326 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



have been no joke to any man, much less to one who 

 had been so crippled by his boiler accident. 



Maiden was born within halloo of Barrow Church- 

 yard, in Shropshire, a few years after the King of Whips* 

 wasburied there. "Verily," as Cecil says, "good sports- 

 men are indigenous to the soil ; no sooner is one run 

 to ground than another comes forth." In one sense 

 of the word, he has now one " leg in the grave " 

 and as that deceased member's successor has become 

 as famous as the late Marquis of Anglesey's, we may 

 be excused dwelling a little on its history. The ac- 

 cident took place at the North Warwickshire kennels 

 some seven- and-twenty years ago. He was all dressed 

 on that unhappy day to go to Lichfield races, and had 

 walked down before starting to give some directions 

 to his boiler. The latter was not quite up to his 

 work, and on mounting the copper to give some di- 

 rections, Joe slipped in with both legs. He was out 

 again in an instant, and felt it so little at first, that 

 he quite expected to go on to the races when he had 

 changed his dress. Some injudicious application at 

 the spur of the moment to the left leg, which was 

 most injured, nearly drove him distracted ; and when 

 his wife arrived, and the stocking was removed, it 

 literally seemed as if part of the calf had come away 

 with it, and left the bones exposed. 



It would be hopeless to try and describe the tor- 

 ments he has endured since then how he broke the 

 leg once, if not twice how pieces of bone, nine or 

 ten, came away how he was twice over-fired by the 

 Oldfield-lane Doctor in that quaint old Manchester 

 fleshery, where toes and fingers were nipped off as 

 coolly as if they were sugar nibs ; and the patients 

 were set to hold one another, nine out of ten being 

 assured they were " regular bad-plucked 'uns \" Suf- 

 fice it to say, that the calf continued to be little more 

 than a bundle of bones and ligaments, strapped toge- 



* Tom Moody. 



