ll, to echo through the groves of Hoboken and o'er the waters of the
Hudson, as we strolled from the club-house to the ferry, and thence to
bed.

Among other "lions" to be seen, my curiosity was excited by the news of
a trotting match, to come off at Long Island: some friend was ever
ready, so off we started for Brooklyn Ferry, whence we went by railway.
In the olden time these races were as fashionable at New York as Ascot
or Epsom are in England; all the _elite_ of both sexes filled the stand,
and the whole scene was lively and gay. Various circumstances, which all
who know the turf are aware it is liable to, rendered gentlemen so
disgusted with it at Long Island, that they discontinued sending horses
to run, and gradually gave up going themselves, and it is now left all
but entirely to the "rowdies,"--_alias_ mob.

The railway carriage into which we got contained about forty of these
worthies, all with cigars in their mouths, and exhibiting many strange
varieties of features and costume. In the passage up and down the middle
of the carriage; ragged juvenile vendors of lollipops and peanuts kept
patrolling and crying out their respective goods, for which they found a
ready market; suddenly another youth entered, and, dispensing a fly-leaf
right and left as he passed along to each passenger, disappeared at the
other door. At first, I took him for an itinerant advertiser of some
Yankee "Moses and Son," or of some of those medicinal quacks who strive
to rob youth by lies calculated to excite their fears. Judge my
astonishment, then, when on looking at the paper, I found it was hymns
he was distributing. A short ride brought us close to the course, and,
as I alighted, there was the active distributor freely dispensing on
every side, everybody accepting, many reading, but all hurrying on to
the ground.

Having paid a good round sum as entrance to the stand, I was rather
disappointed at nearly breaking my neck, when endeavouring to take
advantage of my privilege, for my foot well-nigh went through a hole in
the flooring. Never was anything more wretched-looking in this world. It
was difficult to believe, that a few years back, this stand had been
filled with magnates of the "upper ten thousand" and stars of beauty:
there it was before me, with its broken benches, scarce a whole plank in
the floor, and wherever there was one, it was covered with old cigar
stumps, shells of peanuts, orange-peel, &c. When, however, I found t