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summer, indulging in the enticements of the dinner-table and convivial society, keeping late hours, and taking very little, if any, exercise; for that portion of pedestrianism which scarcely produces appetite sufficient to enjoy the delicacies with which the metropolis abounds, cannot be denominated exercise sufficient to keep the constitution in a vigorous state; and let him commence operations on the first of September without any preparation, and it will soon be manifest how incapable he is of performing any exertion, and, consequently, how very little enjoyment he will experience compared to one who is in strong work.

The system, when overcharged with plethoric properties, is evidently incapable of undergoing active exertion without a probability of dangerous consequences: the first consideration should therefore be directed to such a course as will relieve the constitution from those evils; and as the condition of the blood is of the utmost importance, attention to its state is essential. If from the effects of too good living and want of exercise it has become too rich, thick, and incapable of passing through the vessels with the ease required when its circulation is accelerated, laxative medicines and a few days of abstemious probation will be found the most effectual and the quickest means of obtaining the end sought after. On the other hand, if a man commences the shooting season without some preparation, having passed several months in idleness, after the first day or two of exertion he finds himself hot, feverish, and inordinately fatigued. He is compelled to rest a day or two, or if he persists in shooting day after day, he goes out with reluctance, the excitement and gratification of the sport not being in reality commensurate with the pain he experiences from exhaustion. When labour is carried on to excess, the constitution not having been previously accustomed to it, fever ensues, which is not on all occasions readily subdued without recourse to rest, and very frequently the assistance of medicine.

To avoid their unpleasant consequences two or three doses of aperient medicines must first of all be taken; but as most persons are accustomed to some particular recipe, it appears quite unnecessary to prescribe. Any of the numerous combinations of family pills so strongly recommended by their various proprietors for their universal success in curing all the disorders to which the human subject "is heir to," may with propriety be sought after, unless the simple but not therefore the less effective dose of salts and senna be preferred. Walking exercise after the course of medicine follows in due order; and unless the person be of a lean habit, some additional garments in the form of flannel waistcoats and drawers, to increase the flow of perspiration, will be not only exceedingly salutary, but will very materially promote the object. After walking in additional clothes, care not to take cold is a caution which appears scarcely requisite; nor is there, with moderate precaution, that danger which many persons imagine. A man not accustomed to exercise will perspire very freely with very little excitement, and will often content himself to remain in the clothes which he has worn a considerable time after his walk is completed-frequently in a shirt which has been thoroughly saturated with perspiration, allowing it to become dry on his back. In

such cases there certainly is something to apprehend from taking cold, and yet that result does not very commonly happen. Some persons naturally perspire very freely, and are, therefore, often exposed to the danger which is supposed to attend a cessation of exercise, if the clothes damp from this cause are allowed to remain on the body. When, however, a person has been walking in extra clothes to promote perspiration, with a view to health and condition, he will, as a matter of course, on his return home, having rested a sufficient time for the circulation of the blood to assume its ordinary rate, change his clothes for those which are dry. The luxury attendant upon this is a sufficient inducement to many who have experienced it to put it into effect more frequently than those who have not tried it would imagine. The effusion of perspiration, and the attendant relief to the system, with a naturally healthy constitution, produces a feeling of alacrity, sprightliness, and vigour, that cannot be arrived at by any other means. If two or three such walks be taken at a brisk pace, with extra flannels, each walk being a distance of six or eight miles, the result will thoroughly repay any person who will undergo the ordeal. At the same time some restriction should be laid upon the diet, which should be plain and cooling.

If there be one thing more decidedly in opposition to a man's good condition and his best energies in the field than any other, I believe it to be that of drinking spirits. Some persons take spirits to cool them, others to warm them, others to allay their thirst, and others because they like them: now, if the whole were combined in the latter, and their excuses expunged, I believe we should have a tolerably correct conclusion. But I am quite certain the less a man drinks of them the better he will be able to walk and undergo fatigue, and the better he will be able to shoot. However, I am no teetotaller. I cannot go so far as to say a man shall not have a glass of grog with his companion or friend at night, and also his cigar if he likes it, because if we are to refrain from all the enjoyments of this life, simply for the sake of one pursuit, I am doubtful if the latter can be equivalent with the forbearance; but let the exhilarating effects of the glass of grog and the cigar be so kept in subjection as not to interfere with the health, and consequently destroy the recreation which is sought for in the field; for I will defy any man to enjoy himself if he be not in perfect health and condition. The practice which many adopt of drinking weak brandy-and-water when thirst prevails during the day, I believe, is very bad. Sherry-and-water is no doubt much better; but I would prefer many of the home-made wines mixed with water, to any other beverage. Well do I remember the red gooseberry wine, made by a worthy old aunt of mine, some years since, who is now no more, which she would, when in her most amiable moods, send to me unexpectedly in the field, and which, coming unexpectedly, rendered more grateful the grateful beverage. Many of my friends who have partaken of it with me will, no doubt, recollect some of these occasions, as I know they read these pages, and, as I often do, will wish they could sip it o'er again.

Much inconvenience frequently arises from the feet, either from corns or blisters; and which of the two to describe as being the worst,

I scarcely know; perhaps the latter, so long as they are in existence. The best remedy that I know of, to prevent blisters, is to wear two pairs of stockings, or rather, one pair of stockings and one pair of socks, and to rub the feet and inside of the stockings with yellow soap; but after any lengthened rest, that is, when you have not been accustomed to walking, from illness or any other cause, it is almost a hopeless case to recommend a preventive. I shall never forget the pain which I once endured during a pedestrian trip to South Wales, after having taken very little or no exercise for a period of five or six weeks previously. The weather was intensely hot; and on the conclusion of the second day's tour, having accomplished a distance of about fifty-five miles, the bottoms of both feet were blistered; that of the right foot to such a degree as to render me totally unable to proceed any further until rest had restored the affected part. I had recourse to cold poultices, which relieved me wonderfully, for the heat was dreadful; and, contrary to the advice of many persons, I opened the blisters to let out the fluid contained in them. This is a subject upon which many people differ; but I have always experienced the greatest relief from passing a needle through them, so as to permit the escape of the fluid, but not to make so large an orifice. as to create a wound, or permit the skin underneath to be exposed-the cause, I have no doubt, why many who have done so should condemn the custom of opening blisters. Washing the feet after walking is another very important habit, not merely as being conducive to cleanliness and comfort, but it will very materially tend to prevent the rising of blisters. The general state of the feet must, in a great measure, dictate the treatment which they require. Some persons perspire so freely from those parts as to render their feet constantly damp. On the other hand, there are some whose feet are always hot and dry. The former may be relieved by occasionally moistening them with vinegar and water: the latter will be kept in better order by the application of a little spermacetti, white wax, and sweet oil melted together. Those who have experienced the pain created by sore feet will cheerfully bestow the trouble which is entailed upon the use of any preventive.

(To be continued).

"ALL'S UP," FROM THE CHIMNEY-POT.

BY WILY.

The curse of a country is a Bifron's Janus, or, to speak more plainly, the man that carries two faces under one hat; but more especially so if from property he occupy an influential position in his neighbourhood. The following adventures, somewhat ludicrous in their detail, but serious in their consequence, took place among the community in the month of October just past. Were Cervantes alive I would ride a thousand miles to retain his pen, to describe the for

mer; and for the latter, I would raise Judge Jeffreys himself from the dead, with a jury of Meynells and Wyndhams, to sit in judgment on the culprit.

The facts are these:-An established pack of foxhounds met at Covers to draw for a fox; the owner being a subscriber to the hounds, a regular man in the field twice a week, and a professed foxpreserver, has a fine estate, and lives in the heart of the country, though not of his hunt. The hounds are thrown into cover; whenproh pudor! my hair stands on end in recounting the tragedy-a fox is found writhing in the iron jaws of gin; the poor brute is liberated but cannot go, and the very hounds turn up their noses at him, as much as to say, "Dog wont eat dog; he is a domestic animal, and has none of the wild flavour we esteem." "Sorry for it, sir," says the keeper, addressing the gallant captain, whose features had assumed the expression of the Saracen one sees painted over a pot-house door; "sorry for it, sir, but it is an accident.'

Again the sound of "Hoick in, hoick !" resounds through a cover adjoining the house; "a whimper is heard," a crash succeeds, and a fox is viewed away. "Go-o-ne away," and the captain shakes his horn with the ecstacy of Jem Hill; "go-o-ne away." "Not gone very far," shouts a countryman, "for there he goes into the stable-yard." And so he did, and went farther too; he went into the saddle-room, jumped over the bars of the grate, where there was actually a fire, up the chimney-and, with his head peeping out from the pot, would have said, if he could, "All's up" (ay, all's up; not in a Pickwickian sense, nor in the sense of the chimney sweep, but), "all's up with your sport if you have many such cover-owners as my worthy master." The fox had too great a regard for his own safety, and too little for the squire's reputation, to come down and give them a run; for he had an inward presentiment that he should

go to pot" in earnest if he did, like the tailor of Samarcand's pebble; but attached to his home, and selfishly preferring to remain there, he brought conviction home to the door of those who had fed and fostered him. Ungrateful wretch; he reminds one of the treatment Polyphemus met with at the hands of Ulysses

"He ate his mutton, drank his wine,

And then he poked his eye out."

As for the captain, what could he say? Vox faucibus hæsit; he looked aghast-and well he might-but said nothing. The squire was polite enough to storm at the keeper, and to threaten him with dismissal if he trapped foxes; every one knows that he does trap them, and he it appears will not know it.

Let us hope, for the credit of the country, that repetitions of such a scene be never witnessed there again; let us hope that such a spirit may prevail amongst cover owners, that when a master of hounds winds up the season, he might be able to fill a bumper, and say, "Gentlemen, from the bottom of my heart, I thank ye all for the noble sport we have had; to your liberal and cordial support of me, by preserving foxes, are we indebted for it. May you live long to enjoy the noble science."

46

SPORTING REMINISCENCES IN ENGLAND AND

FRANCE.

BY A FRENCH NOBLEMAN.

[Continued from page 402, Vol. X.]

MY DEAR SARON,

I resume my pen, the cacoethes scribendi being much stronger upon me since I have seen myself in print. I left off in the summer of 1815, when the British army, like the soldier in the bravura, "tired of war's alarms," were peaceably quartered in Paris and the environs. Races at Neuilly were now shortly established, "Gentlemen riders," and I here first figured upon the turf by entering and riding a thorough-bred horse, who I called Trojan, for a handicap plate. In this race, the present post-master general, who is as popular in France as he is in England, rode "Corsair," the property of one of the Duke of Wellington's staff, but not even his lordship's good riding and excellent judgment could bring him in first. If, like Byron's "Conrad," the horse was "linked with one virtue," it was not that of speed. Some of the best riders in the English army were mounted upon this occasion-the late General Churchill, Messrs. St. John, Hornby, Barnard, &c., and I was not a little pleased at finding myself placed first. In the next place I was not quite so fortunate, my Assyrian Queen "Semiramis" having been beaten easily by "La belle Anglaise." No sooner were the races over than steeple chases and "drag" hunting commenced, and the winter passed away delightfully.

Early in the year 1816 the right wing of the army of occupation in France began to extend its line further than the limits marked out by the treaty of Paris, from Charlemont to Amiens, in which last town an allied garrison was placed. This wing consisted of 25,000 English troops, 16,000 Russians, 5,000 Hanoverians, and 5,000 Belgians, all on a complete war establishment, with a proportionate reserve of artillery, ready to march at a moment's notice. These measures were sanctioned by the French government, who were fearful of some insurrections breaking out. The long debated law of amnesty was now passed, and affairs went on tolerably peaceably. At the end of January an émeute broke out at Lyons, which was followed by a disturbance that took place at Taroscon, on the Rhone. These were speedily quelled. Early in May there was an insurrection at Grenoble, which was speedily put down by General Donadieu. The insurgents, reckoned at 1500, were soon put to flight, after an action, in which many were killed and wounded. The head of this rash and daring rebellion was one Giallet, a half-pay lieutenant of artillery. About this period a body of malcontents in Paris were hatching plots which never came to maturity, owing to

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