THE FIELD 
1131 
NOTICE. 
With the first number of the new volume of The Field* 
and the new year , there will be presented to the Sub- 
scribers 
THE SPORTSMAN’S ALMANAC, 
AND 
Cnuirtrii ©riitUmnn’s Calniiiar; 
the field, the garden, the farm, 
For the Year 1855. 
This Almanack will contain superb Engravings, from 
designs by Ansdell, Wilson, and others, with all the 
information useful for reference in the country house. 
iV. B . — This will be given to all who are Subscribers to 
The Field for the year 1855. 
Advertisements for “ The Sportsman's Almanack ” 
should be sent to Tiie Field Office without delay to secure 
insertion. 
CONTENTS. 
Chronicle of the Week 
Sport and Sportsmen 
Racing 
Hunting 
Shooting and Cricket 
Yachting 
Rowing and Angling 
Sportsman's Library 
Gardening 
The Farm and Markets 
Poultry 
Masonios 
Feuilleton 
1,131 
1.131 
1,133 
1.131 
1.135 
1.136 
1.137 
1.137 
1.138 
1,189 
1.140 
1.141 
i ,1 ia 
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
RACING. 
J.. L. D.— Yon are entitled to halt' the stakes. 
si nn Slick.— The portrait you refer to appeared in No. 31 of The Field. 
Houghton. — Yes; 7st 21b. 
.7, ’/. — The horse you refer to started at 5 to 1, but did not win. 
piil— IIo roes shoes are not allowed in the weight. 
Howard.— As the horse did not start, the bet is void. 
C. C . — Horses not known must have their pedigree fully stated. 
HUNTING. 
B . — Tour fixtures wore received, but not in time for our edition sent by 
the early morning train of Saturday. 
Huntsman . — Should the promised letter from your son arrive, as ex- 
pected, we shall bo happy to insert it in The Field. The whole regi- 
ment ought to be proud of him. 
JThipper-in . — The cards must not reach our office later than the post 
arriving in London on Friday afternoons, or the fixtures cannot appear. 
J laikuirdi/ wa s replied to last week. See page 1106. 
COURSING. 
Lung Slip . — Breed early in the season. 
SHOOTING. 
L S— You must "look alive” to make "a double” nt partridges this 
time of the year, if the birds will not lie, you had better carry both 
barrels on full cock ; for if your birds rise at a distance of forty yards, 
and go with the wind, and you have your gun to cock oiler they get 
up, you will have but n poor chance of bagging a brace. 
A j\ oriev — The best shot at pigeons from a trap, with a fair sporting 
gun, we ever saw, was a person who shot in the name of Masters. His 
proper name was Cox— formerly a gamekeeper to Sir Thomas Witch- 
cote, Bart. 
AQUATIC. 
It. iV. — The London Model Yacht Club dinner will come off at Anderton's, 
in Fleet-street, on Tuesday next, December 6. Tickets, 3s. 6d. The 
dinner-list is now open at the bar. Call and add your name, 
ANGLING. 
6'. IT — The snlmon never breeds in lochs, pools, or lakes, but in fords 
and shallows. It breeds and remains in fresh water the first year of its 
existence, and after then it passes at least t wo-thirds of its time in 
fresh water ; therefore it is, to all intents and purposes, a fresh water 
fish. We would advise you to road Mr. Shaw's work. 
.V 7’.— The annual supper of the Piscatorial Society will be held at tho 
Yorkshire Grey, Piccadilly, on Tuesday next, Dec. 6. 
POULTRY. 
Harwich . — By all means send vour notes, however rough they may bo. 
Wo frequently gain more valuable practical information from rough 
memoranda than studied correspondence. 
Charles T . — When space is 60 limited, wc arc often compelled to omit 
reports and prize lists, some of which, as may be seen from our pages 
this week, arc of great length. 
•S'. -V— Try the gold spangled Bantams ; you cannot do better. 
Morris — You are wrong; they did not get a prize, but were highly com- 
monded. 
IT. M — They are very good layers, but the egg is small. 
GARDEN. 
Fred . — We are much obliged, and will sec that it shall be attended to. 
l'a n Hi /. — The next Chiswick ./«•/ i will be held on the following days — 
May 16, June 20, and July 11. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Z . — Scutari is on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. 
Tyro.— A mute in the Royal Navy holds rank between a midshipman and . 
a lieutenant. He is not, ns in tho merchant service, next to a "cap- 
tain;” and tho “ captain " therein is strictly but a "master," captain 
being confined to her Majesty's service. 
.A'.— At Queen's College. 
Fides . — Wc have stated over and over again that tho yachting editor of 
Tub Fikld has no connection whatever with the “Yachtsman’s 
Gazette " or with “ Hunt's Maguzinc." Heonly edited and contributed 
to the very first volume of the latter. 
A Cuunlrij A'eirsmau . — The report is quite true, and on Tuesday after- 
noon a deputation waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to com- 
plain of the conduct of the Board of Inland Revenue in issuing the 
notice to the newspaper trade. Wc here subjoin it : — “ Inland Revenue, 
Somerset-house, London, 17tli November, 1864. — Sir, — I am directed 
by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to call your attention to the 
provisions of the 17th, 18th, 22nd, and 23rd sections of the Act 0 ami 7 
William IV., c. 70, and to inform you that it i3 their intention to put 
in force the summary powers contained in those enactments against 
the publication of unstamped newspapers containing news and intel- 
ligence of universal interest.— L am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
Thomas Kkooti, Secretary. "—The Chancellor of the Exchequer is said 
to have justified the conduct of the Board, and consequently the depu- 
tation retired without their request having been granted. 
A Sailor's ITiJe . — The total number of officers and crew onboard tho 
Prince, when she foundered iu tho Black Sen, is believed to have been 
between 130 and HO 
’ ■ l i — We have repeatedly explained that the right bank of a river, in 
military phrase, is that which is on the right hand when your back is 
turned to tho source of the river; therefore Gravesend is on the right 
bank of the Thames, and Tilbury Fort on the left. 
A —A snow resembles a brig nearer than a schooner, she carries a small 
toast immediately abaft the mainmast, on which the sail is set, instead 
°f °*> the mainmast itself. 
/ /'» (L'edf ). — You must consult a solicitor. 
■ to duhus — Call upon us on Tuesday at two p.m. 
SEEDLING FLOWERS. 
IW c shall be happy to receive blooms of any choice seedlings of florist 
uowers, and will give our opinion candidly ns to their merits. They 
[mould be packed iu boxes, and surrounded by </ imped thin brown paper. 
P ♦ should be stout, so as not to be crushed in transit through the 
lost-office. The postage must bo paid, and packets should be addressed 
to the office, 408, Strand, London.— E ditob.] 
p™ TRADE CATALOGUES. 
•X ill 8 ™- c happy to receive catalogues from tho trade, and they 
11 he noticed in our columns, and extracts will be mode if deserving 
wic attention of the general reader,— Ediiob.] 
SATURD AY, DECEMB ER 2, 1854. 
CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK. 
nPIIE Dews from the Crimen is decidedly depressing 
A in its character. The elements have declared 
themselves in favour of the Czar, and the storms of 
the Euxine prove more formidable enemies than the 
battalions of Menscliikoff. On the 14th a storm 
occurred which occasioned a fearful list of casu- 
alties among the allied marine. Thirty-two English 
transports are reported to have been wrecked ; the 
magnificent screw-steamer Prince, and the Sea Nymph, 
are reported to have foundered with all their crews 
onboard; three lesser steamers were stranded ; the 
Sanspareil (screw) went on shore, the engines of the 
Samson were damaged ; even Sir Edmund Lyons’s 
splendid ship, the Agamemnon, did not escape with- 
out injury ; and Admiral Dundas’s flag-ship, the 
Britannia, had five feet of water in her. The French 
fleet also sustained great damage, and the Henri 
IV. (line-of-battle ship), with its attendant steamer, the 
Pluton, were lost. We have no intelligence that any 
soldiers were lost. Meanwhile the Russians are 
bringing up fresh reinforcements, and the siege- 
operations of the Allies— whether from the loss at In- 
kerman, or the failure of ammunition — are well nigh 
at a standstill. What renders the loss of the Prince 
particularly inauspicious, is the fact that she 
had on board large stores of medical and general 
comforts assigned to the army — comforts of which 
our brave fellows stand in grievous need. 
Parliament is suddenly summoned for the 12th, 
and that may be taken for a significant indication 
that the ministers are in a difficulty. Both money 
and men are wanted, and an Act of Parliament ia 
required to enable the militia to be embodied and 
ordered out on active service, so that all the regi- 
ments of the line now in garrison may be free to 
proceed without delay to the Crimea. Those diffi- 
culties must, indeed, he urgent, which compel the 
ministry to face the country with Sebastopol un- 
taken, and a host of blunders to explain. It seems 
certain that Mr. Gladstone will dismiss at once the 
idea of paying for the war as we go on, and that a 
loan will be applied for : it seems also certain, that 
the country will submit to this, if not cheerfully, at 
least not grudgingly. 
The attitude of Austria excites alarm. She occu- 
pies the Principalities, and, by paralysing the Turks 
(who fought so bravely at Silistria), enables the 
troops upon the Pruth to march northward into 
Sebastopol. Meantime, it is by no means certain 
whether she will side with Russia or the Allies. The 
probability is, that she is waiting for a result. In 
the present aspect of affairs, the criticisms of M. 
Kossuth (in his speech at St. Martin's Hall on Wed- 
nesday night), are awkward — because they arc un- 
fortunately unanswerable : — 
“England has bent her mind on bringing Austria over to 
herself; elie has sacrificed to this one aim everything — 
numerous millions spent in vain, the life-blood of the flower 
of England spilt in vain; principles, political reputation, tho 
liberal character of the war, and the very issue of the war— 
everything. And has your Government gained Austria ? 
Go and read the well-founded lamentations in the organs — 
even the ministerial organs — of publicity about the treacherous 
attitude, and the overbearing insolence of that Austria which 
your Government persisted in courting with so much sub- 
mission, and which in return facilitates the enterprises of 
Russia, insults your Allies, and counteracts your combina- 
tions. It is not ouly that you have not gained over Austria, 
but you have the Turksarrestcd in the midst of their victorious 
course ; and the fruit of their heroic struggle, poor Wallachia, 
played over into the treacherous hands of despotic Austria. 
There is the Turkish army paralysed on the one hand, and 
there is on the other hand the Czar made and loft free to 
throw overpowering numbers upon the flank and the rear 
of your gallant ranks in the Crimea.” 
Kossuth urges England to depend upon herself, 
and to rouse those oppressed nationalities who are 
the sincerest enemies of despotism. 
It is reported in some quarters that Admiral 
Dundas has been recalled, and that Sir Edmund 
Lyons is to have command of the fleet — a report 
almost too good to be true. 
With all our boast about civilisation and the im- 
provement of those arts and sciences in which we 
are notoriously so superior to the enemy, it is an 
undoubted fact that we are carrying on this war in 
almost utter neglect of those advantages. The 
machinery of war with which our armies are now 
besieging Sebastopol is very little better than that 
used by tho Duke of Wellington at the time of the 
Peninsular campaign. Where are the enormous 
natural forces, and still more wonderful machinery, 
which scientific men have discovered during the 
last forty years ? There was Perkins’s steam-gun, 
for instance, capable of throwing four hundred 
bullets into an advancing column in one minute, 
with all the force and precision of a rifle, 
"hat, too, has become of Captain Warner’s in- 
vention ? James Nasmyth, the inventor of tho 
steam-hammer, and ono of the greatest mechanics in 
the country, declares that ho can make a gun capable 
of carrying a ball weighing three hundred-weight 
three miles, and offers to do it. Mr. Perkins, son to 
the inventor of the steam-gun, offers to project by 
steam a hall weighing a ton to a distance of five miles. 
Conceive the effect of such ammunition against tho 
strongest walls — even those of Sebastopol! A corres- 
pondent of tho Times, signing himself “ Scientia,” 
adopts the suggestion hinted at by us last week, 
that the best plan of taking a place by storm would 
bo to do it by contract. Compare tho modus operands 
of a contractor with that of a scientific tactician. A 
tram-road would have lightened the labour of draught, 
in bringing up tho heavy guns and material from 
Balaklava to the trenches. Tho American boring- 
machine would have been brought to hear upou the 
solid rock with ten times the speed and efficiency of 
the finest Sappers and Miners. Corrugated iron 
houses would have protected the workmen from the 
climate, and science would have been pressed to 
supply her most skilful sons to watch over and pre- 
serve their health. Engines of destruction, far ex- 
celling those now in use, would have been provided, 
and, long ere this, Sebastopol could have fallen. Tho 
deficiencies of the old system cannot be better ex- 
pressed than by quoting Mr. Nasmyth’s remarks 
bearing upon the superiority of wrought over cast 
iron ordnance : — 
“ Why, then, do wo continue to use cast iron for our groat 
ordnance, which arc naturally subjected to vastly more 
severe shocks aud strains than anchors or railway axles, and, 
in so doing, limit ovir destructive power to its very limited 
capabilities, to accommodate which wc are obliged to como 
to such close quarters and discharge such comparatively 
ineffective shot, that wo sacrifice iu consequence thousands 
of lives of our bravest men, and Hpcnd millions of money in 
our endeavour to accomplish, by throwing a vast number of 
small pieces of iron, that which we might to a certainty ac- 
complish by massive shot aud shell discharged from our 
wvought-iron ordnance at distances quite out of reaoh of tho 
enemy ; for nothing but such massive missiles as I refer to - 
namely, shot of two and three hundred-weight — will over 
effectually destroy the tremendous forts in question." 
The Central Association for tho Relief of Orphans 
and Widows has at last yielded to tho pressure of 
public opinion, now that it has effectually damaged 
itself in the opinion of the public. The obnoxious 
Rule 14 is repealed ; but the stream of public bounty 
has ceased to flow in that direction. The Patriotic 
Fund is progressing gloriously, and promises to reach 
a total of at least half-a -million. Nor is the privato 
liberality now exercised in aid of our brave defenders 
less worthy of the nation. Mr. Kiugscote volunteers 
to load a yacht with comforts for the army in 
the Crimea, and the Duke of Marlborough has 
sent him a hundred head of deer to be preserved 
and taken out. Contributions of game are ear- 
nestly solicited from country gentlemen for this 
purpose, and if immediately consigned to tho 
care of Mr. Gunter they will be available for imme- 
diate exportation. A lady writes that she has 
parted with a diamond ring, worth A‘25, iu order to 
send out some comforts to the army, and urges all 
ladies possessed of jewels to follow her example. 
Prince Albert even docs something in this way, for 
he is sending out seal skin coats as a personal pre- 
sent to the leading officers in the Crimea. 
Mr. W. S. O'Brien, now in Paris, has written a 
letter to QalignanVe Messenger, declaring that 
“ sound policy, ns well as generous feeling, dictates 
the promulgation by the British Government of a 
complete and general amnesty with regard to the 
proceedings of all those who were compromised in 
the insurrectionary movement of the year 1818.” 
The term insurrectionary seems to indicate that Mr. 
O’Brien 1ms nt length arrived at a due appreciation 
of his conduct, and, if he and his fellow exiles really 
be sincere, Government will do well to consider tho 
value that those really earnest souls, if impelled in 
the right direction, would now be in arousing tho 
patriotic feeling of Ireland. Always impulsive and 
always warm, the desire to forget present differences 
is not confined to tho politicians of Ireland ; it 
extends even to the clergy. 
While Catholic and Protestant priests arc vicing 
with each other in the duties of consolation at the 
East, a better and kinder spirit is arising between 
them, even in Ireland. The Dean of Dromor, in a 
letter addressed to the Rev. Dr. Tighc Gregory, refers 
to the Church Service used on the 5th of November, 
in the following terms : — 
" I am happy to say that, in my parish church, I was not 
reading a service which Roman Catholics regard as offbnsive 
on a day, and at tho very hour, when so many of our Roman 
Catholic soldiers were fighting gallnutly and nobly for tho 
glory of England, and in opposition to * Russian tyranuy and 
arbitrary power ; ’ and you will, I am confident, agree with 
me in thinking that now would be a lmppy opportunity, for 
those who have tho authority, to prohibit all future use of 
the service referred to, and remove it from our Prayer-book 
iu order that there may be no obstacle, on all future Fifths o. 
