THE TURF 7 



the worst. All this we admit ; but still we 

 are not for abandoning a thing only for 

 evils not necessarily mixed up with it. 



Having seen the English turf reach its 

 acme, we should be sorry to witness its 

 decline ; but fall it must, if a tighter hand 

 be not held over the whole system apper- 

 taining to it. Noblemen and gentlemen of 

 fortune and integrity must rouse themselves 

 from an apathy to which they appear lately 

 to have been lulled ; and they must separate 

 themselves from a set of marked, unprin- 

 cipled miscreants, who are endeavouring to 

 elbow them off the ground which ought to 

 be exclusively their own. No honourable 

 man can be successful, for any length of 

 time, against such a horde of determined 

 depredators as have lately been seen on 

 our race-courses ; the most princely fortune 

 cannot sustain itself against the deep-laid 

 stratagems of such villainous combinations. 



Perhaps it may not be necessary to enter 

 into the very accidence of racing ; but, on 

 the authority of Mr. Strutt, On the ports 

 and Pastimes of England, something like it 

 was set agoing in Athelstane's reign. * Several 

 race-horses,' says he, * were sent by Hugh 



