«*^ Modern Ascot 



then in use. While for the visitor to Ascot all is ease and 

 comfort, for the officials and servants of the two great 

 railway companies, that serve to convey the thousands to 

 Ascot from London and other places, the meeting is a period 

 of great anxiety. Special trains run one after the other, as 

 one is filled up and started, another is made ready, and it 

 is computed that in the course of the four days as many 

 as 150 specials are sent out from the two L-ondon termini. 

 So great is the demand made on the rolling stock, that 

 the services of the Midland, Great Eastern, and North 

 Western Companies are invoked, and lend their aid in 

 placing whole trains at the disposal of the respective 

 managements. 



iNor do all these specials convey first-class passengers. 

 In the early morning a very different company journeys 

 down to Ascot, the outside betting fraternity, the coster, 

 the card seller, the vendor of sweets, and the hundred- 

 and-one types of character that go to make up that strange 

 anomaly — the crowd. 



On the route, time is allowed for a careful survey of the 

 notes and anticipations of our favourite prophet, and, at the 

 few stations at which we stop, tempting baskets of ripe 

 peaches and cherries are thrust in at the windows by country 

 women, anxious to give the ladies an opportunity to soil 

 their spotless gloves. 



There are many lovers of this royal race meeting who 

 still look upon, the railroad as an interloper, and, for them- 

 selves, they invariably attend and drive down on their 

 coaches. Since the advent of railways, of course, there are 

 not nearly so many vehicles on the road, but even now a 

 constant stream of traffic makes the great highway a very 



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