minutes, without a check; and then had 15 minutes of slow hunting, and gave it up. Dec. 15th: Meet, Highlegb. Forty-five minutes of racing, from find to finish; but he got to ground. Dec. 19: Snow six inches deep. Dec. 22: A fair day's sport from Cholmondeley, and killed one fox. "Stopped with hard frost," was our bulletin of the 27th. This disposes pretty effectually of the saying that there is no real Christmas now-a-days except in the pictures of the Illustrated News. We regret that we cannot give some of these excellent Cheshire runs more at length. The Duke of Buccleuch's are doing well under Will Shore, and his grace has very frequently joined them from Bowhill, which in consequence of the heavy trustee business which the Duke of Hamilton's death entailed upon him, he was unable to do last season. His old grey and Mooltan have both been shot, and their stalls filled up by two from Mr. Kench of Dunchurch, who has furnished a great many hunters to his grace. Will Williamson, whose photograph in scarlet is hung up in the room at Tattersall's, is hearty and well at 82, and still able to enjoy sport on his neat brown, The Kaffir. We have not heard whether Mr. Nicol Milne has jumped over any more wire fences this season on his bay mare. He did so twice last year by putting his coat over the wire.

It is hard lines that the Duke of Grafton should be obliged to go to Nice and sell his hunters, just when he had shown a run, almost as memorable as the Billesdon Coplow. It, too, has had its minstrel, but he was not exactly a Lowth, and made his ditty nearly thrice as long as it ought to have been, if he wanted to be effective and quoted in days to come. The Yorkshiremen have been very unlucky all this year in the way of tumbles (Mr. Rudston Read slipped up before the Derby, and was a long time on crutches), and broken noses and broken legs seem to have been unfortunately rife with the York and Ainsty. George Beers has put the Bedale in the way they should go at last; and Mr. Lowndes's bitches have had some good things over the grass, in one of which "Bob Ward," on one of the Hon. Mr. Grimston's horses, is said to have fairly galloped away from the field. At Tredegar they have extended the jumping test at the hunter show by giving ten or twelve very stiff leaps, one of them a hedge with five yards of water, which the Hon. F. Morgan negotiated in great style on his grey, and won. The tools with which Captain Carnegie has done such rare work with the

Pytchley brought good prices at Tattersall's. They were, we believe, nearly all Irish, and The Robber, the best-looking of the lot, made the top price, 330 gs. The Captain, it was said, rather hung to Courtier, who went for 30 gs. less to Lord Hopetoun, who also bought Planet (270 gs.) The biggest of them, Lottery, only made 200 gs. A dark rumour reaches us, that "Argus" has been seen in scarlet with the H. H. His undisciplined ardour might lead him into danger, but luckily we learn from those pleasant Records of Hampshire by "Esop, which are proving many a sportsman's friend in the frost, that our "English Jules Janin" was "born with two teeth and a caul." Hence he can set his teeth and grind through any fence, and no brook can drown him.

The weather with The Grove has been windy and foggy, and the scent bad, but they have now and then had a good day. Up to Christmas day they had killed ten and a-half brace in their regular hunting, and run four brace to ground. Thursday, Dec. 22, was a most capital day. Gringley Gorse had a good show of foxes. Part of the hounds settled to one, and ran it an hour and twenty minutes, and back to the gorse, where they had twenty minutes more and killed. Clayworth furnished another good fox, which gave them twenty minutes in the open, and then to Gringley gorse, where the hounds ran till dark, and were stopped. As regards Gringley gorse, this day seems rather on a piece with, but a very decided improvement on, the Tilton Wood day, of which Lord Alvanley said "Oh! beautiful! We've been up Tilton Wood, down Tilton Wood, and through Tilton Wood; then we went away from Tilton Wood, and back again to Tilton Wood, and they'll very likely finish at Tilton Wood."

Mr. Thomson gets on very well with the Pytchley "thrusters," who are not so troublesome as usual. The sport has been good, but the foxes are not first-rate, and the earth-stopping is rather deficient. On Saturday and Monday week they did not hunt, on account of the frost, and went on Tuesday week (Dec. 20) into the woods. The fog was dense, and the scent breast-high; and the hounds ran for seven miles as if they were tied to him, and finally into a drain, from which he was dug out, close by Oundle. It took the hounds 4 hours to get back to kennel at Brixworth, On the next Friday it was a bitter hard frost, but they drew Braunston Gorse. The fox was headed twice, and would not leave, and was killed after two hours and twenty minutes' hard running in cover. The cold was so great that the field were almost frozen to their saddles, and only one red-coat besides Mr. Thomson stayed to the close. "Blue noses" were all the order of the day. The noble ex-master, Lord Spencer, has returned home, and has been out twice.

The Duke of Beaufort's have had good sport, and their scalps number fifty-five and a-half brace.

The Wynnstay young hounds have entered well, and their red book contains no less than nineteen working couples by old Royal. They had a good hour and five minutes on the 15th from Iscoid; and a nice gallop of thirty minutes from Soppington on the 7th, with a kill, and a fast twenty minutes with a second fox, which was also brought to hand. Then came a fast thirty-five minutes on the 16th, to ground from Oateley Park to Penley; and a fast hunting run of one hour and forty

minules ended matters for the present. Since the 17th frost and snow, which on the 26th bid fair to continue, have completely closed the country, which is busy drinking to "Luck in a Lass !"

The scent with the Old Berkshire has been very fine, and the last two months have been full of red-letter days. "Nov. 2: A very good thing from Pusey to Wadley; time, one hour. Nov. 9: A capital woodland run of three hours from Eaton Heath, and killed. Nov. 18: Had a very good hunting run from Northfields, and lost him close to Hinton; time one hour and ten minutes. Dec. 1, Longcot: Found in Beckett Shrubbery, and had a capital forty-six minutes, and killed him. Found again at Coxwell furzes; had forty-five minutes without a check, and killed, and several more good days since."

That defiant saying, of the old women of Forres-"Ye may tak our lives, but ye shall no tak our midden"-proves that manure rights will always be paramount, as long as "Muck's your man.' It was on a

question of manure that the future existence of the Brighton Harriers hung. Visitors who know what hunting ought to be may have their own opinion about them, but still they serve as an excuse for a ride. Their tap-root seems deep in the dust of ages. It is said that for once, and only once, the great Dr. Samuel Johnson went hunting, and that it was with this pack. It is also recorded that no compliment ever pleased him so much as a hunting man telling him that till he saw it with his own eyes, he never believed an author, of all people, could have ridden half so well. A man once rode up and down those hills after them, for a bet, with a half-crown between his knees; poor Leech and the caricaturists have followed them for the sake of cockney sketches; and hard-riding masters of hounds have been seen there to cut Time to pieces, and to refresh themselves on the principles of the linguist, who requested "a conversation in bad grammar for a change." Hence, to do away with them, was like rooting up those ancient landmarks, " Patcham," "Thunder's Barrow," and "Dyke." Even the Southdown Foxhounds and Mr. Stonehewer's natty little pack, which hunt the hills and furzes above Shoreham under the guidance of that most patient of sportsmen, Mr. Sharpe of the infallible pipe (who has just chopped, to his infinite sorrow, the largest hare ever seen on those hills), could not have stopped the gap, although they make everybody welcome.

The manure grievance was no light one. The farmers did not care to be furnishing "health unbought" in their fields, for all the Nimrods and Amazons of Brighton who roamed there for it, while the Sanitary Committee were so careless of their interests. They had addressed that body on the subject of the removal of manure not offensive, and requested the time to be extended from eleven to one o'clock, besides pointing out how unfairly some other regulations bore upon the farmers from a distance. From "carelessness or reluctance," this petition got burked, and was never presented to the Council at their November meeting. Under this slight, the agriculturists took action. One field was held against the invaders with stick and pitchfork when the Southdown came; and the difficulty" seemed to be so great that, according to Mr. George Hill, "forty horses were sent away from Brighton, and likely to follow." In fact, people began to talk of the Harriers quite as "has beens," and told one how they were to be divided up. However, if Mr. Burrows of the Sanitary Committee was careless, Mr.

more were

Alderman Burrows (they may be only the same men under different aspects) was most bland; and not only declared at the next meeting of the Council that the farmers were right, but even proposed, by way of squaring them more effectually, that they should have an hour more than they asked for. A councillor called "Cox" thought that up to one was long enough, and moved an amendment to that effect; but the Council. would'nt have him at any price, though he only indorsed the farmers own request. The papers termed him the "tasteless Cox, literally so in this case" (a dark saying to all but the initiated), and said that he "only opened the door to a personal discussion, which ended in the unanimous adoption of the original motion." May all personal discussion end as happily. So the Brighton Harriers and the British Constitution are saved for the present.

The Doncaster Corporation have not been idle this month, but they have had none of those spirited and eccentric debates which it is our stern joy to chronicle. Sir Isaac Morley, that ancient mariner of the council, has not held them with his glittering eye, and forced them to hear his old story of the £1,000 grant. One thing about their proceedings is dark and mysterious: the mayor and three other members have been deputed to buy a horse. What does this mean? Are they going to keep harriers once more? Mr. George Hatfield (conjointly with Mr. Foster) has carried the point for which he has so long struggled, and the Spring and the September Meeting are as firmly amalgamated as Loyd Jones and the Westminster Bank. The added money has risen from £785 to £875, so that taking the last September money into consideration, the town will have given £3,230 in the shape of added money. We observe one very great improvement in the list, viz., the not weighting the steeplechase horses till the day after the Liverpool. The Don Steeplechase also looks promising. Still, somehow or other we are old-fashioned enough to believe that legitimate racing begins at Northampton about the end of March, and ends with October and Newmarket. Hence we doubt the propriety of struggling too hard after legitimacy early in March. A March meeting should always be a mixed one, and there is nothing like "jumps" to make a stand pay. If they can have a good handicap hurdle-race at Warwick and plenty of other places, why can't they have one at Doncaster in lieu of one of the ten "legitimate" races? The United Hunt Stakes is now open to the world; but we cannot help thinking that even with only £50 added it would have been in a better shape as a "five-year-old race " round the St. Leger course, 11st. 10lb. and 11st 5lb., for colts and fillies that have never started except during the current season. Out of all the four-year-olds which meet in the hunter rings of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the Midlands, and see hounds that winter, surely ten or a dozen would be found to make up a race, which might in due time grow into a great gentlemen-rider St. Leger. Why shouldn't the crack young five-year-old hunters come to Doncaster for a parade and a gallop round the St. Leger course each spring, as the three-year-olds do each autumn? We believe that the clerk of the course has had it under consideration, but thought that to make it succeed there ought not to be less than £100 added. But surely six races a day is quite enough for the bleak middle of March; and now there are thirteen.

"The Eclipse Centenary" has passed off better than the Shakespeare