184 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



Alas ! we live and learn, and the object of 

 admiration, the material fetish, which people who 

 are not superstitious, yet liked to do as others 

 did, could lovingly pat, on their way down to the 

 Rowley Mile, in case that process could bring 

 them luck ; the point in Cambridgeshire " descrip- 

 tions " so conveniently situated as was the 

 Shepherd's track, to gain which was supposed 

 to give its possessor such advantage ; the some- 

 what decayed but still sturdy post, so easily 

 turned out respectable at the cost of a coat or 

 two of paint to repair the ravages of weather on 

 its complexion, has gone. That it will be 

 cherished by Mr Felix Leach, who has got 

 sentiment in his system, while its late guardians 

 that ought to have been have not, is a comfort. 

 But what a dreadful thing for us, who look up to 

 the Jockey Club, many of whom have spent — well 

 thousands is not too much to say — in collecting 

 racing relics, such as pictures and cups, and find 

 them without sentiment enough to keep to them- 

 selves a memorial really an integral part of the 

 great Heath and its traditions. I do not drop 

 into poetry, that being an unconsidered extra, at 

 first or second hand. Let those who wish a little 

 in that line overhaul their Peter Bell and note 

 how handy for adaptation his primrose comes in 

 with the poor old Red Post on the course's brim. 

 And ''a bit of timber 'twas to him," the custodian, 

 or them — the Jockey Club — '*and it was nothing 

 more." 



Personally, I am not so altogether surprised 

 at this manifestation of the policy of immediate 

 convenience as against looking on things with 

 what, for want of a better word, I have called 

 sentiment. Some years ago I thought to requite 



