40 "SOLDIER, SIR." I'M AN OFFICER. 



or music, why go hunting or to the Opera ? Unen- 

 lightened savages! you might as well ask why the 

 hopeful youth who d s the parade or field-day goes 

 into the Army. Strip the jacket, shako, sabretache, 

 and other accoutrements of their lace make the 

 dress to look like service and service only infandum 

 puer, the Cornet's " occupation's gone " at once : he 

 would quit the Army in disgust. So, let "meets" 

 be at seven instead of eleven, and consequently let a 

 few fashionable men make some other amusement 

 fashionable, Billesdon and Kirby Gate would only 

 boast of perhaps fifty sportsmen : let the boxes at the 

 Opera be so constructed as to render its visitants in- 

 visible, and the stage only to be seen from them, the 

 house would in one month be like " some banquet hall 

 deserted." To suppose men hunt from the love of 

 hunting, frequent the Opera from the love of music, 

 or enter the Army from the love of a soldier's life, are 

 all ideas too monstrous to be entertained by any man 

 who is not a subject for the Hanwell Asylum. 



Racing I have heard anathematised by men who 

 discourage it as the height of cruelty. This is quite 

 wrong. That there is a certain degree of cruelty 

 practised in this as well as in all the pursuits of 

 sporting men, we must not deny: but I should say, 

 that, generally speaking, less takes place in this than 

 in most sports. Doubtless the labours of the race- 

 horse in full work are great and severe, and a horse 

 under the hands of the Chifneys is pretty sure of 

 getting his full dose of it. But we must recollect he 

 is brought to this by degrees, and when he comes to 

 the post, though he may generally expect severe ex- 

 ertion and sometimes severe punishment, both the 

 one and the other are of very short duration, and the 



