and the natural
result is the Derby Day. A grander sight of its kind is perhaps hardly
to be seen. For twelve months have the public been preparing for the
event. For twelve months has the sporting and the betting world been on
the _qui vive_. We do not bet, for we hold that the custom is absurd in
a rich man, and wicked in one who is not so; but in every street in
London, in every town in England, in many a quiet village, at the
beer-shop, or the gin-palace, or the public-house, bets have been made,
and thousands and thousands of pounds are depending on the event. As the
time draws nigh the excitement increases. Had you looked in at
Tattersall's on the previous Sunday, you would have seen the betting of
our West End swells and M.P.'s who legislate for the observance of the
Sabbath, and who punish poor men for keeping betting-houses--fast and
furious. On the previous night of the day when the Derby is run a motley
population encamp on the Downs. There are booths where there are to be
dancing, and drinking, and eating, and gambling. There are gipsies who
are to tell fortunes, and acrobats who are to exhibit a most astonishing
flexibility of muscle. There are organs, and singing girls, and a whole
legion of scamps, who will pick pockets, or play French put, or toss you
for a bottle of stout, or offer their book and a pencil to betters; and
as the dim grey of morning brightens into day, their number increases in
a most marvellous manner. On they come--ricketty carts laden with ginger
beer--men with long barrows and short pipes, who have walked all the way
from town, long trains of gigs and hansoms, and drags, and carriages, and
'busses, and pleasure vans, laden with pleasure seekers, determined to
have a holiday. The trains bring down some thirty or forty thousand
human souls, the road is blocked up and almost impassable. Many a party,
who left town in good spirits, have come to grief. Here a wheel has come
off. There the springs have broken. Here the dumb brute has refused to
drag his heavy burden any further. There the team have been restive or
the charioteer unskilful, and the coach has been upset. In a session in
which unusually little business has been done, in the very midst of a
ministerial crisis, parliament has adjourned, and senators, commoners,
and lords, are everywhere around. That man with spectacles and long
black stock, driving a younger son past us, is England's premier, whose
horse is the