that, surely, has changed hardly at all. The gipsies
still swarm, and the touts still swindle; the bookmakers, bedizened with
belts of silver coin, and outlandish hats, and flaring assertions of
personal integrity, still clamour by their blackboards; they still chalk
up the odds they offer against horses whose names they mis-spell; the
sun still shines on the jockeys' silk jackets; still, down a course
cleared empty, distracted dogs rush madly; still, before the start for
the great race, there broods over that huge concourse an intense, almost
a dreadful silence; still there is the shout as the jackets flash from
the starting-gate, still the hum as they sweep down the bend, the roar
as they rush for the straight, the yell as the leader drops back, shoots
out, thunders past the judge. All that remains, and will remain. But two
changes are insistent. One is the motor-cars, which are all over the
hill and almost everywhere else; but that is a permanent thing. The
other is the advertisements on the kites. In the old days the downs lay
under blue sky and white clouds. Now they lie, on Derby day, under
strings of kites. You may go to Epsom to see horse-racing, but you will
not escape soap, mustard, or pills.

Of Epsom's residents and neighbours, Lord Derby won the race named after
him in 1787, and doubtless others have won since. But the best record
belongs to the owner of Durdans, who won the Derby in 1894 with Ladas,
in 1895 with Sir Visto, and in 1905 with Cicero; and who, in addition to
his career as politician, man of letters, and owner of racehorses, has
added difficulties to the tasks of other writers by contributing to Mr.
Gordon Home's _Guide to Epsom_ a discouragingly brilliant preface.

Another peer has made Epsom history in a different way. At Pit Place
lived the second Lord Lyttelton, and at Pit Place he died, leaving
behind him a profligate name and a ghost story which Dr. Johnson thought
the most extraordinary he had ever heard. It was in November, 1779; Lord
Lyttelton had just returned from Ireland, and was seized with
suffocating fits. One night he dreamt a dream. A dove hovered over him,
changed to a woman in white, and spoke to him. It was a dead face, and
he knew who it was; her two daughters were under his roof. Her words
were few: "Lord Lyttelton, prepare to die!" "When?" he gasped. "In three
days," she answered, and vanished. He called his man, who found him wet
with sweat and his whole frame working. T