gave up the chace, but not before they were severely wounded. We pass over the young Tartar's "hair-breadth 'scapes," his "moving accidents by flood and field;" suffice it to say, he and his faithful steed reached England in safety, and in the month of August last was safely located in the Regent's Park Barracks, where he found the very best entertainment for man and horse. Anxious to put the Tartar's sabre practice to the test, two non-commissioned officers of the 1st Life Guards turned out with single-sticks, to give him a taste of their quality, and certainly a more wonderful performance was never before witnessed. With a single stroke of the sabre the Tartar cut one of the foemen's stick (we are literal, not figurative) into twenty pieces; and, though he got rather severely handled over the arms and shoulders, succeeded in slicing the other stick completely down to the guard. Then being pursued, he threw his lance (covered over and buttoned as a foil) the length of twenty yards with such precision and strength as almost to take the breath out of the gallant Life Guardsman's body. He then went through sundry evolutions, which would not have disgraced Ducrow's talented Circle in its palmy days -firing pistols at marks with unerring aim during the horse's best speed; throwing himself on and off his Bucephalus ; picking up his spear in a gallop; throwing the whole of his body off his horse, and clinging only by his leg, thus giving his enemies no mark but that limb to fire at; firing pistols between his horse's fore and hind legs; and, placing his pistol in his horse's mouth, fired it off in that position. In short, giving the spectators the most varied representation of the predatory warfare of his native country. His trusty steed deserves a few words. He is a grey Arabian, about fourteen hands three inches, active, and full of courage. Upon being asked whether he would dispose of him, the young Tartar clung to his neck, and patting him with the greatest kindness, exclaimed in excellent German"No! he is my life, my eyes, my arm, my body, my all. Never, to the last day of my existence, will I part with the partner of my cares, to whom I am indebted for my life.". At the termination of the "tournament," the young warrior was presented with a purse of fifty sovereigns, which the officers of the 1st Life Guards and their friends had collected for him. Since that period, he has left England for Constantinople, where we wish him all health and happiness. Before leaving the subject of Russia, we must not omit to point out the munificent liberality of the Emperor and his son the Cesarewitch, who, independent of patronizing the sports of their native land, encourage them in ours by giving two splendid prizes to be run for annually at Ascot and Newmarket. We proceed.

"In Germany the sport amongst the higher classes consists of battues, where the game, being driven into a small circle, is butchered by "gunners." During the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, I was witness to one of these exhibitions, given to the crowned heads, and a tamer sport I never beheld. Every species of game, from a rabbit to a rein-deer, fell a victim to the unerring aim of the gun or foot of the royal and imperial personages; for, literally speaking, as much game was trampled upon, or knocked upon the head, as shot. An English farmyard, full of pigs and poultry, with a hutch of white rabbits turned

In Holland,

loose in it, would furnish an equally good battue. the sport consists of shooting wild geese and ducks in winter, sledging, skating, bowls, billiards, chess, and tennis; in the East, the jereed exercise and tiger-hunting; in Africa, lion-hunting."

The

Upon the national sports of England our French author writes most elaborately, and proceeds to classify them according, as he says, to Bell's Life. His remarks and ideas are occasionally quaint, sensible, and just, at other times absurd to a degree; they may not, however, be totally uninteresting to our readers, who we will leave to judge for themselves. "The place of honour," he writes, "belongs to the race-horses, and between them is a line of demarcation. horses that are to run for the Derby, at Epsom, are first named, and after them come the champions for the Duncastle St. Leger." We pass over some remarks upon Tattersall's, or, as the Frenchman calls it, the Bourse du Sport, to his graphic account of the Derby. "The Derby is a national fete in England. The Derby! Where is the Englishman who will not sacrifice for it his dearest interests, his very duties, nay, the presence of the object of his love? The Derby! A wizard potent enough to wrest for a whole day an Englishman from his lethargic gravity. Thousands of vehicles cover the plain, filled with elegant and lovely women; the Queen, with her dazzling toilet and beauty; the highest nobles of England, treating as their equals the trainers and jockeys; the hawkers; the suttling booths; the gambling booths; the bettors; every vehicle converted into a dining-room. Oh! the wonderful sight, wonderful even to eyes not English! The signal for starting is given; the horses rush forward. A solemn silence now prevails. The horses fly; they would not be so light if they carried all the gold staked on their speed! They approach the goal; the struggle is desperate. Silence has ceased. Some excite by voice and gesture the horse upon which they have staked their fortune. The cries raised by others, though more disinterested, are not less vehement. Twenty horses have started; only two or three return. What a dearly bought victory! But the conqueror has often won £30,000 or £40,000. The race being over, vehicle races begin on the road; amidst an awful confusion they are driven against one another, break down, or overturn. The roads are strewed with shattered poles and wheels; nothing stops the drunken drivers. One would fancy it a breaking up of the ice on the Neva, an avalanche of Mont Blanc, a tempest of the ocean." Our author proceeds: "After racing follows steeple-chasing and coursing, and next come stag, hare, and fox-hunting, with their fatigues and perils." Hold hard! brother sportsman; who ever in England heard of fox-hunting coming after coursing, calf-hunting, or currant-jelly hounds? Here in accounting for fox-hunting, occupying the fourth rank, the writer has evidently found a mare's nest, for he says, "that he has discovered the reason of this unjust classification, which is that in the chace there is no betting, and that Englishmen reduce everything to bets."

Then come pigeon-shooting and dog-fighting; of the latter sport the writer says, "It has already begun to degenerate, and we shall see it presently fall lower still." Sincerely do we trust that his

predictions will be realized. In the way of interludes, the author indulges in a few lively "skits," touching our mania for extraordinary feats and betting. Thus he says a Woolwich lieutenant offers to play a game at tennis against all England for £50. "A singular accomplishment for an artillery officer." "One individual announces that for £5 he will throw himself from the top of Waterloo Bridge; while another engages not to touch any food for ten days." He might have added, "or to make himself a brute by eating sundry loaves, and drinking sundry gallons."

After horses, greyhounds, stags, hares, foxes, pigeons, bulldogs, bipeds, and gluttons, the subject of boxing is discussed; and here we give our continental friend's views upon that subject:"In these combats everything is opprobrious and repulsive; aye, everything, from the teethless mouth and the savage looks of those degraded beings, to the preparations and precautions destined to prolong the combat. Each second brings his champion a pail of water, a sponge, and a bottle of brandy or wine: the heroes are stripped to their waists, and, at first, totter as much from fear as drunkenness." Fear and drunkenness !

:-

We

At every

Shades of Gregson, Mendoza, and Pearce, arise and annihilate the French author with a look; surely Shaw, the life-guardsman, with whom our continental neighbours got personally acquainted at the greatest "mill," of our days-Waterloo, was neither a coward nor a drunkard. Censure the sport, but libel not its professors. proceed "The murmurs of the spectators soon warn the combatants that they have not come to witness childish play. Vanity then prevails over fear, and the combat becomes serious. tooth that drops, at every rib that breaks, at every eye that falls out, there are voices that shout, Bravo! and hands that applaud. The struggle has already lasted an hour: the boxers are exhausted; they can scarcely stand; their faces are bruised, and covered with blood; their bodies present but a huge sore. But they have not fought more than fifty rounds, and a good fight (so we translate beau combat), must be renewed at least sixty or seventy. Their seconds apply the sponge to the flowing blood, wash their eyes, noses, and ears, pour wine or brandy down their throats; and the blows resound again, until one of them, exhausted, panting, almost dead, falls down, never to rise again. And yet the crowd is often dissatisfied, and often cries out that there has been cowardice or treachery. Instead of one corpse it would have two. This is the dark side of sport in England, for it is not only the lower classes that are addicted to these loathsome spectacles, the most distinguished men blush not to witness them, and to speculate upon the fists of a boxer with as much sang froid as they would upon the legs of a racer."

The above is rather an exaggerated description, and yet there is a great deal of truth in it. We hate prize-fighting, which is open to every species of roguery and rascality; and yet prefer the good old English system, among the humbler classes, of settling a difference with the fists, to the knife. In one instance, they fight and shake hands; in the other the survivor, if he escapes the hands of justice, wanders a second Cain, loathed and despised by his fellow creatures.

In the following remarks we entirely concur with our French author: "In this department of sport (boxing) we shall never be on a level with the English, and we can but congratulate ourselves upon it. Let us learn from them to breed and train our horses; let us borrow their racing regulations; let us turn to account their experience and knowledge; let us even be English in the denominations of our races; but when their manners stray into cruelty, let us remain of our own country. Let us leave them in possession of their bull-dog fights, but let the taste for hunting be encouraged amongst us, and that taste will yield us horses and riders. We are still far from having their numerous hunting equipages; but already are our riders numerous and bold. The Prince de Wagram, M. Henri Griffuthe, the Duke d'Aremberg, the Marquis de Vogue, and the Prince de Challais, are inferior to none in science and spirit. The bright deeds of the Marquis de Macmahon, the boldest rider in France, have perhaps no rival even in England. Respecting racing, Chantilly is our Epsom, and our Derby the prize given by the Jockey Club, which amounts to 25,000 francs, and can often boast of a field of more than six-andtwenty horses. The Société d'Encouragement bestows its largess, and awards its prizes, in the months of May and June, at the Champ de Mars, Versailles, &c. ; whilst in September, the government patronize racing, by giving plates to be run for." In conclusion, the author calls upon the provincial owners of race-horses to come to Paris, and engage in a contest which "may some day be rewarded with triumphant success." We, too, call upon our continental neighbours Parisian as well as provincial-to enter the arena with us at Newmarket, and in his own words to remind him, that " gerated modesty, or consciousness of inferiority, stifles the very principle of emulation, without which everything declines and goes to ruin."

exag

ON TRAINING THE RACE-HORSE.

BY COTHERSTONE.

PHYSIC.

By this term an aloetic purge is to be understood, without the exhibition of which no horse can be put to work with any degree of safety or probability of success. Some few persons, but those few such as have had but little experience in the treatment of horses, express opinions that physic is unnecessary; indeed, perhaps go so far as to assert that it is injurious: the latter impression has arisen because they have been in the habit of administering it in too strong doses, or the animal has been otherwise improperly treated. The

first consideration in evidence of the necessity for a purgative, before any horse should be called upon to perform laborious excrtions, is the fact of the bowels being over-loaded with food, in which state it must be conceded by the most strenuous opponents to the salutary remedy that no animal can be safely put to work. The next is the no less important one of the purifying effects of physic upon the blood, which without its aid cannot be expected to flow through the smaller vessels with that freedom which is necessary to promote the general economy of the system; this languid circulation permits the superfluous portions of the blood which are destined to be taken up by the absorbent vessels, or to pass off in perspiration, to lie in an inactive state, especially in the extremities, and those parts such as the lungs, where the vessels are most minute: thus arise those dangerous cases of inflammation in the eyes and lungs, as well as troublesome effusions in the legs. It is here necessary to point out the frequency of swelled legs arising from debility, which is very commonly established by strong doses of physic. Nothing is more usual than a groom, after having given a horse a powerful dose of medicine, to remark that his legs have swelled, ascribing the cause to what he supposes the gross condition of the animal, supposing that the medicine has excited the humours, and that another equally strong dose succeeded by a third are required to clear the system. It is true with horses of tolerably strong constitutions, assisted with the restorative efforts of good keep and moderate exercise, that a restorative may be anticipated; but much loss of time and considerable danger is encountered, which mild doses would not only have averted, but they would have produced general results much more favourable in every respect.

Intimately as the treatment of horses during the operation of physic is professed to be understood, even by every hunting groom, and constantly as they are in the habit of administering it, very few of them manage their horses properly; in the first place, they do not prepare them sufficiently, and, in consequence, they give doses which are too powerful. The day before a purgative is to be given, three or four bran-mashes should be offered, and but little hay; at night none at all. A plentiful supply of bran-mash being substituted at eight o'clock, will afford quite as much, or even more nourishment than hay; at the same time that it will relax the bowels, and render them in a fit state for the action of the aloes. The accumulation of hay in the bowels is the frequent cause of gripes, and also its presence instead of that of mashes demands a more powerful dose of medicine these must surely be reasons sufficiently obvious to establish the advantages of preparing horses in a proper manner, and substituting mild for strong doses of physic. Such horses as are gluttonous feeders, who will, if deprived of their quantum of hay, consume the litter from under them, should be muzzled the night before they have the ball, as the consequence of their devouring straw will be more injurious than eating hay. On the morning of giving the physic, the horse should have walking exercise at the usual hour; and when he returns, and has had his water, the ball is to be given to him. This is another circumstance deserving notice: