C H A P T E E I Y. 



THE FOUR-IN-HAXD CLUB. 



We may roam through the world like a child at a feast, 

 Who but sips of a sweet and flies off to the rest : 



And when pleasure begins to grow dull in the East, 

 We may order our wdngs and be off to the West. 



jlOT a bad suggestion this by any means, 

 and in a measure applicable to the pre- 

 sent time, for beyond doubt every one is 

 ^ heartily weary of the East and all things 

 appertaining thereto ; and as this is a red-letter day 

 in the calendar of the fashionable world, by all 

 means let us order our wings, or a hansom cab in 

 the absence of those aerial appendages, and straight- 

 way be off to the West, in order to witness the 

 grandest exhibition of the season, namely, the 

 gathering of the members of the Four-in-Hand Club, 

 who assembled yesterday at the Magazine in Hyde 

 Park, at the horn- of noon. My first recollections of 

 this aristocratic amusement dates back beyond half-a- 

 century : to the time when the " B. D. C." — or Benson 

 Driving Club — ^used to hold its rendezvous at the 

 Black Dog, at Bedfont, a short distance beyond 

 Hounslow Heath. In its palmiest days this noted 

 Club could never boast of more than forty members. 



