406 MR. sponge's sporting tour. 



the paraphernalia of odd laying, " secret tips," and market rigging. 

 Who will deny the benefit that must accrue to any locality by the 

 infusion of all the loose fish of the kingdom ? 



Formerly the prize-fights were the perquisite of the publicans. 

 They it was who arranged for Shaggy Tom to pound Hairy Billy's 

 nob upon So-and-so's land, the preference being given to the locality 

 that subscribed the most money to the fight. Since the decline of 

 " the ring," steeple-chasing, and that still smaller grade of gambling 

 — coursing, have come to their aid. Nine-tenths of the steeple-chases 

 and coursing-matches are got up by innkeepers, for the good of their 

 houses. Some of the town publicans, indeed, seem to think that the 

 country was just made for their matches to come off in, and scarcely 

 condescend to ask the leave of the landowners. We saw an adver- 

 tisement the other day, where a low publican, in a manufacturing 

 town, assured the subscribers to his coursing-club that he would take 

 care to select open ground, with " plenty of stout hares," as if all 

 the estates in the neighbourhood were at his command. Another 

 advertised a steeple-chase in the centre of a good hunting country — 

 " amateur and gentlemen riders " — with a half-crown ordinary at the 

 end ! Fancy the respectability of a steeple-chase, with a half-crown 

 ordinary at the end ! 



Our " Aristocratic " was got up on the good-of-the-house princi- 

 ple. Whatever benefit the Granddiddle Junction conferred upon the 

 country at large, it had a very prejudicial effect upon the Old Duke 

 of Cumberland Hotel and Posting-House, which it left, high and 

 dry, at an angle, sufficiently near to be tantalised by the whirr and 

 the whistle of the trains, and yet too far off to be benefited by the 

 parties they brought. This once well-accustomed hostelry was kept 

 by one Mr. Viney, a former butler in the Scattercash family, and 

 who still retained the usual " old-and-faithful-servant " entree of 

 Nonsuch House, having his beefsteak and bottle of wine in the stew- 

 ard's room whenever he chose to call. Viney had done good at the 

 Old Duke of Cumberland ; and no one, seeing him " full fig," would 

 recognise, in the solemn grandeur of his stately person, the dirty 

 knife-boy who had filled the place now occupied by the still dirtier 

 Slarkey. But the days of road travelling departed, and Viney, who, 

 beneath the Grecian-columned portico of his country-house-looking 

 hotel, modulated the ovations of his cauliflower head to every 

 description of traveller — from the lordly occupant of the barouche- 

 and-four, down to the humble sitter in a gig — was cut off by one 

 fell swoop from all further traffic. He was extinguished like a gas- 

 light, and the pipe was laid on a fresh line. 



Fortunately Mr. Viney was pretty warm ; he had done pretty 

 well; and having enjoyed the intimacy of the great " Jeames " of 

 railway times, had got a hint not to engage the hotel beyond the 

 opening of the line. Consequently, he now had the great house for a 



