44 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



them to his lodgings on the Hall- Cross hill, where, 

 on the last occasion, Parson Dennis was in attend- 

 ance to "valet him," invested this species of fire- 

 torture with a much more pleasant hue. Jaques 

 tried himself more heavily in this respect than any 

 man we ever met with ; as, after leaving the profes- 

 sion for some years, and growing corpulent as a 

 licensed victualler, he resumed the sweaters, and 

 wasted himself down to a ghastly 7st. 31b. shadow, 

 in order to don the white and blue for his old master, 

 Colonel Cradock, when " Sim" could not ride the 

 weight. George Nelson did not ride for some years 

 before his death, but lived on his Royal pension, and 

 commanded "The Fleet" of roysterers in Tickhill. 

 Stephenson and Dockeray made themselves into 

 walking skeletons, till increasing weight obliged them 

 to leave the saddle ; and so did Heseltine, Holmes, 

 and George Francis, the latter of whom used to 

 waste to half-ounces. Wells, in 1853, fainted on a 

 Malton race-morning when trying to get down to 

 5st. 51bs., while Job Marson, (who, like poor Bill Scott, 

 always will have the rails), after not declaring so low 

 for more than eleven years, astonished the Richmond 

 people last year by scaling only 7st. 7lbs. for his win- 

 ning mount on Skirmisher. How Sam Day, after so 

 many years of ease, contrived to waste for nearly two 

 seasons, and get so low as 8st. 41bs. in 1846, was a 

 wonderful instance of family loyalty and self-denial ; 

 and he seemed to suffer much less than his brother 

 John, from such " a pig-skin revival," though he had 

 been far longer estranged from the sweaters. If, as 

 a general thing, a jockey is asjted to ride much below 

 his weight, he had better not ride at all, as a fair 

 second-class veteran, not so many years since, lost the 

 last remnant of his riding practice by trying too low 

 a weight, and being palpably beaten from sheer ex- 

 haustion when he tried to finish, although he had 

 declared some 31bs. over. 



