CHANGES IN THIS CENTURY. 237 



man's interest in his noble servant and friend, the horse, is 

 any new thing. The horse has from time immemorial been 

 thought much of, and, it may be, has been in ages long past 

 more truly appreciated than he is in our day. We read that 

 as far back as A.D. 930, the German Emperor, Hugh the 

 Great, sent a present to King Athelstan of " running horses ; " 

 from which we may conclude that they were highly prized 

 and jorobably scarce and costly. At a little later date, we 

 find the Saxon King giving orders that no horses should be 

 sent abroad for sale or other purposes, except as royal pre- 

 sents. So the date of the Germans keeping horses may be 

 coeval with that of the Saxons, if not earlier. In D'Israeli's 

 " Curiosities of Literature," I find racing alluded to when Mr, 

 Fitz Stephen, in his account of London, describes Smithfield 

 as a " field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendez- 

 vous of fine horses brought hither to be sold." The writer 

 continues by giving an account of a horse race there, remark- 

 able as being one of the earliest on record in this country ; 

 from which it would appear that racing was engaged in by 

 the inhabitants of London before, as far as it is known, it 

 exifted at Newmarket. 



But however interesting these ancient records may be, the 

 comparison of the turf as it is and as it was, is most to the 

 purpose when made between the practice of a generation or 

 two since and that of our own. 



In the days of yore, the Royal Plates were, after the Derby, 

 Oaks and St. Leger, the most attractive and coveted prizes ; 

 and so great was the rejoicing on winning one of them that 

 the whole amount was often spent in commemorating the 

 event in true Bacchanalian style. The start for a Race Meet- 

 ing some 100 miles distant was commenced eight or ten days 

 before, and the busmess usually took about three weeks in 



