HORSE-RACING in America is not considered the most exciting, or, for that matter, the most reputable business in the world. A horsey man, except in New York, is not looked upon with much favor, being, as a rule, and I suppose justly, regarded as a modified and somewhat toned down black-leg.

I never ventured money upon but one race. I shall never forget it, for it was my first and last experience.

It was many years ago, ere time had whitened my locks, and had set the seal of age in my face in the form of wrinkles. It is needless to say I was as immature mentally as physically, or what is to follow would not have occurred.

There was a horseman in the county in Ohio in which I was living named Carpenter—Sol. Carpenter. Every horseman’s given name is abbreviated, the same as a negro minstrel’s. Carpenter was the possessor of many horses which he used in racing, but he had one, “Nero,” which commanded the confidence of all the sporting men for miles around. In a mile race he had never been beaten, and there were wild rumors, which obtained credence, that he had won a four-mile race in Kentucky (which at that time was the starting point for all the running horses), and that Sol. was holding him back for some great master-stroke of turf business.

Presently there appeared in Greenfield—Sol. lived in Plymouth—a horse named “Calico,” which the owner intimated could lay out “Nero,” without any particular trouble or worry. Carpenter laughed the man to scorn—his name was Pete Scobey—and promptly challenged him for a mile dash, two best in three.

Scobey accepted the challenge and the date was fixed. There was the wildest possible excitement in Plymouth. Greenfield did not share in it, as there were no horsemen there, the village consisting of one Presbyterian Church, a dry goods store, and a blacksmith shop. But Plymouth absolutely boiled. Carpenter poured oil upon the fire by confidentially assuring everybody that “Nero” could get away with “Calico” without the slightest trouble; that he knew “Calico” like a book, and knew exactly what he could do, and if the people of Plymouth were wise, they would impoverish Greenfield, or rather the Norwalk parties, who were to back “Calico.”

His advice was taken. Every man in Plymouth who could raise a dollar went to that race at Greenfield and staked his money on “Nero,” on Carpenter’s assurance as well as their own confidence. There was nobody doing much betting on “Calico,” except Mr. Scobey and one or two others, and they held off at first, which gave Plymouth more confidence. So eager were we to despoil the adverse faction that we gave great odds, all of which Mr. Scobey and his confreres took, finally, with a calm confidence that should have taught us better. But it didn’t. I remember that I wagered every dollar I had with me, and some more that Mr. Carpenter kindly lent me, taking my note, and in addition to this a sixteen-dollar silver watch.

The first heat was won by “Nero,” easily, and Mr. Carpenter winked to Plymouth to make another assault upon the purses of Greenfield. We did it. We gave even greater odds than before, which Mr. Scobey required, as he admitted that his chances were very slim.

“But,” he remarked, “I will bet one to ten on anything.”

To our surprise the second heat was won by “Calico,” by just about a head. Then Mr. Scobey offered to take even bets, and he would have got a great many but for the fact that Plymouth had staked her entire wealth already.

The next and decisive heat was run. It was closely contested. Each horse seemingly did his best, and the jockeys seemed to ride properly. Alas for Plymouth! “Calico” won, as he did the second heat, by just a head.

The indignation of Mr. Carpenter knew no bounds. He grasped his jockey by the neck and pulled him from the horse, and accused him of giving away the race, and he stormed about the track very like a madman.

“Pete,” he said finally, “Nero kin beat that cart horse of yours ez easy ez winkin. I’ll run yoo two weeks from to-day at Plymouth for two hundred dollars a side, and I’ll hev a rider that won’t sell out to yoo.”

“Jest ez you please, Mr. Carpenter. It’s easy enough to charge up a poor horse to the account of a rider. Here’s the boodle.”

And so another race was arranged, and Mr. Carpenter went among us and assured that his own son should ride the next time, and there would be no trouble about it.

We consulted all the next week, and Mr. Scobey was approached on the subject. Mr. Scobey assured us that he knew “Nero,” and knew his own horse. “Nero” was good for a long race, but for a dash of a mile “Calico” could get away with him every time. We shared Mr. Scobey’s opinion, and to Mr. Carpenter’s disgust, Plymouth wagered all the money it could raise upon “Calico.” It requires but few words to state the result. “Calico” won the first heat easily, and “Nero” won the other two just as easily, and Plymouth was again bankrupt.

And then one of the riders who was disappointed in his share of the plunder, came to the front and made known what, if we had not been an entire menagerie of asses, we might have known in advance, that Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Scobey were in partnership, and that “Calico” was a horse hired from Cleveland for the occasion, and that it was a very ingenious scheme put up by Mr. Carpenter to victimize his neighbors, and that out of the speculation the two had made a very nice lot of money.

I don’t pretend to say that this has anything to do with the Derby, but it illustrates the morals of the turf so well that I could not help putting it upon paper. Racing is about the same thing everywhere, except upon Epsom Downs. These races are conducted fairly, for they are under the patronage of men to whom the honor of owning a winning horse is more than any amount of money that can possibly be won. The English noblemen want this honor, and they spend fabulous amounts of money to attain it. I won’t say that the Duke of Wellington would have exchanged Waterloo for the Derby, but I do say that if after Waterloo he could have had a horse capable of taking the prize, he would have died better satisfied with himself.

Thirty Americans were in the party that, on the morning of the first of June, left the American Exchange at Charing Cross for Epsom Downs. It was a very jolly party, and none of the accompaniments were forgotten. An Englishman does nothing without a great plenty of eating and drinking, and so the inside of one of the immense omnibusses—“breaks” they call them—was filled with great hampers of lunch, and wine, and things of that nature.

As early as it was all the avenues leading to the Downs were literally packed with conveyances, to say nothing of the railroad trains which passed in quick succession, and such a motley procession! There were lords and ladies, merchants and clerks, prostitutes and gamblers, workingmen and beggars, sewing-girls and bar-maids,—in fact every sort and condition of people, who had for one day thrown care to the winds and were on pleasure bent.

The roads swarmed with vehicles, and there was as much of a surprise in the variety as in the number. There was My Lord in his dog cart, or, if a family man, in his gorgeous carriage, which does not differ materially from the American open barouche, save in the accommodations for the everlasting flunkies behind, without which no English establishment is complete. Then came the swarm of hansoms—which is a two-wheeled vehicle, with a calash top to it, carrying the driver on a high perch behind—the army of omnibusses, the tops covered with chaffing people, and the inside full of more sober ones, and add to these every variety of vehicle to which an animal can be attached, that would carry a human being, and you have some faint idea of the appearance of the roads leading to Epsom Downs on the 1st of June, A.D. 1881.

It was rather amusing than otherwise to note two kinds of vehicles and the people they hauled. They have in London a little pony, not much larger than a good-sized Newfoundland dog, extensively used by costermongers and that class of tradesmen to deliver goods. A half of these in London were at the Derby, hitched to a two-wheeled cart of twice their size, and seven heavy men and women would be packed therein, and this little mite bowled them along at a good pace, without being worried. There were literally thousands of them upon the roads, the pony pulling his heavy load, and seeming to enjoy the sport as much as those he was hauling. He was having a holiday, and his holiday was much like a human one, very hard work.

The donkey is another English institution. He is not as large as the pony, but what enormous loads he will pull, and what a slight amount of food he requires. He will breakfast on a tin tomato can, and relish a circus poster for dinner. He is a patient little brute, and bears his loads as meekly as the English laborer does his, and in just about the same way.

As we leave the city the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians becomes denser and denser. At the point where all the streets out of the city meet the throng becomes more than immense, it is terrific. The drivers of the vehicles, skillful as they are, have difficulty in guiding their teams, whether it be the pretentious four-in-hand, or the humble donkey-cart, through the mass, though they did it, and without an accident.

And now the fun begins; that is, the English fun. Troops of fantastics, with false faces, spring up, the Lord knows from where, or for what purpose, unless it be to blow piercing horns

and beat toy drums for their own amusement. On one side just over a hedge, an admiring party are witnessing a boxing match between two yokels, who are giving and taking real blows in dead earnest, while just beyond is a Punch and Judy show, which always has been popular in England, and will be to the end of time. All along the dusty road are men over come with liquor, sleeping the sleep that only the drunkard knows, with faces upturned to the hot sun. They are perfectly safe, and will not be disturbed. Every Englishman of the lower class knows all about it, and as for robbery, all that he has on him couldn’t be pawned for a penny. Next to the boxing match was a street preacher of some denomination, armed with his testament and hymn-book, “holding forth” to a throng constantly coming and going. I didn’t hear this one, for we were too much on pleasure bent to stop for a sermon, be it ever so good or our need for it ever so great. But I did hear one on the grounds, and a curious sermon it was. There was no Miss Nancying about that preacher. He did not attempt to win his hearers by depicting the delights of a heaven for piety on this earth, not any. He knew his hearers too well. The lower grade Englishman might try to be good to escape a hell, but no one ever conceived a heaven that would win him. His idea of a heaven is a pot-house, with plenty of beer, and bread and cheese, and nothing to do. And so the preacher sang the hymn:—

In which his audience joined, some devoutly and some jeeringly.

And he pictured hell in such lurid colors as to frighten the most hardened. He had no fancy for a hell, such as American clergymen talk about, which consists merely in being deprived of the company of angels and all that sort of thing, but he had a substantial, real hell, with actual fire and brimstone and real devils with red hot pitch-forks, toasting and gridling sinners, and rivers of fire, and perpetual torments of this cheerful kind, forever and forever. That was the kind of a hell he had.

It had its effect. One man who stood listening, with his wife, said to her as they turned away:

“Weel, Jenny, ’ell is a hawful thing, I don’t knaw but what I’ll turn around and do better, hafter to-morrow.”

And the wife assenting to this proposition they went to the nearest beer place and buried their countenances and their consciences, or their fright rather, in pots of beer that would swamp the most seasoned American, and a few moments after were dancing like mad in a booth constructed for the purpose.

Except there be a special dispensation this party will never repent, and if there be such a hell as the preacher described they will find it. Their to-morrow for becoming good, like everybody else’s, will never come. The negro who, when asked why, in view of the punishment that must follow his sinful life, he would continue in his evil courses, replied:—

“Boss, de great comfort and ’scurity I has, is in a deff-bed ’pentance.”

“But suppose you die too suddenly to repent?”

“Boss, I alluz keeps myseff ready for ’pentance.”

The road down is lined with public houses, little quaint inns in which nobody sleeps, but which are devoted exclusively to the selling of beer and spirits. At each of these half the vehicles stopped, and the scenes about them were curious, if not altogether enjoyable. The only business done inside was the drawing and drinking of beer, and outside—heaven help an American—negro minstrelsy. Imagine three cockneys burnt corked, and dressed in trowsers striped in imitation of the American flag, with long blue striped coats and red vests, one playing the banjo, another the concertina, and the third doing the silver sand clog, with that peculiar soul-depressing, spirit-quenching expression that all clog dancers wear habitually.

A clog dance on a stage in a hall is sufficiently depressing to send a middle-aged man home to make his will, but imagine it done by an Englishman on a board outside an inn, on a hot day, so hot that the perspiration streaming down his face washed the burnt cork out in streaks, and then when this doleful performance was finally accomplished, think of a negro melody sung in the genuine cockney dialect, and accepted as a correct representation of the American African. By the way, in a first-class music hall I heard an English minstrel use the word “nothink,” and misplace his h’s as fluently as the most accomplished shopman. But the un-enlightened Englishman who had never heard the rich, mellow tones of the genuine African didn’t know any better, and so it was as well. People who love minstrelsy deserve nothing better.

By this time it was noon, and the sun was blazing hot. But the sun doesn’t mean as much on English roads as it does on American. England is some centuries old, and the roads are bordered on either side with immense trees, the hedges afford a grateful shade, and he who cannot find a delightful seat upon the soft grass is very hard to please. Exactly at noon the thousands of humble folk, the pony and donkey-cart people, stopped and unharnessed their diminutive power, and permitted it to crop the grass, while they unloaded those wonderful hampers, and spread them upon the grass and ate and drank. There was the boiled ham, the great masses of very bad bread made from the cheapest and worst American flour, the pot of mustard, and the inevitable bottle of beer. They sat under the delicious shade, men, women and children, and ate and drank and chaffed, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I think they all did enjoy themselves, except the women. The children got more to eat than they did other days, so they were satisfied; the men, great hulking fellows, gorged themselves, and were pleased because they were full of beer, but the poor women had the children to care for, and that ought to have been enough to have destroyed all the pleasure there was in it to them. For be it understood, no English laborer’s wife ever leaves her children at home on holiday occasions. There are two reasons for this. One is there is nobody to leave them with, and the other is there is a vague idea that it is a part of a child’s education to know all about beer and public houses from its very beginning. Therefore, almost every woman on that road to the Derby, had from one to four children with her, the youngest very frequently being at the very tender age of a month. The husbands always permit the mother to assume the entire charge of the youngsters, and the wives accept the situation uncomplainingly. They carry the “brats,” as the fathers delicately style their offspring, and the small woman with a healthy baby in her arms, keeping three others in tow, under a hot sun, must have an amusing time of it. But they seem to like it, and I don’t know as it is any of my business. Only I am rejoiced that the venerable Miss Susan B. Anthony don’t know how the lower-grade Englishman treats his wife. Could she see what I have seen she would start upon another lecturing tour, as ancient as she is.

One peculiarity strikes an American—everything has its price, which is rigorously exacted. Everything is fenced up and the slightest accommodation has to be paid for. Do you want a glass of water? It is given you, and you drink and set the glass down. Immediately the man or woman who handed it to you remarks quietly, but with a tone that admits of no question: “Penny, sir!” You pay it, for it is the custom of the country. It isn’t for the water, but for the handing it to you. At every gate stands a man who asks for his penny as he opens it, and he gets it. It got to that point with me, that when I felt a breeze striking my face and I got a breath of fresh air, I instinctively turned around to see to whom I should give the inevitable penny. Air is the only thing that is not charged for, and if there were any way of fencing that in and selling it, it would be done immediately. I remonstrated mildly at paying for a very simple service, for which in no country I was ever in would a fee be demanded, but I was silenced instantly.

“It helps me make a day’s wages, sir, and it won’t break you, sir,” was the very prompt answer.

I never dared to object again, but whenever I asked a question I offered the penny, and I did not find any one too proud to take it.

Finally we reached the Downs. Epsom Downs is an immense field, the property of the Earl of Derby, whose seat, “The Oaks,” is about two miles distant. The “Derby” is only one of many races, but out of compliment to the Earl, it is counted the chief event of the racing season. The importance given to it may be inferred from the fact that it is really a national holiday, that business is almost entirely suspended, and that Parliament adjourns to attend it.

I am not going to write a description of the race, for one very good reason. I didn’t see it. I could do it, but I am too honest, and beside I have no idea that it would interest anybody. One race is just the same as another. The horses all start, and run the course, and come in. One horse wins, and a dozen lose; as in the American game of keno, one man exclaims “Keno!” and forty-nine utter a profane word. A quarter-race in Kentucky is precisely the same as the Derby, except that one is witnessed by a hundred men in jeans, and the other by some hundreds of thousands in all sorts of clothing. At all events I was too busy studying the people to pay any attention to the horses. Possibly I made a mistake, the horse may be the nobler animal of the two. I should like to get the opinion of the horse on that point.

The sight of the field was indescribable. There were people by the hundred thousand. The railroads brought down one hundred and twenty-five thousand, and nobody goes to the “Darby” by train if he can help it. Many prefer to walk the sixteen miles to going by rail. These either haven’t the money to pay their fares, or shrink from giving money to railroads so long as there is beer to be had. The grand stand, an immense three-story structure, was black with people, and as far as the eye could reach there was nothing but people. And, as it is in America, the people were there for everything except to see the races, which is proper. For if there be anything under heaven that is exasperating it is a horse race, unless it be a regatta. Except as an excuse for something else, I never could see why people went to either. To sit or stand for an hoar under a hot sun, while a lot of jockeys are undertaking to swindle each other, simply to see a field of horses run or trot for a minute or two, or a parcel of boats start and come to the finish, always did seem to me to be the very acme of absurdity. But when you have thirty jolly fellows with you, who make good talk, a wild profusion of lunch, and oceans of wine, it is quite another thing, that is if you like lunch, wine, and talk.

The principal race this year, and the one on which the interest centered, was between “Peregrine,” the English favorite, and “Iroquois,” the American horse. There were others in the field, but these two absorbed the entire attention of the throng. It was a national matter, and a vast amount of money was lost and won on the event. As is known, “Iroquois” won the race by a very small majority, and the American eagle screamed with delight, and the British lion hung its head. The English felt more humiliated than they did when they lost the Colonies, and Archer, the English jockey who rode “Iroquois” to victory, was considered a very unpatriotic man. The English found one consolation: “Well, you know, the blarsted Yankee ’oss couldn’t ’ave won the ’eat if a Hinglish jockey hadn’t ridden ’im.” This was the remark that I heard everywhere.

The enthusiasm of the Americans knew no bounds. The glorious victory was made the reason for a fresh assault upon the lunch and wine, and a number of American parties had provided themselves with American flags, which they immediately pulled from their hiding places and flung to the breeze. And then as the emblem of freedom displayed itself upon English soil, it became immediately necessary to drink to the flag, which was done with that promptness which has ever distinguished the genuine American. Parties of Americans would arm themselves with champagne bottles, and pass to the carriages displaying the flag, and insist upon the occupants partaking with them in honor of the victory and the flag, and when one would get the address of the other, they would find the one was from Kalamazoo and the other from Oshkosh, and the coincidence was so striking that they would drink again. By that time a New Yorker would appear, and “Why, you are from New York! Open another bottle!” and so on.

It was a glorious day, but for all that anybody saw of the race, it struck me that it would have done just as well to have taken the lunch and the wine to any other field outside of London, and become patriotically intoxicated.

The country people and the laborers of London enjoyed the races about as the Americans did. For their amusement there were shows and games on the ground by the hundred. There were penny theaters; there were shooting galleries, and the cocoanut game. A dozen or more pegs are driven into the ground, and on each is placed a cocoanut. The man who hungers after cocoanuts and amusement pays a penny, for which he has the privilege of throwing a wooden ball at the row of pegs. If he hits a peg the nut drops off and he is entitled to it, with the resultant colic. There were hundreds and hundreds of tents, inside of which were cheap shows, precisely such as we see at State fairs and outside of circuses. As I gazed upon the enormous pictures of fat women, and bearded women, and Circassian beauties with enormous masses of hair, and the wonderful snakes, and the groups of genuine Zulu chiefs, and heard the inspiring tones of the hand organ, accompanied with the bass drum, and heard the man at the door imploring the people not to lose the great chance of their lives, and saw the young fellow with his girl, torn by the perplexing conundrum as to which was the better investment, the show or more beer, I fancied for a moment that I was at home. But I was not. I was three thousand miles from home, but I was seeing exactly what I should have seen had I been there. Human nature is about the same everywhere. Certainly, there is no difference in the side-showmen or the people from whom he earns his living.

Beggars and gipsies, so-called (there was no doubt about the genuineness of the beggars), were as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Stout men who could have wrestled with the primeval forests were begging for half-pence; women, with bloated faces, on every inch of which was written “gin” in unmistakable characters, carrying wretched babies, beset you at every turn; and hideous hags, with unmistakable Irish brogue, thronged about the carriages with: “My pretty gentlemon, will ye cross the palm ov the poor gipsy, and let her till yer forchoon? Och, and I kin till ye the shtyle ov the shwate lady ye’ll marry, and the number ov childher ye’ll hev, an bring ye gud luck.”

The absurdity of addressing me as a “pretty gintlemon,” and of proposing to tell me the sweet lady I’d marry! I, a married man this quarter of a century and the father of a family! That old lady got nothing from me. But the good-natured fellows in the carriage did throw her pennies, which she took with the regular “God bless yez,” and I have no doubt that in the course of the day she picked up a very pretty sum, enough at all events to keep her full of gin during the night.

The gipsies proper were on the ground in force, and a curious folk they are. The women were telling fortunes, and a vast number of customers they secured from the shop and servant girls on the ground, to all of whom she promised speedy marriages, no husband being under the degree of a Duke, and all of them very handsome and very rich men. The girls paid their pennies and sixpences with great alacrity, and went home to dream of their good luck, as they had a score of times before. The investment was doubtless a good one. They were satisfied with themselves for a while, at least, and when happiness can be had for a penny, why should any one be miserable?

The men were hiring donkeys, saddled and bridled, for the boys and girls to ride. To ride a donkey a certain fixed distance costs a penny, and among English children it is famous fun. And as the gipsy owner lives out of doors and steals all his food and the subsistence of his animals, and the animals themselves, it was great fun for him. Albeit, as he steals everything he uses and always proposes to, and never intends to reform and start a bank, I don’t see what he wants of pennies. Were they philosophical they wouldn’t let donkeys, but would lie down in the shade till hunger compelled them to steal something to eat, and enjoy themselves all the time.

As I said the races on this course are fairly conducted, and the best horse, or the best jockey, actually wins. But there is as much rascality here as on an American course, and I can’t say more than that. Under the grand stand is the “betting ring,” in which the book-makers stand. These are flashy gentlemen, with tall hats of painful newness, and diamonds of unearthly size and luster, which gives one a comforting assurance of solvency. These men take bets at the market rates. Thus, the betting that morning was three to one on “Peregrine.” Now in America the betting ring is under the control of the association owning the track; but it is not so here, as any number of Americans discovered. They had faith in “Iroquois,” and “laid” their money on him freely. One gentleman of my acquaintance deposited ninety pounds sterling with a book-maker, and was consequently entitled to two hundred and seventy pounds sterling, as his horse won. In great glee he hied himself to the ring, after the race, to collect his winnings. He hied himself back to the carriage sadly. Had “Peregrine” won the race the book-maker would, unquestionably, have been there and received the gentleman smilingly; but as “Iroquois” won, he folded his tent, like the Arab, and as silently stole away. None of them were to be found. Smarting under the sense of wrong, the American told his story to the party on the way home, and he was pitied or laughed at, according to the temper of his listener, quite a number laughing at more than pitying him. One gentleman laughed at him fearfully, but before we had got half way home, he broke out with “D—n the swindling scoundrel.”

“To what swindling scoundrel do you refer?”

“That blank, blank, swindling devil of a book-maker!”

“Oh! oh! you were taken in, were you?” joyously exclaimed victim No. 1.

“Of course, I was, thirty pounds sterling!”

“And you were laughing at me.”

And then one after another confessed to have been bitten the same way, and upon getting all the confessions in, it was discovered that one carriage had deposited to the credit of a set of London sharks three hundred pounds sterling, or fifteen hundred dollars.

I lost nothing, for I do not bet upon horses now, for reasons stated at the beginning of this epistle, which shows that perfect safety is only found in complete virtue.

One peculiarity of the event was the absence of fighting. During the entire day I did not see a fight or anything that approached it. Gather three hundred thousand people together in one field in America, and fill them with our whisky, or even beer, and there would be processions of broken heads, and funerals in plenty the next day. There is no question as to the Englishman’s fighting qualities, but he does not fight on his holidays. There were “d—n his eyes,” in plenty, and any quantity of talk, but no actual combats, except the boxing matches, and they were all in good humor. Why? I can’t tell. Possibly it is because the beer they drink tends to peace, and possibly it is because they find vent for their combativeness in whipping their wives at home. But they don’t fight on race courses.

The mass commenced melting away at about four o’clock in the afternoon, and the grounds were entirely deserted, except by the showmen and those who have money to make during the entire racing season. They live in their tents.

The scene on the road back was slightly different from the morning. The people on the way out started to get drunk, and a vast majority succeeded. The road was lined with prostrate forms of men and women. The English women of the lower order drink as much as their husbands and brothers. You see them in the public houses standing at the bars with their husbands or lovers, pouring down huge measures of beer, and it is a toss which can drink the most, or which enjoys it the most keenly. It is certain that the woman gets drunk with more facility than the man, she being the weaker, if not the smaller vessel. And understand, these women are not disreputable; they are hard working wives and daughters of respectable laboring people, mechanics and the like. It is their notion of a day’s pleasure.

Possibly they are not to be blamed. The life of a London workingman or woman is not a pleasant one; their pay is very small, and beer is very cheap, and for the time they are happy.

But the next morning! Dickens and all other English writers, have given most charming descriptions of the delights of a night’s drinking, but why, oh why, have none of them ever described the repentance of the next morning? That would have done the world some good.

And so we rode on through masses of people, two-thirds of them at that stage of intoxication where the idea of enjoyment is noise and horse-play, shouting, cheering, singing, yelling, waving handkerchiefs, and all without the faintest idea of the object of either, till we struck the lights of the city. Then the masses separated, and we finally reached our homes, tired, half-pleased and half-disgusted. The Derby was over.

No American, unless he be a sporting man, ever goes to the Derby twice. It is necessary to go once to see it, but once is quite enough. It is a sight to see three hundred thousand people in one mass, but it is not a pleasant thing to realize the fact that two-thirds or more of the number are under the influence of liquor, and that they did it deliberately, and went there with no other idea. It rather lessens one’s confidence in the future of the race, and leads one to the increasing of his donations to the home missionary societies. But it has always been so in England, and probably always will be. And then if the English workingman didn’t get drunk at the Derby he doubtless would find some other place for it, and as he gets a day’s pure air and sunshine, it is perhaps, as well. If any good can be drawn from it, let us hunt it persistently.

EGYPTIAN ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM