AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 447 



CHAPTER XXIII 



"The web of our Life is of a mingled yarn, 

 Good and ill together." 



JOHN OSBORNE has had so many contemporaries that 

 some difficulty is experienced in classifying and com- 

 paring them. Most prominent amongst them from the 

 " seventies " were George Fordham, Tom Cannon, Fred 

 Archer, and C. Wood. The two last-named may be 

 said to belong to the modern school ; if not poor Archer, 

 certainly Wood. For delicacy of hands, quick aptitude 

 of grasping the situation, and daring and dash in a 

 finish, Archer was monumental, and phenomenally suc- 

 cessful ; indeed, no jockey that ever lived has so brilliant 

 a record as he had in the period he rode. There are, 

 however, contests we are quoting from the Badminton 

 Library and notably the two St. Legers in which he 

 rode Lord Clifden and Apology, and the Two Thousand 

 in which he rode Prince Charlie, where the skill and 

 strict attention to orders displayed by John Osborne 

 merit the highest praise. Although blessed with little 

 luck, Fred Webb is surpassed in the determination of 

 his finish by none of his contemporaries, and his 

 triumph upon Florence over such a horse as Bendigo, 

 and such a rider as Jim Snowden, for the Cambridge- 

 shire of 1884 was, perhaps, the brightest example of 



