emporary stands were erected for the royal family and
visitors, the stand for the former being in the centre, and hung with
scarlet and gold cloth, while the others were tastefully arranged with
tri-coloured drapery. These are entered by tickets only, but there
are always plenty of platforms formed by tables and "chaises a louer"
(chairs to let) for those who don't mind risking their necks for a
sight. Some few itinerants tramped about the plain, offering alternately
tooth-picks, play-bills, and race-lists for sale. Mr. Jorrocks, of
course, purchased one of the latter, which was decorated at the top with
a woodcut, representing three jockeys riding two horses, one with a whip
as big as a broad sword. We append the list as a specimen of "Sporting
in France," which, we are sorry to see, does not run into our pages
quite so cleverly as our printer could wish.[24]

[Footnote 24: Racing in France is, of course, now a very different
business to the primitive sport it was when this sketch was
written.--EDITOR.]

Foreigners accuse the English of claiming every good-looking horse, and
every well-built carriage, met on the Continent, as their own, but we
think that few would be ambitious of laying claim to the honour of
supplying France with jockeys or racehorses. Mr. Jorrocks, indeed,
indifferent as he is to the affairs of the turf, could not suppress his
"conwiction" of the difference between the flibberty-gibberty appearance
of the Frenchmen, and the quiet, easy, close-sitting jockeys of
Newmarket. The former all legs and elbows, spurting and pushing to the
front at starting, in tawdry, faded jackets, and nankeen shorts, just
like the frowsy door-keepers of an Epsom gambling-booth; the latter in
clean, neat-fitting leathers, well-cleaned boots, spick and span new
jackets, feeling their horses' mouths, quietly in the rear, with their
whip hands resting on their thighs. Then such riding! A hulking Norman
with his knees up to his chin, and a long lean half-starved looking
Frenchman sat astride like a pair of tongs, with a wet sponge applied to
his knees before starting, followed by a runaway English stable lad, in
white cords and drab gaiters, and half a dozen others equally singular,
spurring and tearing round and round, throwing the gravel and sand into
each other's faces, until the field was so separated as to render it
difficult to say which was leading and which was tailing, for it is one
of the rules of their races, that e