CRUISER. 91 



him to London on the very clay after, that he first 

 backed him and had ridden him within three hours 

 after the first interview, slow conviction swelled to en- 

 thusiasm. The list filled up rapidly. 



The school in Kinnerton Street, to which Mr. Earey 

 was obliged to remove, was crowded, the excitement in- 

 creasing with each lesson. On the day that Cruiser was 

 exhibited for the first time, long before the doors were 

 open, the little ,^back street was filled with a fashionable 

 mob, including ladies of the highest rank. An ad- 

 mission by noble non-subscribers with notes, gold, and 

 cheques in hands, was begged for with a polite insinu- 

 ating humility that was quite edifying. A hatful of 

 ten-guinea subscriptions was thrust upon the unwilling 

 secretary at the door with as much eagerness as if he 

 had been the allotter of shares in a ten per cent, rail- 

 way in the day of Hudsonian guarantees. And it must 

 be observed that this crowd included among the mere 

 fashion-mongers almost every distinguished horseman 

 and hunting-man in the three kingdoms. 



It is quite too late now to attempt to depreciate a 

 system the value of which has been repeatedly and 

 openly acknowledged by authorities above question. As 

 to the " secret," the subscribers must have known that 

 it was impossible that a system that required so much 

 space, and involved so much noise, could long remain a 

 secret. 



The Earl of Jersey, so celebrated in this century as a 

 breeder of race-horses, in the last century as a rider to 



Mr. Uarey led him behind an open carriage, on his road to London. 

 This horse was returned to me by the RawclifFe and Stud Company on 

 account of his vice, it being considered as much as a man's life was 

 worth to attend to him. 



♦* Grey well, April 7.' ;' Dorchesster." 



