164 



cigarettes twenty years before they became the fashion, Right Hon. W. 

 H. F. Cogan, M.P., Captain Charles Warburton, Charles Roberts of 

 Sallymount, Michael Aylmer of Courtown, and Charles Hoffman of 

 Mullaghboden, posssibly the only living participant in the celebrated 

 Laragh run. This run was had with the pvildare Hounds in about 

 1861, when Lord Naas was Master, and it ranks among the finest fox- 

 hunts we ever had in Ireland. The fox was found in Laragh, a gorse 

 covert between Sallins and Maynooth, and he was killed at Bellinter 

 Park wall, near Kilmessan Station, in co. Meath, an eighteen-mile 

 point, all over the finest grass country. Stephen Goodall, the hunts- 

 man, Mr. Hoffmann, Mr. Johnnie Wakefield, and a groom of Mr. 

 Tuthill's were about all who got to the end. 



Towards the end of the sixties there came to the front men 

 equally useful to the Turf. Among them I may mention the late Lord 

 Clonmell, Captains John F. Montgomery, Kirkwood, and Stamer 

 Gubbins, Pat. Russell, Harry Croker, John Gubbins, Major Burrows, 

 Percy La Touche, William Blacker, Mat Maher, C. J. Blake, H. E. Linda, 

 WiUiam Dunne, Edmond Smithwick, Captain Peel, R.M., Captain 

 Trocke, James Chaine, etc., etc. 



The foregoing chronicles only men who stood prominent in the 

 steeplechase world, between, say, 1860 and '75. Owing to insufficiency 

 of memory I have no doubt omitted some who are equally entitled to 

 reference, and I hope to be forgiven for doing so. 



Well do I remember all the fine fellows I have mentioned. With 

 most of them I was well acquainted, and some were very dear friends 

 of mine. Alas ! few remain alive — far too few I 



