on sale days, but into the refectory I have
not ventured to penetrate.

Truly the English love of ancient ways is to
be seen in perfection at "the Corner." Had
the same amount of business been transacted
in any other capital, what an architectural
pile, what fountains, what statues, what
friezes would have adorned it! What
numerous government regulations would
have impeded its business. How many
infantry, cavalry, and artillery would have
guarded it; and, above all, what an elegant
café would have replaced the dingy alehouse;
and what a magnificent lady in silk and lace
would have presided over piles of flinty
sugar and caraffes of liquors ranged on each
side her throne!

To return to the peculiar aspect of Tattersall's
which is, in this eminently pious country
(where cries of horror meet the proposition
for opening gardens and museums on Sunday),
both curious and discreditable. On some week
days, when sales are not about to take place,
solitude reigns in this wilderness of stables,
and on others, dainty ladies of the highest
rank pass in review, without fear of soiling
their kid boots, park hacks and phæton ponies.
But on certain special Sundays the yard
and avenues are crammed with a multitude
on anything but pious thoughts intent.
On the day before the Derby or St. Leger
races a long line of vehicles and led
horses crowd Grosvenor Place. A long line
of anxious peers and plebeians, butchers,
brokers, betting-list keepers and all their
parasites, and all their victims; usurers;
guardsmen and prizefighters; costermongers,
and sporting parsons; Manchester
manufacturers, Yorkshire farmers, sham captains,
ci-devant gentlemen, beardless boys, and
grey-haired but not venerable grandfathers,
fill the narrow descent, crowd the yards and
the stables, and especially congregate around
a plain brick barn-like building, which might,
in any other situation, pass for a Latter Day
Saints' chapel.

This is the great temple of Mercury or
Plutus, the bourse of betting men—the
Exchange where millions change hands in the
course of the year. On great days a Cerberus of
triple-headed acuteness, assisted by a couple of
policemen, guards the entrance, and rebuffs
the uninitiated. The presence of policemen
gives an official sanction to this genuine
Sabbath desecration, which renders it
complete. At one side, divided off by iron gates,
is the ring, where, at times, high-bred horses
are exercised, and where now, under the
shade of the trees, on a green lawn, the
aristocracy of the betting world sit and balance
their books.

To be admitted within the subscription-
room, and the green ring which is its
appurtenance, two qualifications only are necessary
—to bet and to pay. Politics, religion, manners,
calling, are questions of no moment.
The vilest and the proudest meet on equal
terms. Equality and fraternity can only exist
in and be created by the spirit of gambling.
The man on your right was boots to an inn;
the man on your left is a peer; the man
opposite to you keeps a gambling house; the
man behind you talking to an M.P. has been
tried, convicted, and sent to Newgate for
fraud. Every crime and every grade has
here its representative; but they all pay
honourably. The greater the scamp the
safer the bet. It is young sprigs of fashion
and credit who make the worst books and
the most lamentable failures. Bill Jones has
nothing to hope if he makes a mistake,
while the Honourable Tom Flashley has hopes
of his father or his aunt. Lord Centlivre,
who claims Norman descent and is heir to
forty thousand a year, makes up his book
with these ruffians; he associates with them
in the ring; he accepts their congratulations
when his horse wins. Out of the ring he
will not speak, he will not look at them,
he will not allow them on any occasion to sit
down in his presence; but he takes their
money when he can get it.

The church bells are ringing, the public-
houses are closed, the betting men are shutting
up their little books, and prepare for the park
drive and Richmond dinners. The leviathan
of the ring, an ex-carpenter, whose word is
good for fifty thousand pounds, takes his last
ostrich-like stride round the flock, who look
on him with envious admiration, and snubs
a viscount, who wants less than the current
odds against the favourite. A miserable
shrunk man, who inherited an estate of
ten thousand a year, finds a butcher's stake
preferred to his own. Languid offers to bet
meet with equally languid answers. The
field is exhausted, the ring is cleared, and
Sunday at the Corner closes.

This is a Sunday in London foreigners do
not see, and to which the loudest denouncers
of Sabbath desecration among their humbler
brethren have been, hitherto, equally blind.