CHAPTER XXVIII 



THE ISLE OF MAN AND THE FIRST 

 DERBY, AND GOODWOOD 



Visitors to the Isle of Man nowadays find the place very 

 different from what it was when I knew it fifty odd years 

 ago. It was then hardly known to most Englishmen, and 

 there was a general impression that it was a mere haunt 

 of smugglers, absconding debtors, and remittance men. 

 Bishop Bowstead, when he went over to take possession of 

 the See of Sodor and Man in the year 1838, looked upon 

 his diocese as a savage one, and, writing home to his 

 friends after his arrival, quoted the words of the Apostle 

 Paul, " The barbarous people showed us no small kind- 

 ness." Time was, indeed, when it was reputed to be 

 the snipe-shooter's paradise; and John Mytton, the mad 

 Squire of Halston, used frequently to go there to 

 shoot. 



It has no such reputation now. I have killed a good 

 many snipe and woodcock there in days gone by, but even 

 then game was scarce. A man might think himself lucky 

 indeed if he picked up half a dozen snipe and a couple of 

 woodcock, with perhaps an odd hare and a brace or two of 

 partridges, in a twelve-hours' tramp. I have been out all 

 day and bagged but a couple of snipe and a hare. But 

 more than once I have put up a "wisp" of 50 or 60 

 snipe in one little marshy four-acre meadow. They had 

 evidently just landed from a long sea journey ; they lay 

 close, and when scattered afforded capital sport. 



Unlicensed gunners swarmed; for old flint muskets, 

 transformed at the cost of a few shillings into percussion- 

 locks, were in the hands of every loafer in the place. 



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