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to endure. Sixty remain in out of one hundred and thirty-three named, according to Cocker, nearly one half; a liberal allowance that undoubtedly very few were prepared to expect. As the Cup forfeits are not due before the second of February, we decline entering farther into it than "the names, weights, and prices" of the horses backed "in or out" within the last seven days. The grand total of nominations confesses to a hundred and forty-two.

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THE CHESTER CUP.-(Latest betting.)-6 to 1 agst the Irish lot; 7 to 1 agst. three-year, olds; 20 to 1 agst. Sweetmeat, 4 years, 8st. 9lb.; 25 to 1 agst. Best Bower, 5 years, 5st. 12lb.; 25 to 1 agst. Whinstone, 4 years, 6st. 12lb.; 30 to 1 agst. Mickey Free, 5 years, 7st. 6lb.; 25 to 1 agst. Miss Burns, 6 years, 6st. 5lb.; 40 to 1 agst. Warp, 5 years, 7st. 2lb.; 35 to 1 agst. Hope, 4 years, 7st. 6lb.; 40 to 1 agst. Mermaid, 3 years, 5st.; 40 to 1 agst. Cataract, 6 years, 6st. 5lb.; 40 to 1 agst. The Baron, 4 years, 8st. 10lb.; 40 to 1 agst. Eboracum, aged, 7st. 61b.; 50 to 1 agst. Roderick, aged, 7st. 2lb.:-Even on the field against the following twenty-five:-Best Bower, Blackbird, Intrepid, Columbus, Rowena, Fitzallen, Pedometer, Little Hampton, Jenney Wren, Whinstone, Pilot, Mermaid, Vol-au-Vent, Hope, Mickey Free, Ould Ireland, Queen of Tyne, Arthur, Cataract, Advice, The Roper's Daughter, Crim Con, The Correct Card, Roderick, and Miss Burns.

M. W.
D. D.

First Quar., 4 day, at 32 min. past 10 afternoon.
Full Moon, 13 day, at 49 min. past 2 morn.
Last Quar., 20 day, at 38 min. past 1 afternoon.
New Moon, 27 day, at 50 min. past 5 morn.

OCCURRENCES.

Sun
rises and
sets.
h. m. d.

Moon HIGH Water rises & London Bridge. sets. morn. I aftern. h. m. h. m. h. m. sets 4 23 4 43 511a55 5 2 5 21

5 59

6 morn.
0 57
1 53 7

5 40
6 20 6 43

6 7 31

7

1 First Sun. in Lent. St. Babid.r 6 48 4 2M KILLBEGGAN STEEPLE CHASE. s 5 39 3T WATERLOO Ca. Mr. Bradford F.r 6 44 4 W Ember D. LIVERPOOL ST.CHASESS 5 43 T PEMBROKESHIRE STPLE.CHASES. r 6 40 8 6 F Burnley Fair. s 5 46 9 2 41 8 3 8 41 7 S Venus rises at 3 h. 2 m. A.M. r 6 3610 3 23 9 22 10 5 8 Second Sunday in Lent. [spawn. s 5 5011 3 5810 4511 26 9 M About this time jack, perch, & bleakr 6 31 12 0 2 10 T BIRMINGM. & DERBYSH. ST. CH.S 5 53 13 11 W Racing Season comm. at Coventry.r 6 2614 12 T GRANARD ST. CH. Corwen Fair.s 5 57 15 13 F About this time trout begin to rise. r 6 21 F 14 S Northop Fair.

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4 28

4 55 0 32 0 55

5 19
5 41

rises

1 15

1 35

1 55 2 13

2 27 2 41

s 6

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16 M BALLYMONEY STEEPLE CHASE. S 6 17 T St.Patrick. LINCOLN ST. CHASE. r 6 18 W WARWICK RACES

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19 T CALEDONIAN COURSING MEETG. r 6 20 F Oxford t. ends. G. MILITARY S. C. s 21 S Warwick Fair. BRIGHTON S. C. r 6 22 Fourth Sunday in Lent. s 6 1425 3 5 8 40 9 25 23 M ROYAL LEAMINGTON ST. CHASES. r 5 1926 3 42 10 24 T NORTHAMPTON RACES. s 6 1727 4 1511 25 W Lady Day. Uxbridge Fair. r 5 5428 4 45 0 26 T BOTESDALE STEEPLE CHASE. 27 F BRIGHTON SPRING MEETING. 28 S Malmesbury Fair. 29

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THE ROYAL HOUNDS

BY CRAVEN.

"Oh! my life on the chase: it can never decline
While the sons of Old England are men!
A cloud may obscure it, but soon it will shine
In gladness and glory again!"

Five years ago a slight memoir of this celebrated pack-its rise, progress, and position-appeared in these pages. It was the period when experience had taught but little or nothing of the effects, social or natural, of railroads; and therefore, to borrow a term from Douglas Jerrold's logic, as people did not know what was to come of them, of course they concluded the worst. In this spirit it must have been that I then-happily a false prophet-wrote of the sport of hunting:

"Venit summa dies, et ineluct a bile tempus."

So far from this has the case been as yet, that the chase probably never knew a more glorious season than the present. Up to this date the Royal Hounds have only been stopped one day, the 11th ult.; and even then they left the kennel with a prospect of the ground being fit at noon, though it did not so fall out. But it is proper to say their star is not just now in the ascendant. When, five years since, I coupled with the national ills which threatened the éclat of our woodcraft these other contingencies-when I said "battueshooting, daily familiarity with foreign habits, the fashion of frequent sojourn in countries whose manners and pursuits are effeminate in their tendency-all these are slow but sure workings against the spirit which calls the hunter to the field," it was a glimpse of too faithful second-sight. There cannot be a more honest or honourable proof of the popular feeling towards the head that wears the crown of this kingdom than the reception everywhere offered, by the occupiers of land in the district hunted by the Queen's Hounds, to her Majesty's servants. That these should be, almost without exception, the representatives of the court in the hunting-field is much to be regretted. I mean no discourtesy herein to the noble Master of the Staghounds, whose connexion with them is merely a cabinet relation: when a Tory minister reigns in St. Stephen's a Tory master rules at Ascot, and vice versa. But that no member of the royal family, save Prince George of Cambridge (his Royal Highness very rarely), should ever hunt with the royal pack is a heavy blow, and a great discouragement to its career. "Habit," we are told, "breeds a custom

in a man;" that taste is not to be taught, is a truism older than its trite motto-

"Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt."

Still, if it were the fashion for the court to honour with its presence a mcet of the Staghounds, as it does a dinner at Guildhall or a performance at Drury Lane, the condescension would be fully appreciated. Young England has not yet succeeded in destroying all the sympathies by which memory is linked to its grandsire. The love of "lang syne" is not confined to the children of the mist: muddy Lincoln shall turn you out a son of its amphibious soil as instinctively a patriot, as intrinsically a disciple of old custom and old country, as any hero of poetry or prose. John Bull, as he represents the English character, is not a mercurial personage: he says little; but probably, like the French Abbé's pintados, he thinks the more. It was, perhaps, ungracious that nature made us a phlegmatic people it was the "most unkindest cut of all" when art made it the fashion to be "melancholy and gentlemanlike." We cannot afford

to bate a merry-making or a merry memorial of the olden time. They are national, that's the reason; and not at all because of the remoteness of their origin. Time, like money, if made good use of, produces a profitable return: but years, abstractedly, do little good to man or beast; they are more remarkable for the moral obliquity they give existence to, making the worse appear the better part, as poor Hood has it:

"It is strange, very strange,

How opinions will change,

How antiquity blazons and hallows

Both the man and the crime

That a less lapse of time

Would commend to the hulks or the gallows!"

The national sports of this country, especially, should be kept uphonoured both by the precept and example of those in authority. They are excellent in their philosophy, wholesome in their practice. They are essentially manly: their principle is enterprize governed by justice, technically called "fair-play." No social institution, having reference to the occupation of man during the period of his relaxation from labour and the serious business of life, ever so wisely provided for the popular recreation as that known among us as sporting. It is not perfect: what human contrivance is? But its spirit is to promote good-will and good-fellowship among all classes-to draw all divisions of society together, at scenes and seasons that most dispose for kindly intercourse-to associate our citizens in those hours when, as the poet of nature has said, "we have suppler souls." For this reason it is the common regret of all aware of the fact, that the noble hunting establishment which forms so national a feature in the courtly train of Windsor should so scantily partake of the royal favour.

It used to be the fashion for those who desired to appear the cream of sportsmen to speak with contempt of stag-hunting, which was called "calf-running" and all sorts of opprobrious names. But people

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