landlord of the sporting house is a sporting
character, you may believe me. Such a
chronological memory he has of all the horses
that have won races, for goodness knows how
many years! Such bets he makes touching
these same chronological questions!—such
crowns, half-crowns, and " glasses round"
he wins! When he has been lucky on an
"event," he stands unlimited champagne.
He has a Derby Sweep, and a St. Leger Sweep,
and a Great Northamptonshire Sweep, and a
great many other sweeps, or ticket lotteries,
at his house; of which sweeps I only know
that I never drew the highest horse in any of
them, and never knew the sporting character
who did.

Horses are A. 1, of course, at the sporting
public, but dogs are not despised. The Screwtail
Club have a " show " meeting every
Friday night, followed by a harmonic meeting.
At the " show," comparisons take place, and
the several qualifications are discussed of
spaniels, terriers, greyhounds, and almost
every other kind of canine quadruped. Dark
whiskered men in velveteen shooting-coats,
loom mysteriously about the bar on show-
nights. In their pockets they have dogs; to
them enter "parties," or agents of "parties"
who have lost the said " dogs "—flagons of
beer, and noggins of Geneva without number,
are discussed to bind bargains, or "wet"
bargains, or as portions of the " regulars," to
which the agents or their assigns are entitled.

Who comes to the sporting public-house?
Who drinks in its bar and parlour? Who puffs
in its smoking-room?—who, but the sallow-
faced little man, with the keen black eye and
the bow-legs—swathed in thick shawls and
coats—who, every Derby-day, bursts on your
admiring gaze, all pink silk, snowy
buckskins, and mirror-like tops, as a jockey? Who
but " Nemo," who offers you an undeniable
"tip," and " Mendax," with his never-failing
"pick? "—who come incog., indeed, but still
come to see without being seen? Who, but
that fool of all fools—that dupe, of all dupes
—that gull of all gulls—the sporting fool, the
sporting dupe, the sporting gent! He
(brainless youth) who has "good information" about
Hawkeye, who "lays out his money" upon
Buster; who backs Pigeon for the " double
event; " who " stands to win " by every
horse, and loses by them all; who is so
stupendously knowing, and is so stupidly and
grievously plucked by the most transparent
sharpers upon earth!

London, the great city of refuge for exiles
of all nations, the home or place of sojourn
for foreign ambassadors, foreign merchants,
foreign singers, cooks, artists, watchmakers,
sugar-bakers, organ-grinders, and hair-dressers,
has necessarily also its public-houses,
favoured by the more especial and peculiar
patronage of foreigners temporarily or
permanently resident in the metropolis. The
foreigner can take his glass, and imbibe his
"grogs " with as much pleasure as the true
Briton; although, perhaps, with somewhat
more moderation, and less table-thumping,
glass-replenishing, waiter-bullying, and
subsequent uneven and uncertain locomotion. It
is a great mistake to imagine that foreigners
cannot appreciate and do not occasionally
indulge in conviviality; only they generally
content themselves with the " cheering " portion
of the cup, eschewing its "inebriating" part.

Let us essay a pull at the beer-engine of
one of the foreign hostelries of London—
the refugees' house of call. Herr Brutus
Eselskopf, the landlord, is a refugee himself,
a patriot without a blot on his political
scutcheon. He has been a general of brigade
in his time; but he has donned the Boniface
apron, and affiliated himself to the Boniface
guild, and dispenses his liquors with as much
unconcern as if he had never worn epaulettes
and a cocked hat, and had never seen real
troops with real bands and banners defile
before him. Where shall his house be? In
the purlieus of Oxford Street, near Leicester
Square, or in the centre of that maze of
crooked, refugee-haunted little streets between
Saint Martin's Lane and Saint Anne's Church,
Soho? Go for Soho! Go for a mean,
unpretending-looking little house of entertainment
at the corner of a street, a Tadmor in the
wilderness, set up by Herr Brutus Eselskopf
for the behoof of his brothers in exile.

No very marked difference can at first be
discerned, as regards fittings up and
appurtenances, between the refugees' and any other
public-house. There is a bar, and a barmaid,
there is a beer-engine and there are beer-
drinkers; and were it not that the
landlord wears a Turkish cap with blue tassels,
and a beard and moustachios of
prodigious magnitude, all of which are rather
out of the common or Britannic order of
things, you might fancy yourself at an
English public-house. But five minutes'
sojourn therein, and five minutes' observation
of the customers, will soon convince you to
the contrary. Herr Eselskopf's little back
parlour is filled, morning, noon, and night,
with foreigners under political clouds of
various degrees of density, and in a cloud of
uniform thickness and of strong tobacco,
emitted in many-shaped fumes from pipes of
eccentric design. By the fire, reading the
"Allegemeine Zeitung" or " Ost-Deutsche
Post," and occasionally indulging in muttered
invectives against the crowned heads of
Europe, generally, and the Emperor of Austria
in particular, is that valiant republican Spartacus
Bursch, erst P.H.D. of the University of
Heidelberg, then on no pay, but with brevet
rank, behind a barricade formed of an
omnibus, two water-carts and six paving-
stones at Frankfort; subsequently and
afterwards of the Charité Hospital at Berlin,
possessor of a broken leg; afterwards of the
fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, condemned to
imprisonment for life; afterwards of Paris,