NEW BROOMS. 93 



volunteer forces ; the capitation grant cannot be increased. 

 Supposing that under these circumstances the citizen 

 army declines to perform ? Never mind, it will all come 

 right in the end; and meanwhile, look at the money 

 saved. The people's pens, even, are no longer to be 

 wasted in Downing-street, and a limit is to be put to the 

 consumption of paper, ink, and, it is to be hoped, red 

 tape. Ireland is to be made a peaceful, contented, com- 

 mercial, and agricultural land ; the sport of landlord and 

 agent shooting is to cease once and for ever; all evils 

 are to be cured by the panacea of disestablishment. 

 What happy days we live in ! Everything is about to 

 be made perfect. Everything will be reduced, excepting 

 the skirts of our coryphees : they, like the franchise, will 

 be extended. That terrible scourge, the rabbit, shall no 

 longer rob the farmer in broad daylight of his pasture, 

 his crops, and his fences. Down with the monster ! 

 exterminate him ! He devours the people's food, and 

 it is convenient to forget that the people devour him, 

 with some appetite too. Passing from the farm to the 

 racecourse, we meet again with the spirit of reform, and 

 wish it every success. In fact, here reform is practicable 

 as well as desirable. If Sir Joseph Hawley succeeds in 

 producing here and there a sound six-year-old race- 

 horse, he will have conferred a benefit upon his country, 

 which ought to command the gratitude of all classes. 



The term of " new broom/ 5 is, however, hardly to be 

 applied to him. If these articles had performed half 

 their promises, no stable reform would be needed. "We 

 were confidently assured some ten years ago that bad- 

 tempered and vicious horses were a thing of the past; 

 that there was only one way of breaking, or training, a 

 colt, and that Mr. Karey was, as it were, the prophet of 



