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therefore their admirers must be in the stirrups, if they desire to see those they admire, "in their habits as they live." Short as this little work is, considering that it treats but lightly upon a few light points, it might still, with advantage to author and reader, have been condensed; however, we must allow for the zealous anxiety of one, seeking to give knowledge and skill to the party riding; and to extend ease and humanity to the object ridden. The first paragraph of the book opens the cause of the Author's writing his hints.

"When you wish to turn to the right, pull the right rein stronger than the left : this is common sense. The common error is precisely the reverse: the common error is, when you wish to turn to the right, to pass the hand to the right. By this, the right rein is slackened, and the left rein is tightened, across the horse's neck; and the horse is required to turn to the right, when the left rein is pulled. It is to correct this common error, this monstrous and perpetual source of bad riding, and bad usage to good animals, that these pages are written."

The Author is good on the subject of common riders saving, or rather attempting to save, falling horses. The lift of the rein, if it have any effect at all, must increase the difficulty of the animal. This does not apply to the power of a jockey on a race horse, as far at least as muscular exertion, properly applied, can forward the exertions of the horse.

"The question whether a jockey can mechanically assist his horse, does not rest on the same footing. I believe he can. Thus :-If a man sits astride a chair, with his feet off the ground, and clasps the chair with his legs, by the muscular exertion of his lower limbs he can jump the chair along. The muscular force is there employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of the legs of the chair. His muscular action strikes the chair downward and backward; and if the chair be on ice, it will recede, so would also the feet of a horse in attempting to strike forward. If the chair be on soft ground, it will sink; so would also a horse, in proportion to the force of the muscular stroke. But if the resistance of the ground be complete, the re-action, which is precisely equal, and in opposite directions to the action, will throw the body of the man upward and forward: and by clasping with his legs he will draw the chair also with him. But he can only accomplish in this way a very little distance, with a very great exertion.”

"If the jockey made this muscular exertion every time his horse struck with his hind feet, his strength would be employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of his horse's bony frame. Thus the jockey would contribute to the horizontal impulse of his own weight; and exactly in proportion to the muscular power exerted by the jockey, the muscular system of the horse would be relieved. At the same time, no additional task is thrown on the bony frame of the horse; since, if the jockey had not used his muscular power on it in impelling his own weight, the muscular system of the horse must have been so employed on it. It is true, not much is done after all with a prodigious exertion, but if that little gain six inches in a hardly contested race, it may make the difference of its being lost or won. Thus an easy race is no exertion to a jockey, but after a hardly contested one, he returns with his lips parched, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and every muscle quivering. Chifney, and perhaps one or two first-rate jookeys, may attempt this at the end of a race, for the last four or five strokes, for no strength would stand it longer; but woe to the moderate jockey who attempts it at all! For without the nicest tact in timing the operation, the confusion, overbalancing, swerving, and shifting of legs resulting from it, would lose the best horse his race."

We find at page 25, one of those facts, common in itself, but which we should not have observed unless it were pointed out to us; namely, " that of all people the English only rise in the stirrup, in trotting." There are some very fair directions as to the "balance of power," in turning a horse; and the author is

indeed elaborate on the subject of what he calls "indications," which are mere insinuations to the horse, by the hand or leg; but for these we must refer to the book.

The riding school is truly hit off in the following short paragraph.

"On the other hand, the riding school is too apt to teach you to sit on your horse as stiff as a stake; to let your right arm hang down as useless as if God had never gifted you with one; to pin your elbows to the sides; to stick your left hand out, with a stiff straight wrist, like a bolt-sprit; and to turn your horse invariably on the wrong rein. I do not mean to say that this is ever taught in the school; but I may say that all this is almost always learnt there."

Martingales are very properly decried; unless the hand be smooth and nice, they but produce the danger they are intended to avert. For lady-riding, the right hand, or off pommel of the saddle is prohibited; and a third pommel, or leaping horn, is recommended as securing the seat. We cannot pause on the long passage respecting bits, though there are some good hints to be picked up-and there are several sensible observations upon the breaking the colt, and the management of him in the stable. But as the treatise itself occupies only about one hundred pages, and pages, too, of the most moderate fabric, we may safely leave those who are interested in the subject, to help themselves.

This book, though shaped to fit no library, and calculated for no pocket, is a beautiful specimen of typography. It is illustrated too, by two exquisite engravings, from the Elgin Marbles; which shew after all, what a perfect seat on horseback is, better than all the lectures, and all the rules of all the schools! So it would seem 66 reading and riding come by nature."

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Rackets. -LAMB V. COULING.—In the Court of Common Pleas on Thursday, the 9th of May last, an action was brought by John Lamb, the celebrated racket player, against Thomas Couling, an omnibus proprietor, to recover £28, being the balance of £40, upon an alledged contract relating to the match played by Lamb and John Pitman, at the Belvidere Grounds, Pentonville, on the 19th June last, for £100 a side, which Lamb won. Several witnesses swore to conversations in which the defendant admitted that he had promised to pay the plaintiff £40, if he won the match. On the part of the defendant, other parties deposed to conversations at variance with any such promise, and Mr. Bowles, a person well known as a Gentleman retired from the Turf, stated, that when the defendant came to him in company with the plaintiff, to ask him to make good the remaining part of the stakes, amounting to £65, the latter said he would leave himself altogether in the hands of the defendant and him, who might give him any thing they pleased, so that they enabled him to play the match. This witness and the defendant were or are co-partners in an omnibus concern. In answer to a question, witness stated that he had not given Lamb a farthing out of the £65 he (Bowles) had won. Mr. Serjeant Wilde unexpectedly gave up the match, saying, that after this evidence he felt he could not expect the jury to, find in his favour, although it was consistent with the fact of the contract having been made, but afterwards waived, and, therefore, he would elect to be nonsuited. The unfortunate, able, and ill-used plaintiff was accordingly nonsuited.

Law appears to be taking affairs of Sporting into its own especial hands. Mr Thomas, the Secretary to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, has

been actively at work at a cock-fight at Uxbridge. We admit the good partially, and not impartially, done by this active warfare against certain grades of amusement-sport-or whatever it may be called. But we again and again say, why do we not hear of a crusade against an angler at the Lea River or the Thames Weirs? Why is not Lord Chesterfield or the Duke of Grafton brought to book for worrying a poor fox to death ?-Why are not Robinson, Connolly, and John Day summoned before Magistrates for spurring and lashing the too-willing race-horse? And why are Mason, Oliver, and Becher (Gentlemen Jockies), allowed to ride, even to the death, the gallant animals on the wretched steeple-chase, without being worried by the Exeter Hall Pack?—The selection always falling on the poor and the abject, does the society discredit; for if humanity really exists, it expands in heart to every animal, and knows no distinction of persons.

The account of the Cocking inquiry is curious.

Cock-Fighting.-Singular Case.-UXBRIDGE PETTY SESSIONS.-Seventeen informations were preferred by the officers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, against the Earl of Berkeley; the Hon. George Charles Grantley Berkeley; Hon. Craven Berkeley; George Henry Dashwood, Esq. M.P.; Thomas Spring; Shadrach Dancy, and Thomas Davis, for aiding and abetting in a cock fight, which took place on the premises of one Powell, at Hillingdon, on Saturday the 11th inst.

At eleven o'clock Sir William Wiseman, Bart. (an admirable magisterial name for a farce), and Messrs. T. Dagnall, B. Rotch, and T. T. Clarke, jun., four of the local magistrates, took their seats on the bench, in the large room of the King's Arms Inn, which was immediately crowded almost to suffocation.

Mr. Thomas said, the society he had the honour to represent was not actuated in bringing the cases under the notice of the magistrates by any private considerations, but had done so on purely public grounds. He should commence with the information against Mr. Frederick Powell, charging him that he "did keep and use a certain place, to wit, a barn, for the purpose of cock-fighting, and in which place or barn certain cocks were then and there fought," contrary to the statute 5th and 6th William IV., cap. 59, by which he had subjected himself to a penalty of £5.

Mr. Powell pleaded not guilty.

After hearing evidence, the defendant, who could not deny the charge, was then fined in the full penalty of £5, and 13s. costs.

William Davis and John Hardwick pleaded guilty, and Shadrach Dancy and John Green not guilty, and were severally fined £5 and costs.

Mr. Charles Shaw, feeder to Mr. Dashwood, was the sixth defendant. He pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Thomas applied for an adjournment of the case, saying a most material witness was absent.

The solicitor for the defendants objected to that course being adopted. The defendants were in attendance prepared to answer the charge, and he submitted that the whole of the remaining informations must be dismissed.

Mr. Thomas then said, that in consequence of some information transmitted to him by the Count de Salis (a magistrate), the owner of Mr. Powell's premises, he sent some persons down to watch the proceedings of the cock-fighters, and in consequence of their report he attended on Monday, the 13th inst., before the bench, and obtained summonses against seventeen individuals, the list of whose names was furnished him by the Count de Salis himself. He was then informed that a servant of the Count was in the pit at the time, and could recognise every individual who was present. He (Mr. Thomas) subsequently sent an officer down to get out a summons against an hon. individual, when, for the first time, he

heard that the Count de Salis and his servant intended to absent themselves from the examination. He then got summonses against the Count's two servants, one of whom was in attendance; but the most material witness was absent. He could not help saying that the conduct of the Count de Salis was most singular. The bench then conferred together, after which

Sir W. Wiseman said it was the opinion of the magistrates that Mr. Thomas had done every thing in his power to get up the proper evidence. A material witness was, however, not present; he would not say he was kept out of the way; and the bench were therefore of opinion that the case, with the other informations, must be adjourned until Monday week.

Mr. Thomas then applied for the defendants to pay the fine or to be committed. All did so except Hardwick and Davies, who were sentenced to a month's imprisonment and hard labour.

Mr. Benjamin Way, the highly respectable and intelligent High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, afterwards applied on behalf of those defendants, for time till Thursday to pay the fines, on the ground that a subscription would be opened to raise the amount.

Sir W. Wiseman advised Mr. Way to pay the fines for them, and take it back out of the subscription.

Mr. Way declined doing so, but the defendants found the money soon afterwards.

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The Count de Salis must explain. He appears to have had an inkling for the game, but when he found, perchance, that the crowing of the cocks was heard a little too extensively in the neighbourhood, he thought it most prudent, like the Jew in the gold dust case, to turn a Solomon-Magistrate (an unusual character in the county), and peach. The Count, like all men in trouble, seems to have acted with ingenious and inexplicable inconsistency.

Thames Angling Preservation Society.—On Wednesday, the 22d of May last the first annual meeting of the members of this society, having for its object the improvement of angling in the Thames, was held at the Freemasons' Tavern.

Henry Perkins, Esq, was called to the chair, and after some preliminary observations, he stated that all the committee contended for was, the enforcement of the "Rules, Orders, and Ordinances," framed by the Court of the Lord Mayor (as Conservator of the River), and the Aldermen of the City of London, for the protection of the fish in the Thames.

Mr. Crole, the Honorary Secretary, then read the report. It stated that owing to the destruction of the fish by persons using unlawful means, inconceivable injury was continually being done to the sport, and, consequently, to such of the fishermen, whose bread, in many instances, was chiefly derived from their attendance on anglers. These considerations had induced some gentlemen, residents in the fishing villages on the banks of the Thames, between Staines and Kew Bridge, and their neighbourhood, to form themselves into a society, bearing the above title, for the general preservation of the fish, particularly in the fence season, when depredations were more easily and more fatally committed. The committee having, with the concurrence of the city authorities, succeeded as far as they could reasonably expect, had now the pleasure of informing Thames' anglers, that the preserves in the river, between Staines and Richmond bridge, were staked, or otherwise secured against unlawful netting; that posts were placed, describing their situation and extent, in which no fishing was permitted except by angling, and that water-bailiffs, appointed by the Lord Mayor, were stationed along the river, whose duty it was to detect illegal fishing, by whomsoever committed, and to lay informations against all persons found offending against any of the rules, orders, and ordinances of the Court of the Mayoralty and Aldermen.

Some desultory conversation followed, as to what was poaching and what was not; upon which little light was thrown.

Among the subscribers (and it is pleasant to detect anglers amongst such personages) on the society's list may be mentioned the Earl of Waldegrave, Lord Francis Egerton, Lord George Beresford, Sir Felix Booth, Sir Francis Chantrey, Sir Hyde Parker, Sir Edward Bowater, Sir Horace Seymour, Sir Richard Frederick, Sir John Kirkland, the Walton and Cotton Club, the Piscatorial Society, and W. H. Whitbread, P. Borthwick, G. Mills, G. Blackburn, W. Whiteman, G. Farren, P. G. Parnther, and R. Palmer, M.P. Esqrs.

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The Cricketers are all as alive as their positives the crickets ;-the Marylebone Club has had its opening dinner; and the eyes of Dark are all a-light !— Matches are beginning to be agreeably provoked into existence; and the Kentish men (though they have lost by transplantation two of their good ones, Hillyer and Adams) are already bending to the bat. Lillywhite at Brighton has had a well attended preliminary feast (it should have been a ball), at which he had to return thanks; and it is said that his eloquence" ran a bye.' The clubs of the suburbs are all on the qui-vive, and sisters are making up flannel waistcoats, and gentlemen clerks are laying in spiked shoes and white odd hats, by the chaldron. We shall not give official, cold-blooded returns; but shall give sketches in colours occasionally of any really interesting matches. The "Young Gentlemen of Cambridge," who are lively at lectures-boat races-port wineand other pleasantries, have started the season with a singular Cigar Match, and, by dint of unquenchable spirit, won :-but "where there is smoke, there is fire!"-The following was the score :—

Smokers, 1st inn

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49 | Non-Smokers, 1st inn

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The yachts are unfurling "the snowy sail." The Thames will, before the month is over, swarm with Adas-Superbs-Lady Louisas-Vestris's-and "the like!"

TATTERSALL'S.

The betting since the Derby has been insignificant in amount and importance, and does not call for any observations. It will be sufficient to quote the odds up to the 27th ult.

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