CARDSELLERS, TOUTS, AND AUGURS. 179 



who doffed his conjuring cap in Ugly Buck's year) ; 

 and that we have never read anything more spirited 

 than the now ancient verse prophecies of Vates in 

 The Life, or anything more unique in their way than 

 the Era Epistles of " Joe Muggins's Dog." The latter 

 name has become so familiar to the ears of the pub- 

 lic, that if ever an unhappy racing prophet mounts a 

 witness-box, almost the first question that is asked 

 him on cross-examination, is, whether he is or is not 

 the original " Dog." This canine fame has been 

 wafted across the Atlantic, and the younger of the 

 two writers between whom it rests, had high literary 

 homage paid him, on the strength of it, at New York, 

 and was ultimately invited to a banquet. After many 

 ups and downs, The Field has become "a great 

 fact" among sportsmen at last. The Old Sporting 

 and New Sporting Magazines, and The Sportsman, 

 fought for a series of years over the body of Nimrod; 

 and in 1839 the proprietor of the Sporting Review 

 entered the field, and ultimately bought up his three 

 rivals. Their distinct titles and covers are still retain- 

 ed, but the matter and illustrations of all four are the 

 same. The York Herald has from time immemorial 

 been a first-rate authority on these matters ; and the 

 Doncaster Gazette, as in duty bound, has wrestled 

 most vigorously for the race rights of the burgesses, 

 for many a long year. The Chester and Worcester 

 papers generally break out in a slight rash as their 

 meetings draw nigh, but the symptoms are very mild : 

 while the experiment of a strictly turf paper in Not- 

 tingham completely failed, and its prophet "Timothy/-' 

 deserted to the enemy. The prophets, as a body, 

 suffered most in 1852, when the Daily News, sly and 

 cruel cynic as it was, collected, for weeks before, every 

 Derby prophecy, metropolitan and provincial, which 

 it could lay its hands on, and spread a complete panic 

 among the regiment (not one of whom had whispered 

 Daniel O'Rourke's name), when it charged them. 



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