MARTIN COBBETT 



Mr Ball has been succeeded during the past year or 

 two — at the moment I write in this year of 1914 — 

 by Mr Galtrey, who, coming from India, was, when I 

 first made his acquaintance, the assistant-editor of 

 Land and Water, when I wrote the racing article as 

 a side stunt, and also wrote short stories of the turf. 

 The paper was run then by Mr A. E. Manning-Foster, 

 who interested himself in later years in the publishing 

 business of Messrs Greening. Mr Galtrey left Land 

 and Water, before it was merged into the County Gentle- 

 man, to become assistant-editor of the Sportsman, 

 then after a period as a special writer on the Telegraph 

 was given the " Hotspur " position, which it must be 

 said he occupies ably, combining the attributes of 

 the conscientious, hard-working and knowledgeable 

 sporting writer. 



I have met most of the writers of the last genera- 

 tion, and it is somewhat embarrassing to know in which 

 rotation to take them, so that they may take a place 

 in history. They are all such interesting landmarks, 

 not exactly monuments, but stepping-stones which 

 are obvious in a flat country. Some of them have 

 raised, by being a little better placed, a surrounding 

 hillock of sand which in a mist may be mistaken for a 

 small mountain of fame, but it may be erasable in that 

 hurricane which shall smooth out records and make 

 turf memories a simple fetish. 



Poor Martin Cobbett will be remembered ; he was 

 a great walker, a writer, and imbued with the romance 

 of the byways of England. His " Sporting Notions " 

 in the Referee were read, and his odd notes were put 

 in a volume " Wayfaring Notions." Martin had a 

 ready pen, but frequently one would imagine he was 

 a wanderer or gentleman-gipsy rather than an assidu- 

 ous follower of the turf, with a serious commission to 



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