EMBELLISHMENTS. THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH.-BY OXONIAN THE FLYING DUTCHMAN; WINNER OF THE DERBY, 1849 HUNTING AND THE MILLION; THE FLYING BRIGHTON.-BY SPORTING INCIDENTS AT HOME AND ABROAD (FROM THE MS. LIFE OF THE HON. PERCY HAMILTON).-COMMUNICATED B M. W. Full Moon, 5 day, at 28 min. past 1 afternoon. rises and Moon HIGH WATER sets. morn. aftern. h. m. d. h. m. h. m. h. m. 1's Fourth Sunday after Trinity.r 3 4911 2 M Cr..-Gent. Kent v. G. Eng.at Lord's s 8 1812 5 T Cr.-M.C.C. v. Rugby School at r 3 52 F 6 F Old Midsummer Day. [Lord's. s 8 16 16 7 S Oxford and Camb. Trin.Term ends. r 3 5417 8 Fifth Sunday after Trinity, s 8 1718 9 45 Sirth Sunday after Trinity. r 4 18 W STAMFORD, NOTTINGHAM, and s 8 19 T SALISBURY RACES. [OXFORD R. r 4 20 F WENLOCK RACES. [Harrow. s 8 21 S Cr.-M.C.C. v. Harrowians, atr 4 22 Sebenth Sunday after Trinity.s 8 23 M HARROGATE RACES. afternoon - 527 1 4711 22 11 54 Morning. 9 11 9 43 Players, at s 7 5011 0 33 10 18 10 53 THE RACING IN JUNE. BY CRAVEN. "Them as haves jackets shall get great coats." Popular Proverbs. The Royal Meeting at Ascot Heath closes, with a scene full of gracious "pomp and circumstance," the first moiety of the racing season. It is a point from which observation may be conveniently turned towards the past, and haply with profit as relates to the future. For such as take interest in the fortunes and prospects of the turf the present year has, so far, been one of no ordinary promise. Almost without a single exception success waited where it was due; while, as uniformly, discomfiture attended stratagem and artifice. It must have been a disastrous time indeed for the market. The " pots" boiled over as regularly as they were put on. The like fatality has followed the divinations of the talents. One of the leading authorities-a shrewd and experienced investigator of racing mysteries, upon whose opinion public reliance has been long and justly placed-has scarcely been once right, even by accident. Horses have won the most important of the spring races which the keenest of all the turf sages imagined were as little fitted to accomplish such achievements 66 as roasted turkeys to play on the cornet à piston" (the simile is Eugene Sue's). To say nothing of the supremely "crack" events, such as the Chester Cup, the Derby, and the like, for the six principal races at Ascot he had not the luck to throw in one solitary main; e. g., the Queen's Vase he awarded to Canezou or the Fleawinner, Glenalvon; the Ascot Derby to Drakelow-winner, Repletion; the Ascot Triennial Stakes to Hotspur-winner, Borneo, late Dotheboys; the Ascot Stakes to Jellyfish, for choice-winner, Vampyre; the Cup to Chanticleer-winner, Van Tromp; and the New Stakes, at least as regards their places in the betting, to Penang or the Cadger— first favourite at starting William the Conqueror, with 7 to 4 on him-winner, Blarney. I quote these cases to show that the wisdom of the wise has been sorely discomfited, and surely none of the "saws" and "instances" are more true than that which affirms— "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions." At length the race is to the fleet and the battle to the gentle. The shadows of coming events lower ominously. One of the money partners of a great racing firm has already seceded, and the leviathan of the ring is fast eating up all the small fry. Presently Tattersall's will have but one "leg" to stand on, and the Sibylline books, once a goodly library, will be gathered into a single volume......And who is there that shall regret this consummation? Let him turn for consolation to the report in the "Times," of the 14th ult., which details the judgment of Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque in the case of De Monte Arbuthnot, a bankrupt. He will there find an analysis of the stuff whereof the betting ring is composed, and what manner of men they are who make a profession of the course. But let us -lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf," 66 66 and turn to a less grave phase in this dreadful trade. It has been well said that it requires infinitely more pains and labour to be a rogue than an honest man. It is scarcely necessary to say, that in so scientific a handicap of sharp practice as that which brings together those who "get a living" by the turf in the general line, he that volunteers to carry overweight in the shape of principle has but a scurvy chance for his bread. As old used to say, "It aint no manner of use being genteel and particular." Even in the bottomless pit we are told there is somewhere" deeper still"-so, bad as professional racing over the flat" is, professional steeple-chasing beats it (we must go to Kentucky for words)" by everlasting space." Tom Tough was "a steeple-chase rider" a class in the equestrian order of the hybrid between a gentleman and a hired jockey. Tom, as he was accustomed to say-or rather to swear-was a chap that was born down on his luck: "the more he strove to go right the more good it didn't do him." He was always "up": had won all the "crack" chases in the United Kingdom; had broken both his legs; ditto arms; was never without a dislocated collar-bone, and "pockets to let." This he communicated to a friend, in confidence, as they were sauntering from supper at "Evans's" at eight o'clock one fine morning of a Derby day. "Old 'un," said he, with an emphatic expletive; "barring I can run against something uncommon downy, it's all U P with me, just as certain as if you were to shove a lighted lucifer into the Dartford Powder Mills while I was a-setting on the roof."...... Winter came, and steeple-chasing, with its "moving accidents by flood and field." You couldn't open a sporting paper but the first paragraph that met your eye was some " Dreadful Accident to Mr. Thomas Tough, the celebrated steeple-chase rider." Before the turn of Christmas he had shattered four or five of his thighs, and broken his back twice. "Poor Tom," thought his friend; "he's not going to last long at this game; so I'll just take a farewell peep at him in the pigskin: he rides at Coventry on Monday, and at Leamington on Tuesday. I can toddle down on Tuesday betimes, breakfast at the Regent, and be in lots of time for the fun." At 6 A.M. he has taken his seat at the Euston Station in a "Leamington carriage," already occupied by five others, bound on the same errand as himself. As soon as the Primrose Hill tunnel was cleared, the conversation turned upon sporting topics...... "Did you see the third edition of last night's Sun'?" inquired one of the party. “No,” answered another. "Very shocking," continued the first; "the report of the Coventry Steeple Chase states that poor Tough, who rode Baron -'s horse, was thrown, and carried home upon a hurdle without a hope of his life.' "Tom polished clean off," soliloquized his friend to himself. "Well, I am sorry that I didnt know it before I started."......A hundred miles before breakfast provokes an appetite-even in a railway carriage; so our sympathetic traveller was somewhat consoled when he found himself in the coffeeroom of the Regent. In the centre of that pleasant chamber there was a round table, and, encircling it, a body of cavaliers doing summary justice upon a déjeuner à la fourchette. One of these was washing down the devilled leg of a woodcock with a tumbler of sparkling Moselle-it was Tom Tough! "Hillo!" cried the new comer; "why, they've got it in the papers that you were killed yesterday at Coventry!" "No, I wasn't," responded the steeple-chaser, setting down his glass, and applying his napkin to his lips;" but first peck, and then |