October and Houghton, with Longbow, at twenty-one pounds, and came in "cocking his ears,' there could be no mistake about him, especially as Longbow, at Doncaster, had given Pelion thirty-two pounds, and run him to a head, and had, on the previous week to this trial, won the Royal Stakes. Backing his horses freely, as Mr. Bowes was always in the habit of doing, it may easily be imagined he jumped on to this colt, and the same night of his trial, Davis laid thirty thousand to one against him for the Derby, as he was coming away from his list; and before he had reached his lodgings in Swinton-street, Gray's-inn, he had booked ten thousand to four hundred more; and at every club and maison-de-jeu in St. James's, and at Beeton's, in the City, special commissioners were getting on. Beaten as he was in the Criterion by what may perhaps be termed a "fluke," two to one was laid on him the next time he came out, when he won in a canter. In the following spring, the Two Thousand showed there was no mistake he was "a racehorse," and that he would, as the jockeys say, be " painted;" and although, from the ground being as hard as pavement, Frank did not make a great deal of use of him in the Derby, he always maintained that, when he won, he had seven pounds at least in hand-an opinion in which I am inclined to concur when I am aware that he stood forty hundred to one on him with Mr. Bowes, and refused to hedge a shilling. For the Leger, his friends of course stuck to him; but the opposition he encountered was without a parallel in the annals of favourites for that race. John Scott led a frightful life, and never passed two such months of anxiety since he had trained. No horse could have done better; and although it was said he was a bad feeder, he never left an oat in his manger. Still, he was betted against as if he had been in a copper, and the Quorn Hounds were waiting for him. An Epsom gentleman, whose hostility is generally considered fatal to anything he opposes, went on so determinedly that he was called upon to cover, which he did instantly; and after staking all the money, he produced a bundle of notes as large as a child's balloon, which he said he was ready to follow suit with: and this increased the mystery, and rendered John Scott, who had charge of him, in the absence of Mr. Bowes in Paris, more anxious than ever. And what made things worse was the fact that Mr. Minnethorpe, who won such a large sum on him for the Derby, now opposed him just as resolutely as he had previously backed him. On the morning of the race the Australians were in better spirits; and Lord Chesterfield gave out that he would win-which, for reasons which are not necessary to detail, was satisfactory. But towards the time of starting, matters looked worse; and the West went back in the betting, and

"Many laid who never laid before;

And those who'd laid, now laid the more."

Joe Hayhoe said, "When I deliver him, it will be as the winner of the Leger;" and John Scott was equally confident. As they got round the bend, after passing the Red House, it was apparent all was right; and in the Trainers' Stand, Markwell's voice was heard above all others "Let me down! I have seen enough." And, all

making way for his stalwart form, he was in the course before the numbers were quite up, leading in another winner for Mr. Bowes.

Altogether, this was the most exciting Leger for many years, merely from the mystery which surrounded the winner, and which will never be cleared. At Ascot, in the next year, West, who had become the property of Lord Londesborough, won the Cup by a head from Kingston, purely from Alfred Day's magnificent handling; for he dared not take a liberty with him; and, when opposed to Job, the merit was more conspicuous. This was the last time the West was ever stripped for the public, as, to the intense annoyance of John Scott, who was specially preparing him to beat Virago for the Doncaster Cup, and had got him, a few days before, to give more than six stone to Hobby Horse, when taking his last sweat, and going not more than six knots an hour, his leg went, and with it all hopes of another race. Mr. Bowes's next great horse was Fly-by-night, who was very little behind West Australian, but who could not move in dirt. But, from what was seen at Ascot, there can be no doubt he would, if he had kept on his legs, have made Mr. B. a fifth Derby and a third Two Thousand winner. As a sportsman, it will thus be seen that few, if any, have been so fortunate as Mr. Bowes -more especially as his team has never been a very large one, and as he resides in Paris the greater portion of the year. His horses also, it will be observed, have been all of his own breeding; and he has not, like other people, been obliged to buy. As a judge of a yearling he has few superiors; and no one knows better how blood will suit. Between John Scott and himself the strongest confidence exists; which is only natural, when it is considered that he has put into his pocket upwards of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds -an amount unprecedented in the annals of any public stable. In fact, as far as regards the horses, John Scott is Mr. Bowes, whatever may be said to the contrary; and death alone is likely to sever the connexion. In conclusion, I may remark that, singularly fortunate as Mr. Bowes has been with his horses, he has been equally unlucky with his mares, never in reality having a good one; and that he cares so little about races, that he seldom is seen on a course, but prefers telegraphic messages to enduring the excitement of the contest. With his jockeys Mr. Bowes is as popular as with his friends; and in all the relations of life he is esteemed, as he ought to be, from his social qualities. In appearance Mr. Bowes is about the height of Lord George Bentinck, with the same dark complexion and manly figure of that nobleman.

No. XVII.-MR. W. E. HUGHES.

Hughes, W. E., or Gentleman Hughes, as he is sometimes called to distinguish him from "Omnibus Hughes," has played so prominent a figure for some years among racing men of high and low degree, as to fully warrant my giving him a place in this exhibition. Mr. Hughes is the son of Mrs. Hughes, a widow lady of large fortune, residing near St. Helen's in Lancashire. He was educated at Eton, where he made his first book in shillings and crowns, which increased in size when he

got to Oxford. On his entrance on London life, our hero was bold enough to confess that, as a younger son, he could not afford to know persons poorer than himself, and that it was a waste of time for him to do so. This idea, though Brummellish, indicated some knowledge of the world, and may have made him somewhat unpopular; still, his University career brought him in connexion with all the rising young turfites of the day, while his proneness for whist, picquet, billiards, and the cleverness with which he could execute a commission, speedily got him admission into the Turf Club. As a wooer of Fortune, none have ever been so bold or so constant as (C Little Hughes," and he has always had that great element of success about him, viz., never to know when he is beaten. For instance, if the fickle goddess has frowned on him at whist, he has tried her with picquet. Should she still have proved obdurate, he would turn to billiards, and from thence to the bettingring and the Board of Green Cloth. His mode of warfare on the Turf and the Houses may be described as of the Parthian kind, for, when worsted, he retires as it were into the fastnesses of the country until he has recruited his resources, when he reappears with astonishing rapidity, armed from heel to front, and eager for the fray. During his career he has had but few horses in training, and the only animal I believe he ever won a race with was Sophistry, by Theon, with whom-and it was a great thing for a young one to do-he beat Sir Joseph Hawley in a match. As a financier at the West-end our friend is acknowledged to have no equal. Deep in the knowledge of renewals-cognizant of "good and bad names"-fertile in resources-he is invaluable to a loser on a Derby settlement morning by pointing out the method of raising the ways and means; and his advice is the more pleasant to listen to from the amusing remarks that accompany it, and the accurate knowledge it displays of the inner life of the money-lenders of the metropolis. Anecdotes of his wit, such as stalling-off a hungry creditor at Newmarket, by asking him to change a thou." when he had only a tenner curled up in his hand; or by his offering a handsome reward for the discovery of “ a new Jew;" or his regret when sending a friend an autograph of General Windham that it was not on a stamp, I could multiply tenfold, but that they would spoil by being transmitted to paper; and I shall therefore say no more of him than that although not such a frequenter of Newmarket or the Turf as he used to be, when he does put in an appearance he is always welcomed, and none will deny him the merit of being possessed of superior abilities, and a great deal of dry and ready wit, which render him a most agreeable and amusing companion, either in the Club or the Country-house.

KNAPSACK WANDERINGS IN MERRIE ENGLAND.

BY LINTON.

No. III.

"The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food;
Toil strung their nerves and purified their blood:
But we, their sons, a pampered race of men,
Are dwindled down to three-score years and ten.
Better to hunt the fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
For cure the wise on excrcise depend;

God never made his work for man to mend."

DRYDEN.

Those who have ever experienced the pleasures of a rolling French screw-steamer, with a wind abeam, when crossing the Adriatic, will fully understand the utter impossibility of writing, still less thinking; and under such circumstances, I was compelled to come to a check in my last chapter, being precisely in that most disagreeable situationnot that I am a sufferer, that is to say physically, at sea; but in a few truthful words, I candidly confess that I consider nothing more hateful than that which poets, and not seldom those who probably have never experienced it, term a trip on the glorious ocean. And I would hope that I may not be trespassing (for I have ever considered it trespassing on the pages of Maga to write of aught save that which is characteristic of sport), inasmuch as there is unquestionably some sport in it, when I recapitulate that which I have read somewhere, as doubtless have many of my sporting friends, what I consider an admirable illustration of the realities of a sea voyage.

It runs thus: "Alas! what a contrast between poetry and the real practical fact of going to sea! No man, the poet says, is a hero to his valet de chambre. Certainly, no poet, no hero, no inspired prophet ever lost so much, on near acquaintance, as this mystic, grandiloquent old ocean. The one step from the sublime to the ridiculous is never taken with such alacrity as in a sea voyage. In the first place, it is a melancholy fact, but not the less true, more particularly on board French mail steamers,' that ship life is not fragrant. In short, there is a most wonderful combination of grease, steam, onions, garlic, and dinners in general, either past, present, or to come, which floating invisibly in the atmosphere, strongly predisposes to that disgust of existence which in half an hour after sailing begins to come upon you that disgust, that strange, mysterious, ineffable sensation, which steals slowly and inexplicably upon you; which makes every heaving billow, every whitecapped wave, the ship, the people, the sight, the taste, sound and

smell of everything, as matters of inexpressible loathing, man cannot utter."

I may add, though, as I have already stated, physically I am no sufferer at sea-nay, my pipe smokes the more freely when the winds whistle and the waves roar-yet the above description is true to the very letter; and to such we may add the monotony of a sea life. For, be the weather what it may, time hangs heavily at sea: read, smoke, write, do what you will, there is ever the craving hope of getting there, the longing desire to reach the friendly port, and on no sea is the feeling more fully developed than on the Mediterranean, where the changes of weather for eight months of the year are brief and continual; a calm sea one hour, a stiff breeze the next, varied by the rolling of a screwsteamer or the tossing of a gale. And not seldom, in the midst of all these unpleasant contre-temps, among the varied passengers of a French mail steamer, while endeavouring to console yourselves that the longedfor port is not far distant, as you lie on the sofa endeavouring to while away the hours with the last publication of Tauchnitz, the last No. of Blackwood, or the Sporting Magazine, and half thinking, half reading, endeavour to calm your sensitive nerves, you hear an animated discussion, for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, on the Crimean war, with a shrug of the shoulders and a vain air of confidence and belief some Frenchman exclaims, Nous avons prie Sevastopol;" to which is now added "Canton." If you were on shore you would laugh or whistle; being at sea, it creates bile and disturbs your temper for the remainder of the day. Silly that it should do so; yet, in fact, it stagnates and annoys you-not what has been uttered, but the insolent tone of belief in its truth.

But we are now on shore again-on the land we love-at Dulverton ; and so let us forget calm seas and rough seas. A few words more, and then over the moorlands far and away for Lyuemouth and Linton, the pearl of North Devon.

I must, however, halt awhile more at Dulverton. I have said, and said truly, that Dulverton is the Melton of the West; and Devon is a true sporting county, and this would be more practically acknowledged were it known as it should be. Romantic and picturesque in the extreme, it is equally interesting to the lover of field sports of every kind, as to the lover of nature and the invalid.

The ancient forest of Exmoor is identified with sporting in the West, the pure air of which, peculiarity of scenery, the bold romantic aspect of the country, have long been proverbial, and can scarcely be surpassed in all England or any other country. There, and there only (as fully detailed in a work which I published years since, entitled "Exmoor"), are red deer still found in their native lair. I also ventured to give a history of the stag hounds, from their earliest days, together with the accounts of many of their best runs. And I would still hope to see the day when they will meet with that support they so justly merit: with this hope I have ventured herein to insert a copy of a memorial which was, and I would feign hope still is, intended to be presented to Her Most Gacious Majesty. I may also add, that a proposal was on foot to establish a club during the hunting season, when these hounds hunt the forest; why not a permanent one? And, although I am decidedly of opinion that such club would answer far better at Lynemouth than at

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