Cardsellers, Touts ^ a?id Aiigtcrs, 175 



graphs are the sporting papers' " mediums" now ; but 

 their ancient handmaids, the express-pigeons, did 

 them right good service in the days when Sir Vincent 

 Cotton drove The Age, and Professor Wheatstone 

 was a name unknown. They generally flew the fifty- 

 five miles from Goodwood to London in about one 

 hour and fifteen minutes ; and it was necessary to 

 teach them the ground by a succession of flights, be- 

 ginning at one, two, and three miles, and gradually 

 increasing by five miles, about three times in the 

 week. The fancier sucks their beaks before throwing 

 them up, on the same principle that a racehorse has 

 the water-bottle applied to his lips just before he is 

 mounted. Several of the bad birds were picked ofT 

 on race days by gunners, who were anxious to read 

 the little billet on their leg ; but not three in a hun- 

 dred of the good birds, who always fly out of gun- 

 shot, and do not loiter to execute a number of 

 wheeling flights before they hit off their bearings of 

 their overland route. If the billet was tied, as is 

 popularly supposed, under the wing, the bird would 

 not fly far, but stop on some housetop to plume its 

 ruffled feathers. We have heard of them coming from 

 Epsom with an entry-list printed on tissue-paper tied 

 to each leg, so as to balance them. Some of the best, 

 on a fine clear day, have done the distance from 

 Goodwood to their metropolitan dovecote under the 

 hour, but their powers of flight depend almost en- 

 tirely on the state of the atmosphere, and their being 

 kept in high condition by constant changes of food. 

 This change is equally essential to man and beast ; 

 and the fact is so well known, that in one of the petty 

 continental states where it is forbidden to put felons 

 to death, they kill them by feeding them entirely on 

 veal and red wine. The best express carriers are 

 half-breds, between an Antwerp and a dragon, but the 

 latter must not be too heavy birds. A web-footed 

 bird of this breed, which was reared by a shoemaker 



