CHANGES IN THIS CENTURY. 237 
man’s interest in his noble servant and friend, the horse, is 
any new thing. The horse has from time immemorial been 
thought much of, and, it may be, has been in ages long past 
more truly appreciated than he is in our day, We read that 
as far back as A.D. 930, the German Emperor, Hugh the 
Great, sent a present to King Athelstan of “ running horses ;” 
from which we may conclude that they were highly prized 
and probably scarce and costly. At a little later date, we 
find the Saxon King giving orders that no horses should 
be sent abroad for any purposes, except as royal pre- 
sents. So the date of the Germans keeping horses may be 
coeval with that of the Saxons, if not earlier. In D’Israeli’s 
“ Curiosities of Literature,” I find racing alluded to, when Mr. 
Fitz Stephen, in his account of London, describes Smithfield 
as “a field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendez- 
vous of fine horses brought hither to be sold.” The writer 
continues by giving an account of a horse race there, remark- 
able as being one of the earliest on record in this country ; 
from which it would appear that racing was engaged in by 
the inhabitants of London before, as far as it is known, it 
existed at Newmarket. 
But however interesting these ancient records may be, the 
comparison of the turf as it is and as it was, is most to the 
purpose when made between the practice of a generation or 
two since and that of our own. 
In the days of yore, the Royal Plates were, after the Derby, 
Oaks and St. Leger, the most attractive and coveted prizes ; 
and so great was the rejoicing on winning one of them that 
the entire stake gained was often spent in commemorating the 
event in true Bacchanalian style. The start for a Race Mect- 
ing some 100 miles distant was commenced eight or ten days 
before, and the business usually took about three weeks in 
