THE TURF. 
Fox-hunting, no doubt, stands its ground, but fears are 
entertained even for the king of sports. Fox-hunting 
suspends the cares of life, whilst the speculations of the 
race-course too generally increase them. The one steels 
the constitution, whilst the anxious cares of the other 
have a contrary effect. The love of the chace may be 
said to be screwed into the soul of man by the noble 
hand of nature, whereas the pursuit of the other is too 
often the offspring of a passion we should wish to 
disown. The one enlarges those sympathies which 
unite us in a bond of reciprocal kindness and good 
offices ; in the pursuit of the other, almost every man 
we meet is our foe. The one is a pastime the other a 
game, and a hazardous one, too, and often played at 
fearful odds. Lastly, the chace does not usually bring 
any man into bad company ; the modern turf is fast 
becoming the very manor of 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 
appertaining 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 
