Payne, who rescued it at the gate; and Captain White, who went to his aid, we regret to state, received a severe blow on the arm with a large stick.

In the Stand the excitement was equally great, the Ring calling loudly for vengeance on Jennings and his party, while the amateurs hissed the mare as they would an unsuccessful piece at a theatre. Count La Grange fled, and Jennings was locked up for three-quarters of an hour in a room at the back of the Stand, to save his life. Nine thousand is said to be the amount that was got out of her for the Two Thousand, and bills for that amount are said to have been transmitted to Paris. As yet the Stewards of the Club have made no sign of investigating the case, but surely, after the Tarragona and Michelgrove Court of Inquiry, they are bound to do so. Because a few legs fancy they see something in the betting on a wretched match at Newmarket, all the machinery of the Club is put in motion against the owners, and the west end of London thrown into a complete conflagration, by the correspondence of parties connected with it, both male and female. Why, then, do they not bestir themselves now, when they would have all England on their side, as well as the Continent, for France having bled, cries equally loud for an investigation. Perhaps Crump then might make a better use of certain parties' books than he did of the Guardsmen, and if a conviction could be obtained, public opinion would support the infliction of the punishment that would naturally follow. Well as Fille de l'Air ran, but for the accident which occurred to Saragossa we believe she would have been beaten by her, and then the foreigners would have witnessed a demonstration of another kind, in which public and private worth would have been recognised in a manner peculiar to our nation, and which being unbought is still more welcome to the object of it. Count La Grange, it is stated, fled before the race was run, but we trust this statement will be contradicted, and all we can say with pride is that such a circumstance never occurred to an English winner of the Oaks. Whether an investigation will take place into the circumstances remains to be seen, but were we in the Count's position we should demand one. If he is innocent, he has nothing to fear from it, and if guilty, he must take the consequences

of it.

Our monthly mortality includes the name of one who for many years occupied a most conspicuous position on the Turf as a better; we mean the late Major Brabason, who soon followed in the wake of Mr. Fitzroy Stanhope and Mr. Magennis. The Major, who was better known by his old name of Higgins, belonged to a good Mayo family in Ireland, and served for many years in the 15th Hussars, spending some time with that regiment in India. On quitting the service he took to the Turf, and became one of the heaviest bookmakers of the day, standing invariably on the field; and when the long Captain, as he was called, took a favourite in hand, he generally made short work of him. Of course, like other people, he made mistakes at times, and Surplice was a heavy blow and great discouragement to him. When the Emperor gave him Dervish to lay against, as being the safest of all Scott's lot, he also got into trouble for having betted a fabulous sum against him through others, and the Commissioners, as the horse had come to 6 to 1, getting nervous, and expressing a hope he would be prepared for an emergency, he soon quieted their fears; for stepping across the room to Davis, he returned in a minute to them, and said they were perfectly right in mentioning the matter, and he had got them out as he had just backed Dervish back for four thousand in one line. On a great settlement day at Tattersall's, he was always conspicuous by the large black japanned tin box in which he carried his money to the Corner. In his habits he was very temperate, and he scarcely ever

wore a great coat. Of his honour he was very querulous, and many years back, being a witness in a case in the Queen's Bench, the late Sir John Jervis, who was opposed to him, told the jury, with the license of counsel, to discard from their mind every syllable of the evidence that Captain Higgins had given. This was too much for the gallant Irishman, who, the next day, sent the late Sir Challoner Ogle to him to demand an apology. Sir John replied the Bar would not permit him to retract the observations he had made in his speech, when he was informed that the honour of Captain Higgins was as dear to his brother officers as that of Sir John Jervis to the Bar. And Sir Challoner stated he was instructed to inform the Solicitor-General unless he apologised, Captain Higgins would assuredly horsewhip him. This intimation had the desired effect, and the same evening Captain Higgins received a satisfactory communication from the learned counsel. Latterly his health gave way, but he was full of vigour until the tidings of the murder of his son in China reached him, when the blow smote him almost to the ground, for he was an officer of the highest promise. As soon as he could collect himself together, he made his mind up to proceed to China, and offer a reward of twenty thousand pounds for his recovery, as a strange fancy took possession of his mind that he was alive and treated as a slave. The fact of his departure having been noised abroad, and it having incidentally transpired that there was some little delay in preparing the securities for raising the sum in question, Messrs. Padwick and Hill presented him with a letter of credit on Dent's at Hong-Kong, in the most delicate manner, thus expressing the confidence they had in his honour. The act was one which reflected highly on both parties, and only among racing men could such mutual reliance be found to exist. On his return from China, Major Brabason was unfortunately knocked down by an omnibus in Oxford Street, and compelled to use crutches for the remainder of his life. If at times he was irritable in his temper, he was easily appeased, for his heart was in the right place, and he retained his friends to the end: and he will be regarded by all who knew him as one of the most remarkable men of a very remarkable period of the Turf.

Mr. Wilson, who died so suddenly on the first day of Epsom, where he was staying with Mr. Cathcart, the owner of Prince Arthur, was well known in Yorkshire as an attaché to John Osborne's stables, having managed the late Mr. Harland's horses for him. Latterly, through the death of that gentleman, he had come into an accession of fortune, and joined what is called The Young Yorkshire Party.' A constant frequenter of the northern meetings, he was a close observer of character, and the fund of anecdotes he had acquired rendered him a pleasant dinner-table companion.

Among the new Sporting books which have just made their appearance, the most conspicuous for its utility is Cecil's Hunting Tours,' from which the old school may revive their recollections of the past, and the young ones be able to put themselves on a level with their seniors. Cecil is not one of the fast school of writers, but he travels by a steady train, which brings his readers safe to the end of a pleasant journey amidst scenes that must possess a fund of interest for them. The Fisherman's Magazine,' which is now in its infancy, promises, if nourished by the same treatment as is visible in the conduct of the first two months, to arrive at a degree of healthy maturity. The plates are excellent; that which adorns the first number is a pike, which, to say the least, is to the manner born;' and the second is a sketch after the frontispiece of London Society,' of a gentleman rowing a lady in a boat, with the motto Dum capimus, capimur,' attached to it.

To the Fox-hunters, not only of the Shires,' but of the Provinces, the Portrait of Mr. Tailby must be acceptable, as few Masters of Hounds have lately occupied a more prominent position than the gentleman who hunts the next most fashionable country to the Quorn. Mr. Tailby, the fidelity of whose likeness will be at once recognised, was born in 1825 at Humberstone in Leicestershire, and is the eldest son of William Tailby, Esquire, of that place. He was educated at the Grammar School of Repton, from whence he was transplanted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree. Reared, as it were, among fox-hunters, and his earliest recollections being associated with anecdotes of those Nimrods whose names will ever live in the annals of the English Chase, it is only natural he should have imbibed the same tastes as his ancestors, and to have endeavoured to have emulated their example. At the University, if he eschewed academical honours, there were other distinctions at which he successfully arrived, and he quickly attained a reputation for going straight with hounds that proved him the Leicestershire man to the manner born.' Bodily endurance_was one of his great characteristics, and barring, perhaps, Lord Wemys, Captain White, and the Old Squire, there are few sportsmen alive who have gone through more in the saddle. Even now, his feat of riding from Cambridge to Epsom and back on two hacks in one day to see the Derby run for is talked of with admiration by those who recollect it. For such was his knowledge of pace and fine handling, that neither of the animals he rode was in the slightest degree distressed with the length of its journey. Being, as it may be styled, out of his time with the Cambridgeshire, Mr. Tailby sighed for other worlds to conquer, or, in less imaginative language, for a new sphere of action. It was not long before such an opportunity of gratifying his taste was afforded him. For in 1856, Sir Richard Sutton dying, and his son, Mr. Richard Sutton, giving up his part of the Quorn country, viz. the Harborough side, a

VOL. VIII.--NO. 53.

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