absence, and the other fraudulent list-keepers had
forcibly urged their brother to depart for the
common good; we could not learn. The men
were gone, and "Judas's telegrams from the
course" were being sold from their late standing-
point. I purchased one of these, and, on
opening its sealed envelope, was edified by reading:
"The only one I'm afraid of is No.13,
blue 1. He is very fit and strong. Signed for
Judas, T. Scroper." What "Blue 1" meant,
or who was "fit," could of course only be
known, to Judas's initiated clients, and I
preserve the magic tissue paper as one more of the
many useless purchases accumulated during a
desultory life.

Soon after two P.M. the street began to clear.
"From eleven to two is their time for business,
so as to catch the workmen in their dinner-hour;
and you'll often see three men club together to
make up half-a-crown to put on a horse they
fancy." Before three the lists and list-keepers,
the huge gig umbrellas with "From the Ruins"
painted in large black letters on their white
gingham covering, the bonnets, victims, hangers-on,
and thieves, the boys with the handicap-books,
the respectable countrymen, and the
ornaments of the prize-ring, had departed. At four
the same day the place was a solitude, broken
only by the brewer's drays in which the bags of
grain were being dexterously piled,, and from
which the rope, half hemp, half metal, ascended
and descended with monotonous rapidity,
twining and writhing as it went, like some monstrous
serpent, into the ear-like wooden excrescences
near the roof above.

The same scene goes on daily during the
racing season, and similar nests of ruffianism are
known to exist elsewhere in London. For two
or three hours in each day, common swindlers
openly practise their calling with impunity, and
they so choose their hours as to prey upon the
class which can afford it least. The small
minority of solvent men—the people who gamble
legitimately, pay when they lose, and bet upon
scientific principles—have, to theuninitiated eye,
nothing to distinguish them from their thievish
compeers; and the workman or shop-lad who
foolishly risks his money in Grain-land, does so,
as was proved by what we saw and heard, in
most cases, with the certainty of never seeing it
again. This is surely a case in which the strong
hand of authority might be exerted with advantage,
and the exodus from "the Ruins" be
followed by a like purifying process elsewhere. That
men will gamble, and that horse-racing is a
national amusement, are not pleas for the encouragement
of open fraud. It is time that the miserable
nonsense about "upholding English sports,"
and "interfering with the pastimes of the
people," was exploded and put down. The
sport here is of that gay and festive character
for the encouragement of which we build prisons
and maintain hulks. The sportsmen, apart from
the honest minority I have instanced, are jail-
birds, or men at open war with society. The
nuisance as it exists now is a far worse pest
and deeper disgrace than the petty tavern
sweepstakes and small list-houses which were, amid a
chorus of national self-praise, put down by act
of parliament a few years ago.

It would be curious to know how far the
impunity accorded to these scoundrels is due to
that superstitious veneration for what is called
"the old school," and that servile admiration
of "patrons of the turf," which is one of the
most curious weaknesses of a large section of
English society. The finest specimen I ever knew
of the class to whom it is the fashion to apply
these stock phrases, was always unexceptionably
dressed in drab cords, top-boots, and a blue
bodycoat with brass buttons. He was blessed with
a hale and hearty constitution, regular features,
a florid complexion, and venerable white hair.
Apart from his clothes, his personal advantages,
and his love of horseflesh, his chief peculiarities
were excessive testiness, a dislike to reading,
a habit of taking more liquor than was good
for him, and of swearing in his drawing-room.
Whenever he distinguished himself in any of
these capacities, we looked admiringly at the
drab cords and the brass buttons, and murmured
with approval of his love of sport, and his
undoubted right to the title of a fine old English
gentleman. He was not particularly wise nor
particularly useful in his generation, and but
for the peculiar fascination of his dress, flippant
people might, have thought him uninteresting
and dull. All his weaknesses—improvidence,
coarse language, and incapacity—were, however,
accepted as so many virtues, out of deference to
his attachment for the turf. This was among a
pastoral people, by whom he was regarded as a
sort of king; but my experience in Grain-land
makes me ask if the same sort of fetish worship
exists among those connected with the execution
of the law, and whether a purely supposititious
connexion with the race-course is held to entitle
detected swindlers and convicted felons to prey
upon the credulous and ignorant, without dread
of punishment or prospect of interference?

POOR MEN'S GARDENS.

No waxen blossoms stained with rainbow hues,
    No crimson-flush of petals, heaven-dyed,
No spoils of distant zones and eastern shores,
    Snatched from the poisonous woods to feed man's
             pride;

No spiked and spotted aloes, dagger fenced,
    No lilies floating on their leafy raft,
No air-plants dappled like great butterflies,
    Spice odours from the Orient isles to waft;

But just one little bush of southernwood,
    Fragrant and evergreen as honesty,
And clumps of purple hearts-ease rarely found
    In rich men's gardens, wheresee'er they be.

A tufted rod of hollyocks, with rosettes,
    For bower-pot or for posy; or a bed
Of blood-red scented cloves, so jagg'd and quaint,
    To deck a Sunday coat with tuft of red.

A plant of marigold, with golden glow,
    To spread perennial sunshine o'er the plot,
A winter rose, to bloom when summer's gone,
    And cast a gleam of hope when spring's forgot.