64 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



nothing to do. Recruits come in from every rank 

 and every place ; but the Ring is not in so healthy 

 a state as it was ten years ago, and far below what 

 it was in the ten-year cycle before that ; and welchers, 

 regardless of pumps and mobbing, begin to wax rife 

 in the land. Those who have seen members of this 

 fraternity hauled out of the Ring at Doncaster, 

 when even the massive Leadbitter, the only man 

 whom we ever saw really manage a crowd, was no 

 tower of strength to them, can judge of the full 

 meaning of the expression " falling into the hands of 

 man," especially when the Timour Mammon is in 

 the question. The rush on the helpless Stock Ex- 

 change intruder, when the pack are cheered on by 

 the " Who wants to buy five hundred per cents. 33 

 tallyho, is merciful in comparison. At Newmarket 

 the thing is done more neatly, as about forty couple 

 of groom boys resolve themselves into merry harriers 

 for the nonce ; and if the hare is started half way 

 across the flat, his coat and waistcoat are fluttering 

 wildly in the breeze, his handkerchief has been 

 made a leading rope of, and his hat a foot-ball, 

 long before he finds a peaceful hermitage in some 

 back alley of the town. The Catterick clerk of the 

 course, hearing of the motly crowd which had shown 

 at Lincoln, is said to have considerately provided 

 some stout labourers and a tar-barrel for the special 

 benefit of the welchers, at one of his meetings. Al- 

 though we cannot coincide in his views, it is still to 

 be regretted that there is not some conventional or- 

 deal to which such gentlemen could be consigned ; 

 and we often think how one Moore, the unworthy 

 incumbent of the "Suffolk Curacy," dedicated a 

 book to " Duke Humphrey," and was then entirely 

 lost sight of by his old college friends, till one of 

 them espied him slung up in " the basket/ 3 for not 

 paying his bets at a cock -pit. 



Savage as they may be at the sight of a welcher, 

 the Ring men, on the whole, are creatures of fine 



