speaking of spurious pregnancy, where women have all the symptoms usual in all cases of real pregnancy up to the time when they should be delivered, at which time, when it arrives, they are not with child at all; he says, "it should be remarked here that these sympathetic affections, or constitutional disturbances, occurring at the time that they might naturally be expected, as the usual changes connected with or consequent upon the termination of utero-gestation, had that condition really existed, are not confined to the human female, but have been observed in the lower animals also. A friend of mine had a favourite and very valuable sporting bitch, which he was anxious should not breed; in order to prevent which she was always carefully locked up whenever she came on heat, so that intercourse with the dog was prevented; but on several occasions, when the time expired which would have been that of her bringing forth, had she been allowed to breed, she was observed to be very dull, to wander about the whole day as if seeking for something, and presently afterwards her teats used to fill with milk in such abundance as to drop from her on the ground." Such facts did not escape the observation of Harvey. Your little bitches," says he, "which are kept too plentifully, and thereupon admit coition withont success, are, notwithstanding, observed to be sluggish about the first time whereat they ought to puppy, and bark as if they were in distress; and likewise filch away the whelps from another bitch, and lick them over and cherish them as tenderly as if they were their own natural productions, and fight eagerly to keep them from their true parent. Nay, some of them have milk or beastings (as they call it) in their teats, and are obnoxious to the distempers incident to those that have really puppied."

One of the greatest drawbacks to fox-hunting is the enormous expense attending it, and, as the great John Ward used to say of the Pytchley Hunt dinners, when he hunted Northamptonshire 40 years ago, they are all very delightful and agreeable, excepting the paying for them. In many of the first hunting establishments, each fox that is killed costs about £50 for his funeral expenses, allowing fifty brace of foxes to be killed annually; this of course includes many contingent expenses, besides absolutely the keep of hounds, horses, and servants.

According to the ancient custom of hunting, the animals pursued in that diversion were divided into three classes.

The first class (termed beasts of hunting) were the hare, the hart, the wolf, and the wild boar.

The second class (termed beasts of chase) were the buck, the doe, the fox, the marten, and the roe.

The third class were the badger, the wild cat, and the otter; which showed 66 great dysporte." The fox is also classed by some old authors among the beasts of "stinking flight," to distinguish them from the beasts of "sweet flight," as the buck, doe, hare, and some others.

But, as the fox is the only one of this number, the chase of which belongs to the contents of this article, I shall content myself with treat

* Generation of Animals.

ing on the hunting of that animal alone, although I may occasionally refer to other beasts of chase, and bring forward anecdotes connected with them. The old laws relative to hunting are supposed to have been introduced into this country by the Saxons, as no mention is made of their existence previous to that period. Canute, the Dane, was also much attached to the chase, and enacted many laws for the preservation of the game in the royal forests, granting at the same time to proprietors of estates the privilege of hunting on their own lands and woods; this prince also prohibited the exercise of hunting or hawking on the Sabbath-day.*

THE APPROACHING TURF SEASON.

BY CRAVEN.

"If I could bid the seventh welcome with so good a heart as I bid the other five farewell, I should be glad of his approach."

THE MERCHANT OF VENice.

One "speeds the parting guest," as immortal Will has it, when he has proved good company, wishing him a pleasant journey whichever way his pilgrimage tends, whether into the next street or into eternity. Thus we offer our adieus to the last half-dozen rainy seasons-rife in prime and plentiful sport as they were, and overflowing with good company. What the new comer may do, however, must give us pause: it has, indeed, thrown its shadows before, and there seems little present prospect of a beam to gild its dawn, whatever the more mature day may bring forth. The season of 1843 was one of the most brilliant ever known on the British turf, and its successor bade fair, at one time, to be a formidable rival for the fame of future calendars. In the appliances of sport, its assurance was perfect; but, then, racing is no longer regarded as a mere pastime by the hungry and thirsty after excitement: they must bet "for sums over and above the amount of £10," or ten times ten thousand: and evil has come of it. All the readers of the newspapers, that is to say in these days, all the world and his wife and children, down to the babe in swaddling clothes, are aware that the whole fraternity of betting-gentle and simple-no, there are no simpletons among them gentle and ungentie court, counsel, camp"ambubajiarum collegia" and all, are at this writing before both Houses of Parliament, as far as relates to the affair of their calling. Ay, here is an illustration of the merit of small causes: one Mr. James Thomas Russell puts into circulation certain oblong slips of parchment, and, lo! the Peers and Commoners of the realm, in Parliament assembled, have been called upon to demolish him. Serve him properly, no doubt. What right has any man to revive acts that have

Leges Canuti apud Lambord, cap. 77, from Strutt.

lain in dust for a century and a half? What monster of fact or fic tion so abhorrent as a legal Frankenstein? But, no matter about the means, the movement has begun, and where will it end?

The position I have ever insisted on, since my connection with the turf as a public writer, is now likely to be put to the proof. I have always asserted that both the success and the popularity of racing were jeopardied by the system of "play or pay" betting; that betting round-betting as a business-betting as an agent of methodical gambling, was neither conformable with the spirit of sport, nor a decent adjunct of it. My theory will anon have a trial: we are promised it by the Secretary for the Home Department-and we have a right to demand a trial of it at his hands. Sir James Graham declared, on the motion for a committee on the Horse-Racing Penalties Bill, that "he was most anxious the whole subject (of betting) should be considered by the committee, with a view to some check being imposed on gaming generally, but more especially on the system of "play or pay" on horse-racing. That is the question; what has it to do with the pastime of the course? with the inducement to encourage the breed of our horses? what with the healthful and pleasant social meetings common to the vicinities of our towns? At no distant day, let us trust to see this problem solved. answer for it, no inconvenience will result from the trial.

I will

As a preface to the notice of the approaching season, in the matter of statistics, it may not be without interest to give a few details of the sort belonging to past years. The amount of money won in stakes, plates, and matches, has more than trebled during the last 80 years; the number of races run in that period has quintupled, and the horses that have started may be taken in a similar ratio. In the commencement of the present century (1802) 259 plates were given, while the sweepstakes were but 157. Last year, the plates had dwindled to 191, and the sweepstakes increased to 897! Eighty years back, nearly £12,000 of public money was won by something less than 400 horses; in 1843, £34,060 was divided among 1,289. In 1762, the whole amount raced for was £61,440; in 1843, it was £198,990; in 1837, the largest amount of money that has yet been given for the purposes of racing in this country, was divided among 1,213 horses of all ages, viz., £38,110. Last year, there were 136 race-courses in England, 5 in Wales, 9 in Scotland, and 3 in Ireland. During that season the greatest racehorse proprietors were-Col. Anson, 12; the Duke of Bedford, 13; Lord George Bentinck, 28; Lord Chesterfield, 25; Mr. T. Dawson (a trainer), 11; Mr. Isaac Day (ditto), 9; Lord Eglinton, 10; Lord Exeter, 21; Mr. Goodman, 12; Sir Gilbert Heathcote, 10; Col. Peel, 15; Mr. Ramsay, 10; Duke of Richmond, 14; Lord Westminster, 9; and Mr. Wreford, 10. This list, of course, only includes horses actually brought to the post. Thus much for the past; and now to the present, which cannot better be introduced than by a list of the contents of the principal training establishments.

The largest in England-and, of course, on the surface of the globe-is that of John Scott, at Malton. That admirable artist has at present under his care a team of sixty-one, including the winners of a couple of Derbys, and, probably, of another brace or so. Next

comes the populous Middleham stable, kept by the two Dawsons. It boasts a lot of fifty-eight, including one Oaks winner: it is, as aforesaid, "proximus-sed intervallo"-its analysis will not bear any comparison with that of Malton. Kent, of Goodwood, who trains for the Duke of Richmond and Lord George Bentinck, has twentyeight in work, besides another coming up. H. Scott, at Ascot, has nineteen, several of them belonging to Sir W. W. W. Wynne—a choice olive branch for the Olympian chaplet. Tobert, in the north, Lord Eglinton's private trainer, has a dozen in; Osborne, half a score; Lumbray, Col. Cradock's private trainer, five; and Armstrong, of Richmond, eight. Returning to the south, we find, in one of the Newmarket stables, the Marquis of Exeter's, thirty-five going, and likely to go faster; in Joe Rogers's, thirty, of whom more anon; Col. Peel has about a score in work, and Lawyer Ford some fifteen or sixteen; these are only a few of the lots at head-quarters, but they are the best. At Epsom, Sherwood, Sir Gilbert Heathcote's įprivate trainer, has a dozen in work, and some promising stock to come up; W. Smith has nine; Dockeray, the same number; J. Day, at Mickleham, nine also; and Lumley, of the Spread Eagle, three. At Ascot, besides H. Scott's lot, there are, Death's, eleven, and a brace trained by M'Dermott. Without going into details, in six and twenty other establishments, there are about two hundred and fifty in a state of active preparation all over the provinces.

No question, the number of horses brought to the post this season will equal that of last year; while the quality will be greatly superior. Indeed, with a few exceptions, the three-year-old stock in 1843 was not good. The winner of the Derby was a brilliant exception, beyond doubt; but not so the winner of the Oaks, neither of the Leger. I am satisfied that neither of those events fell to the lot of the best, or nearly the best, engaged in them-certainly not the former. The Oaks was lost by the worst riding I ever saw-and the Leger won by the best. Talking of the last St. Leger, I wonder will any one introduce it to the notice of the Horse-Racing Penalties Committee. The vulgar prejudice is, that to encourage the breed of horses, the best ought to win the race. But, if there had been no such contrivance as "betting round," who believes that Nutwith, as the ballad goes, would have won the Leger in the year of forty-three?

P. P. betting is, perhaps, the most atrocious of all the principles (or, more properly, schemes) of speculation and peculation on the turf, because it has caused many a courser of renown to be converted into cats-meat long before his natural time; but betting round is a soul endangering invention, I can assure the serious members of the committee. Had they been with me on the leads of the grand stand at Doncaster, when the hopes of the layers of the odds (again they backed the winner of the Derby at 2 to 1, to beat all the northerns to sticks) fell to the ground between Prize-fighter and Cotherstone; not all the sal volatile and burnt feathers in the world would have preserved them from fainting. There was I wont be personal, though everybody knows him-the game-looking leg, with the long preposterous"-to my belief he swore more in the five minutes next following the exhibition of Nutwith's number, with the figure 1 attached to it, than all the regiments of heavy dragoons do in as many

66

years. But, to retrace from this digression; the rising stock, as I have ventured to intimate is good, we will examine on what grounds that opinion may be supported.

A few weeks ago, I took advantage of the summer weather with which the new year set in, to run down to Newmarket, and on such a morning as that in which Virgil tells us Tithonus left the private apartment of Aurora, made my way for the training grounds circumjacent to that high place of horse-flesh. Of course, I was not across the threshold of the Warren hill ere I was beleaguered by "touts" of every degree, and saluting the least truculent of the party (my sample was no striking specimen of high-breeding), set about the business that brought me there. The only time or occasion in which a "tout ought to be tolerated, is when the Spring solicits you to the exercise haunts of the racer. How the deuce is a novice, in a string of a score or so, wrapped up like beauties descending from the squeeze room, to know one from the other-a young one from an old one (perhaps that is the way they made the mistake about Running Rein's age-if any there be)? My companion in corduroy (the material whereof all his appointments were constructed, barring his cap, which was of household ermine, or tame coney's skin), stood me in excellent stead in this straight. Since the lots first took the air incident to the Warren hill, as aforesaid, Choke Jade, or the Devil's Ditch, he had made them his peculiar study, and his familiarity with them was awful. He ran over their breed, seed, and generation, as Wombwell's beef-eaters achieve their feræ naturæ recitative; though, here and there, his vocabulary was faulty in the matter of accent, and the like. But we will waive all this and make the best of our gleaning.

The first "string" we encountered was Lord Orford's; his lordship's Angelica colt (whose friends will long remember him) was the peer's "fetch "-he never had luck since it "appeared." This year his stable is far from strong, though the public backed his "Boots" for a trifle. Should he start for the Derby, he'll earn his name as well as the "spurs," if I know any thing of Epsom downs Arragon, the sprig colt, as also those out of Miss Julia and Adriana, were there the latter a roarer, and ridden hack.

Lawyer Ford's team, under the care of a private trainer, was the other side of the grounds-a company of good promise. "The old mare," as they call her, Poison, led the race in excellent form, and the learned gentleman's Derby steeds did him credit. There were Sir Diggory Diddle and Qui Tam, the best of the bundle, (one wonders who supplied these names), and two others, of no account, accompanied by some brilliant two-year-olds. This lot stands at William Chifney's-not bad lodging for man or horse.

Cooper was out with a small draft from Col. Peel's stud; consisting of Zenobia (why don't they back her for the Oaks?) Orlando, Ionian, filly by Slane out of Sea-kale, Murat, Canton, St. Valentine, and some others that have filtered through my memory. The first of these looked and went to my heart's content; though they assured me Orlando had given her 7 lbs. and a beating in a recent trial, which, of course, I give simply as hearsay. Their crack Derby nag is a compact, well-legged animal,