& Xotes of the Month [JULY; 



overpaid magistrates and constables. We should wish to know what 

 the Oxford authorities were doing, when those coaches of " gentlemen 

 of the fancy" were pouring in among them. As to boxing-matches, 

 every one knows them to be nothing more than the contrivances of low 

 ruffianism to raise money on the public a combination of pickpockets, 

 swindlers, and keepers of gin-shops. Three-fourths of the fellows who 

 regularly attend those exhibitions, are known to the police as common 

 thieves ; and if we are to estimate the profession by the practice, their 

 patrons are little better. The pretext that boxing-matches keep up the 

 courage of the people, or prevent assassination, has been long exploded. 

 The bravest nations of the ancient world would have considered a free- 

 man disgraced by a practice which they suffered only among criminals 

 and slaves ; for the game of the Csestus, or the pancratiast, among the 

 Greeks, was a general display of strength and dexterity, and even this 

 was not in repute ; the Roman boxer was generally taken from the 

 jail, to which place we think that the English boxer and his patrons 

 should in all cases be consigned. Some murders have been lately com- 

 mitted at those scenes of brutality; and it is to be hoped that neither 

 rank nor money will be suffered to screen the delinquents/ one and all. 



" Mr. Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, one of the Stewards of 

 Hampton races, and who occupies a cottage at Moulsey, which, for the 

 comfort and accommodation of his friends, he has recently enlarged, kept 

 a sort of open house during the past week. The right hon. gentleman's 

 dinners were most luxuriant ; turtle, venison, and choice wines in abun- 

 dance. The company consisted of many noble lords, and one of the most 

 brilliant wits of the day, who on the occasion was too happy to sing 

 " Dear Ally Croker/ " 



When the unlucky Marquis of Worcester took upon his hussar shoul- 

 ders the office of Lord of the Admiralty, the caricaturists immortalized 

 him as the Horse-marine ; and the noble marquis was so much affected 

 by the resemblance, that he instantly vacated the office, changed the 

 Board for the stable, and dismounting his dolphin, remounted his charger. 

 However, we hope a secretary of the Admiralty, commanding in chief at 

 a horse-race, is less amenable to the Cruickshanks of this world, and that 

 he may escape with no further detriment than the conversation of the 

 noble lords whom, as the paragraph says, he is treating so luxuriantly. 

 The name of the wit who is recorded as singing the well known English 

 ballad, is whispered about. But, to prevent trespass on the manors 

 of original genius, we must say, that it is neither KeppeL, LuttreL, nor 

 Horace Twiss. 



" It is said that, in the event of Mr. Whitbread's retiring from the re- 

 presentation of Middlesex, there is some intention of starting Mr. Hume 

 as a candidate." 



We do not believe a word of this. The Greek loan affair has let the 

 world so much into the secret of Mr. Hume's financial feelings, that the 

 Middlesex people will not give him a smile. The gleaning of his fifty- 

 four pounds three shillings threepence three farthings, has settled him 

 for life as a metropolitan candidate. He may flourish in some rocky out- 

 let of creation in the Highlands, where men eat oats, and know nothing 

 of loans : but in Middlesex, they will have nothing to do with the costive 

 purse, notwithstanding the most generous effusion of promises that ever 



