d Derby:--

'The secession from the turf of men who have station and character, and
the accession of men who have neither, are signs visible to the dullest
apprehension. The once national sport of horse-racing is being degraded
to a trade in which it is difficult to perceive anything either sportive
or national. The old pretence about the improvement of the breed of
horses has become a delusion, too stale for jesting.'

Nothing is more incontestable than the fact that the breed of English
horses has not been really improved, certainly not by racing and its
requirements. It has been truly observed that 'what is called the turf
is merely a name for the worst kind of gambling. The men who engage in
it are as far as possible from any ideal of sporting men. It is a grim
joke, in fact, to speak of "sport" at all in their connection. The turf
to them is but a wider and more vicious sort of tapis vert--the racing
but the rolling of the balls--the horses but animated dice. It is
difficult to name a single honest or manly instinct which is propagated
by the turf as it is, or which does not become debased and vitiated
by the association. From a public recreation the thing has got to be
a public scandal. Every year witnesses a holocaust of great names
sacrificed to the insatiable demon of horse-racing--ancient families
ruined, old historic memories defiled at the shrine of this vulgarest
and most vicious of popular passions.'

Among those who have sought to reform the turf is Sir Joseph Hawley,
who last year succeeded in procuring the abolition of two-year-old races
before the 1st of May. He is now endeavouring, to go much further, and
has given notice of a motion for the appointment of a committee of the
Jockey Club to consider the question of the whole condition of the turf.

There can be no doubt, that, if Sir Joseph Hawley's propositions, as
announced, be adopted, even in a modified form, they would go to the
very root of the evil, and purify the turf of the worst of the present
scandals.

It would require a volume, or perhaps many volumes, to treat of the
subject of the present chapter--the Turf, Historical, Social, Moral; but
I must now leave this topic, of such terrible national interest, to some
other conscientious writer capable of 'doing justice' to the theme, in
all its requirements.

CHAPTER XIII. FORTUNE-TELLING BY CARDS (FOR LADIES).

It must be admitted that this practice--however absurd in its object and