76 Newmarket. 



be very good policy for owners of private suburban race- 

 courses to keep as good order as is kept at Newmarket. 

 Mind I don't say that many of the outside bookmakers 

 are not honest men, as I know to the contrary. I have one 

 in my mind's eye now, who supports a very aged mother in 

 comfort, and who is as civil as a man can be, and as honest 

 as the day, and is trusted by his neighbours with many and 

 many a sovereign to do his best with in backing something 

 at the post. Moreover, some of them are not only re- 

 markably well-behaved, but very witty and amusing to 

 boot. 



Now about this Newmarket Heath. I am talking to 

 those who have never been there. In imagination, take a 

 very large tea-tray, and bend the top a good way diagonally 

 upwards, so as to make a hill with a sky-line as viewed 

 from the centre. The sky-line is a great feature in the 

 prospect, as from a distance horsemen and carriages look 

 like moving toys against the sky. Looking from the bottom 

 of the tray towards the sky-line, put down a Noah's ark in 

 the upper left-hand quarter, and dot about the course here 

 and there smaller Noah's arks as fixed stands for certain 

 points of finishing. Put the bowl of a tobacco-pipe here 

 and there about the tray to represent judges' chairs, and 

 stick up some pieces of tobacco-pipe near the bowls, here 

 and there, for posts, and then imagine the bottom of the 

 tray to be an immense sweep of beautifully-kept smooth 

 grass, divested of stones, broken bottles, or rubbish of any 

 kind, and imagine that you have a grand view of the fen 

 country, with the circular horizon just as you have at sea — 

 in fact, the fen land which you see in the horizon was sea 

 once, — throw in a fine autumn day, and there is Newmarket 

 Heath. 



And how many incongruous memories Newmarket brings 

 back. The Rye House Plot, and Charles II., James II., 



