356 IRISH SPORT AND SPORTSMEN. • 



visible. He recovered ; but for a long time after the 

 occurrence he was almost mad. Heretofore, as he was a 

 rather good-tempered animal, I believe, Mr. Elmore 

 bought him for ^300, and sold him soon afterwards 

 for ^1,000. Mr. M'Donogh, about this time, used to 

 hunt a good deal in England ; and though he seldom 

 gave high prices for his horses, he was invariably well- 

 mounted and well-known in the shires as being "a first 

 flight" man in the days when the Marquis of Water- 

 ford, Sir David Baird, Lord Macdonald, Assheton 

 Smith, Lords Clanricarde, Suffield, and Strathmore, 

 Fred. Gardiner, Sir Francis Goodricke, Mr. Mostyn, 

 Mr. Villiers, Mr. G. H. Moore, Captain Beecher, Lord 

 Eglinton, Captain Lamb, Sir Frederick Johnstone, Mr. 

 Powell, Mr. William M'Donogh, Mr. Val. Maher, John 

 Elmore, Billy Bean, Tom Olliver, and Jem Mason, 

 were in their "palmiest days." It often occurred, 

 when the sport w^as not very good with the hounds, 

 to wind up with a steeplechase over the "Vale." One 

 bad scenting-day, Mr. M'Donogh was riding Cigar, 

 when, about six miles from Northampton, the Marquis 

 of Waterford proposed to have a race, a sweepstakes 

 of 10 sovs. each, and ten entered. The country over 

 which they ran was very big, distance five miles, and 

 a church-steeple the winning-post. Cigar made all 

 the running, jumped twenty-nine feet over a brook, 

 and won. That evening, a distinguished circle of 

 friends dined together in Northampton ; and after 

 dinner an incident occurred — one of many I could 

 relate — which showed the good nature of our sports- 

 man. When returning thanks, after his health had been 

 drunk: he said, "Gentlemen, this is a very happy 

 moment for me, but not so for poor Tom Olliver, as" 



