IN AND ABOUT EPSOM 147 



to whether an expert could still make sure of 

 ringing the bell every time in the shooting 

 gallery, and try if knack of sending the marker 

 right up to the top of the try-your-strength- 

 with-the-sledge-hammer apparatus was a lost 

 art or not. Friends, if you want to study 

 a fine type of the English gipsy, you 

 cannot find a better specimen than my Egyptian 

 crony. 



Epsom recalls a pet scheme of mine which 

 strikes me as worth entertaining. Ponds of size 

 are scarce nowadays in the district on which the 

 monastical fish-on-fast-day old uns left their 

 mark through large stews — still clearly traceable, 

 chains of them — on certain commons. Both on 

 Bookham Common, close to the station, made 

 there when the extension line from Epsom to 

 Guildford via Effingham was constructed, and on 

 Epsom Common, where the steeplechases were 

 run formerly, you find the plan of ancient stews 

 with a section remaining. Barring the last of 

 the chains, the lower earth wall has been cut to 

 drain the higher ponds, and the sluices removed, 

 so that the only sliding or skating on the former 

 large area is on dry ground — the safest, I admit, 

 but not diverting. Field for skating is very 

 scarce, as is also water for fishing. If the 

 commoners and others with rights of grazing, 

 etc., could be induced to acquiesce in the scheme, 

 one could by restoring these stew ponds at a 

 trifling cost create great opportunities for amuse- 

 ment in the direction indicated, not to mention 

 furnishing facilities for bathing. There used to 

 be a fine series of pools within a mile and a bit 

 of Epsom Town ; these could be reinstated very 

 easily, and no one the worse for missing a few 



