from fourpenny-pieces. The class was stronger in numbers than worth although there were several fair samples amongst them. The second mare was a tolerably well made one, barring her shoulders, and with more quality than the old original Marigold, a well-known prize-taker as well as dam of Sprig of Nobility, and other flash-looking horses; while the third, Heliotrope, a fine-looking mare, wanted another cross of the thoroughbred to worm the coacher out of her. Mr. Blake's Canary was of a hunting stamp; and Lord Norrey's American-bred Myrtle, a mare that appeared in the colours of Mr. Ten Broeck, was fairly framed; and the Earl of Cravens Queen of Sheba a big loose lolloping goer. Then, Proserpine from the Isle of Wight, Mr. Kerby's May Queen, Mr. Parsons' Duchess, Mr. Bennett's Forest Lass, Lord Norrey's Brunette, and Mr. E. Stanton's Lady Mary had some pretensions to hunting character, but they were by no means perfect. Lord Norrey's bay hackney has length on a short leg, but is as a standstill hack not so good-looking as the second or third; the chesnut Polly being very handsome, and Lord Craven's a really pretty little hack with plenty of character. Topsy, a pony mare not exceeding fourteen hands high and in her twenty-fifth year, walked over without opposition. The four-year-olds with eleven in were poor indeed; the first turning up after considerable hesitation in the General by Big Ben, standing nearer seventeen than sixteen hands high, and who will take a considerable time to furnish, as he is thin in his thighs, and goes weak behind-if we recollect right he showed better at Islington, where there was less room. The second is the Ace of Clubs, a commended one at Islington, in a four-year-old class, and a prize-taker at Sudbury, where we gave a description of him. The third was nothing to look at, and Mr. Milburn's Merry Maid, though of fair form in her body and limbs, had a short neck and a knack of throwing her head up. In the next, lot Brian Boru, Mr. Booth's well known prize-horse, was pronounced the best, while Strathnairn is a useful looking provincial but nothing more; and the third, Fenian, the Sudbury prize horse, whose form and dreadfully wide-straddling hind-leg action we noticed in the report of that meeting. A very neat one of Mr. Cooks', that could move, but of no great substance, came in for nought, although she had been more successful at Glo'ster, Worcester, Winchcomb, and Islington. In a poor lot of Hackneys, Ada, a hardy wearing looking mare, that could move, went to the fore, as by far the best-looking; while the second was a four-year-old, by Laughing Stock, with no great pretentions to form and a slight inclination to sickle hocks. The judges had not a heavy day's work before them, and, like shining stars, spun it out accordingly, taking one hour and thirty-five minutes in coming to a verdict over the thoroughbreds, "because they had nothing else to do."-From The Mark Lane Express.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET.

Mr. Dickson says, "the old bitch Nell died a few days since; she was about twelve years old, and was one of the best I ever had, both at grouse and partridges. She was by my dog Rex; and Venus and Juno are ber daughters. Venus, five years old, and very good, is by a dog that belonged to the late Mr. Bradley, of Thorpe Hall, near Burlington. Juno, two years old, and very promising, is by a dog belonging to Mr. J. Harrison, of Brandsburton Hall.'

ADMIRAL ROUS' POSITION.

Thomas Dawson says that "no doubt the severe training and frequent running of two-year-olds are the cause of the great scarcity of old horses.' William Cowper, who was manager of the Duke of York's stud as long ago as 1812, is of opinion that "half the horses are spoilt now from being run so early. All the best horses in former years were never treated in this way.' And John Scott, though he approves of horses being run "a few times" at two years old in order to give them some idea of their business, emphatically declares that a horse that has not run at two and three years old would be more likely to improve with age than one that had run frequently at those ages." John Day alone says that he has had heavily worked twoyear-olds who have gone on improving up to four and five years, at which age they have shown their best form. But though this may be true about two or three horses that have been under his care, such as John Davis, Lord Ronald, and Lecturer (who, by the way, was not much worked either at two or three years), we cannot forget that John Day will also be remembered as the trainer of two of the most overworked two-year-olds of modern times, See-Saw and The Earl. SeeSaw's chance for the great three-year-old races of his year was entirely thrown away by the manner in which he was hacked about as a twoyear-old; and if The Earl, who met with no better usage, was well enough to win the Derby and the Leger, perhaps John Day will tell us why he did not even start for either of those events. How can we forget also Lady Elizabeth, who, invincible at two years, could not win a fiftypound plate the following year? Clearly the list of the Danebury trainer's failures from overwork at an early age might be made longer than that of his successes. As for poor Admiral Rous, he is left quite in the lurch. To object to two-year-old racing in February is, in his opinion, the act of a fool. Yet not even John Day would run them before May. What a position for the dictator of the Turf! To be pooh-poohed on his pet hobby by all the men who throughout their lives have been engaged in the business of preparing blood stock for their racing carcers. But Admiral Rous will not be at all discomposed at his discomfiture. He has called his friends and colleagues fools; we dare say he will not hesitate to call the trainers of England fools also.-The Saturday Review.

NEIL

JUNO

VENUS

A Family Party.

From the Kennel of John Dickson, Dickson, Bogs of Nifferton Driffield.

ONLY A VAGABOND.

BY SARCElle.

PART II.

WILD WORK IN THE GOLDEN STATE.

The events to be recounted in this chapter are many of them so wild and apparently improbable (though a reference to the books of modern American travellers of well-known truthfulness, such as Bell, Townshend, and others, will show many far more exciting scenes than those here alluded to), that I feel it necessary strongly to impress upon my readers, before I go any farther, that Herbert V- is no imaginary hero of fiction, and that my rough life-sketches of him are but attempts at the truthful portraiture of my dearest friend.

In order that I may give you a personal introduction to him, it is desirable that you should make a little voyage with me.

I do not know that 1 am in duty bound to explain to you all the causes and motives which led to my embarking for New York en route for San Francisco, on board the good Inman steamer "City of Baltimore."

I will simply hint that I was twenty years old, un peu mauvais sujet, and my friends thought it desirable that I should take a trial voyage to the Golden State thus early, hoping that I should be tamed down by a few months' roughing it amid uncongenial surroundings, and thinking that if I had wild oats to sow, as appeared likely, I had better sow them on the prairies than in Babylon, within sight and earshot.

I will not linger long over the incidents of the thirteen days' stormy voyage across the Atlantic in early March, merely throwing a retrospective glance at the highly uncomfortable tiers of split herring-boxes into which each emigrant put his or her cheap straw mattress (for I went steerage, determined to rough it from the beginning); the howling and lamenting of the Irish at Liverpool and Queenstown over the parting from their friends, the general sickness, the gloom and closeness of the steerage cabin at night, our rough meals of "skilligalee" and fresh bread and butter in the morning, biscuit "junk," with sometimes soup, salt fish, and potatoes at noon, and biscuit and tea in the evening; the pleasant little singing and smoking parties we used to get up among some of the more decent passengers, snuggling, in the weird, chill, windy darkness of the evening round the big, warm, salt-spray-whitened funnel; the evening games at "Simon says thumbs up," in the cook's galley for bottles of porter; the various hoaxes and other expedients by which I and Frank, with a few other larky youngsters who, even in the wild, stormy, cold Atlantic nights, could not be persuaded to go to bed before morning, used to entice from their warm berths, and bring up on deck like a flock of sheep, our simple Hibernian fellow-passengers, when we had shouted down the companion-stairs "A big ship in sight showing signals of distress!" "Icebergs in sight!" "Whales!" &c., &c., until at last I do believe it would have been difficult to have got any of