58 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



telegraph wires along the north road, and no rail- 

 ways in the remote times I am speaking of, my 

 anxious parents did not know anything of what had 

 happened till they got a note, sent over by one of 

 Lord Lonsdale's servants, to say that I had had a 

 real crumpler, that I was still in life, and should be 

 sent home in the Earl's carriage as soon as I was 

 fit to travel, which happened accordingly. Never- 

 theless, in spite of there being no faster communica- 

 tion than the royal mail, a letter soon arrived from 

 our old friend, General Grosvenor, which runs thus : 



" I hear that my friend Charles has had a bad 

 fall, and that he was sent home in the Earl's carriage. 

 This sounds serious. Do let me know how it hap- 

 pened, and all about it. Tell him I will teach him 

 how to ride at a rail Tell him he should never 

 ride straight at a rail, but always sideways." 



Now as the good old General was never known 

 to ride at a rail, or an obstacle of any kind, though 

 his instructions might be good, they could not have 

 been from his own experience, and though this might 

 do in theory, I much question whether such a crab- 

 like proceeding would do in practice. One would 

 imagine that it would be a first-rate plan for getting, 

 a real howler, and probably getting one's neck 



