requiring attention. There could be no difficulty in getting a decision to the plain question, "How many teeth has this animal?" Sir J. C. You would not then prevent anybody from having a chance of some prize? As I understand, even those too far advanced for Class B would have a consolation stake to try for? Mr. Y. W.: Yes! But I would have this consolation class to have lower prizes and no chance of champion honours or breed cup. Exhibitors would soon exercise sufficient care not to run the risk of getting shunted into this siding. Admiral A. And so you would escape all disputes as to when the animal was born? Mr. Y. W.: Exactly. I would not dispute any exhibitor's statement on the age of his entry. I should simply ask him beforehand if he be willing to accept the verdict of three men— admitted to be of competent knowledge-as to the number of teeth actually in the mouth of any given animal the day of judging. Mr. A. P: Wouldn't that be making the judging very cheap? Anybody could count teeth. Sir J. C: That seems to me to be the very thing for the club to aim at. I have often wondered why the Cattle Show judges are chosen from so few men, and why the same men act so frequently. Admiral A. I, too, question the wisdom of this limitation. After all, knowing the weights, to say which of half a score animals of same age and breed is the most likely to provide the best and cheapest meat, is not such a very different question to those which graziers have to solve every year in their business. Hundreds of men of this class must be quite as competent to say so much as any in that circle of a dozen or so, within whose limits the actual selection seems always to be confined. I do not believe in keeping either the judging or the managing of the whole of our Agricultural Societies in so few hands. Mr. A. P.: To be sure, as the Admiral says, the management of these societies are close boroughs. There must be a lot of men who are able to say which is the best butcher's beast, weight, breed, and class of feeding all being known. Sir J. C. I am very much disposed to agree. It is plain, from the number of men who at present stand aloof from shows, that it would be an advantage, if voluntary societies do good at all, to popularise the working of them. I believe that not the least service which societies of this kind render (and I, at least, strongly approve of their existence), is the kind of political education which men acquire by managing them, or through having to submit to management. Mr. V. B.: The Smithfield Club, then, is to you an electioneering agency; and the merits of it are, that it teaches members to become not feeders of beeves, but lions'-providers for the Carlton or the Reform Clubs. Admiral A. I think you push Sir John's argument further than he meant it to go. He argues (and I agree with him) that, as a free country, all combined movements are of necessity trial and training grounds for political activity; but they are not, therefore, necessarily partisan; nor should they become so. Sir J. C. Just so! I don't care a button whether a man be a Tory or a Liberal; but his having to act in concert with others to administer a set of rules for a number of other folk is, of necessity, educational in the very best sense. I wish, therefore, as many men as possible to take part in such affairs; whilst the apparent inclination has been to keep the business in as few hands as possible. The managers of almost all the Agricultural Shows are very much the same set of people. The MID. It is just a Scotchman or two that ye want among ye. They would open up matters fine. Mr. Y. W.: Can't say that I have seen much evidence of that. But I am so entirely with Sir John that I would gladly invite two or three leading carcase butchers, not only to act as judges at Islington, but to take their seat at the Council. The R.A.S.E. would be better for an infusion of fresh blood, i.e., for having a selection of men on the Council who buy of farmers, as well of those who make a fortune out of them by selling to them, or collecting rents from them. Admiral A. This may be all very true, but it is rather wide. We were speaking of the Fat-Cattle Shows. The summer shows for breeding stock are something quite apart; and the R.A.S.E. has functions altogether distinct from showmanaging. Mr. A. P. As the Admiral says, we are not keeping close to the subject. Where shall we find the equal of the great Mr. Dobbs, who has an engagement to judge something or other every week of the year? And what we are to do when Tobias Tims goes over to the majority, I cannot guess. He has acted in one class or other at every meeting of the Smithfield Club for forty years. Sir J. C. Oh, don't tear your hair! Wisdom will not die either with Dobbs or Tims; nor yet the anxiety to distinguish oneself; nor the love of a fine beast. I expect to see the Cattle Shows increase, not fall off, by the displacement of some of the figure-heads. I do not deny their past good service, but I dispute their being indispensable; and, of necessity, every veteran dreads change. Mr. V. B.: An enterprising Press guards the path of Progress. I have carefully taken notes of the conversation; and I will embody your ideas in a leader. Mr. Y. W. For heaven's sake don't! Referring a subject to a Parliamentary Committee is official English for shelving it; and writing a leader on an agricultural subject, in a daily paper, is another word for leading people off on a wrong scent. Admiral A. But one does not, of necessity, publish all notes in leader form. Why not send the notes as they are to BAILY? Sir J. C. With all my heart! It will be, at all events, a novel, and perhaps, too, a disinterested medium for introducing such questions to the public. The MID. There is a magazine of considerable influence published at Edinburgh by the house of Blackwood- Mr. V. B. Oh, bother Blackwood! There is nothing like a London evening paper-no subject is too big or too little for it Mr. Y. W. Especially if the editor knows nothing about it. All who vote for BAILY hold up their hands. Three hands are up already, and I'll lift up two more. Carried! They disperse. "Our Van.” WE naturally-we of the racing world-now turn The Gimcrack Club. to the after-dinner utterances at the Gimcrack Club with keen expectancy. Mr. Lowther and Lord Durham are the constituted oracles of this modern Dodona; but their words, unlike those of the ancient priestess, are neither obscure nor misleading. Their trumpets are blown with no uncertain sound, and if one oracle is sometimes inclined to take too optimistic a view of things, the other balances matters by pointing out blots and blemishes on the picture. This, we think, is as it should be; and though one of the oracles was this year silent, his litera scripta kept up Mr. Lowther's character; while Lord Durham infused the necessary amount of fault-finding and hole-picking into his utterances. It was a speech much redounding to Lord Durham's reputation for straightforwardness and honesty of purpose, and one also that showed high mental powers in the speaker. That he should take credit to himself for the line he laid down in that celebrated speech made two years ago at the same table, was only natural. Lord Durham did not make then an after-dinner speech on the spur of the moment. He had carefully considered what he was about to do, had counted the cost, and boldly faced it. As he himself said, it was with no light heart he entered upon his task, for he foresaw what would happen; enmity incurred, friendships severed, the half-hearted support of some, the abuse of others, to say nothing of a pecuniary sacrifice that might have well daunted even a wealthy man. That he should be satisfied with what he had done was, as we have said, only natural, and we can but trust that the result has been of that benefit to the character of the English turf which both Mr. Lowther and Lord Durham believe has been accomplished. But, says his lordship, more remains to be done. He has accomplished his own self-imposed task, and he now calls on the Jockey Club to do theirs. Very neatly and forcibly he sketched out a reform bill for that body of almost radical character, and one which in its entirety we think VOL. LIII.-No. 359. D will hardly find acceptance either by the Club or the racing world at large. Many of his suggestions were good and practical, especially when he dwelt on the responsibilities of the members of the Jockey Club. We fear that gentlemen on whom the honour of membership of that society is conferred, hardly appreciate the word responsibility. A high compliment has been paid them in being elected to what has been called the most aristocratic club in Europe, and they take up their membership with no idea beyond doing a very pleasant thing. In process of time each may be invited to become one of the stewards, and then there will be some work to do, but beyond that we fancy the majority do not look. Now we gather from Lord Durham's remarks, that what he would like to see would be each individual member of the Jockey Club a working member, acquainting himself thoroughly with racing laws and rules, fit to take his place as a steward of a race meeting, not from adventitious circumstances of rank or influence, as a mere ornament to a race-card, but with the determination to do whatever the business and incidents of the meeting may call on him to do. We quite agree with Lord Durham that this ought to be; and for that purpose, no race meeting should be held in this country without a member of the Jockey Club being one of the stewards; but we do not agree with him when he says that “with the very small number of active racing men in the Jockey Club at present, such a condition would be impossible." Lord Durham, when he says this, seeks to back up his idea for making the governing body of the turf larger and more representative than it is at present. We own we do not see the necessity of increasing that body; nor do we think that its usefulness would be extended by making it more democratic than it is. We can reckon up quite forty "active" members, from which the stewards of race meetings may be selected, and surely they could easily arrange among themselves what meetings they would officially attend. We would make it compulsory on all racing authorities, such as clerks of the course, lessees, etc., that they should have a member of the Jockey Club as one of the stewards at each meeting, and then we should not probably find so many cases referred to a higher tribunal as now so often happens. We may be thought to expect too much from the "active" members; but we scarcely think it. They are men who, as a rule, we meet at every race meeting from Lincoln Spring to the Houghton, and beyond it. Is it asking them too much to do something which, as members of our turf legislature, it is only their duty to do? Another suggestion of Lord Durham's, that the Jockey Club councils and deliberations should be open, will also meet with the general approval of the outer world, though it may shock the feelings of many members of that very conservative body. We have always wondered at the curious mystery surrounding the meagre reports in the Racing Calendar when some cause célèbre of the hour has been adjudicated upon. In this year of grace, with the century almost at death's door, they read, we should imagine, pretty much as they did some hundred and fifty years ago—the old world of little broadsheets, and of stage coaches that accomplished five miles an hour. Surely in this age, when, for good or evil, publicity is the very soul of life, is not this secrecy a relic of the past that might be brushed away without offending the greatest stickler for the good old times? We hope to see some action arise out of Lord Durham's speech. The noble earl has, everybody will acknowledge, done the State much service, and at a cost. His task finished, he appeals to the Club of which he is a member to take up the burden in the future. They may not follow him, most probably will not, along all the paths. of reform which he has chalked out, but we trust they will at least give them due consideration. One thing we feel sure they will acknowledge-the manly straightforward character of the man with whom the suggestions originate. The Newmarket The winter sales at headquarters, like the July ones, increase and multiply. As the head of the Albert Gate firm was the originator and foster-father of both, he must, on the day that Lord Falmouth's stud was offered, have looked round on the large assemblage of wellknown faces grouped round the ring, and in favoured spots near his rostrum, with singular complacency. That it would be a big sale was a "certainty"; greater than had ever been brought off on the adjacent racecourse, though perhaps Mr. Tattersall himself hardly expected such a magnificent total. The big men, or their representatives, were all there, and it was seen that there would be stubborn fights when millionaire met millionaire. Still, as so often happens at sales of blood stock, those selected to realise the highest prices did not always reach them, and vice versa. Besides the Mereworth stud there were various lots, with here and there a notability among them, that excited competition; as when Mr. R. H. Combe disposed of Bauble to Viscount de Trieste for 1,000 guineas, and Mr. Singer gave 2,000 guineas for Whistle Jacket, at which price the latter horse might be a bargain, or might not; there was a diversity of opinion. With the sale of three other horses in training, belonging to Mr. H. Milner, we reached what all had come out specially to see the dispersal of the late Lord Falmouth's stud. The Argentine Republic, like the daughter of the horseleech, ever calls for more in the shape of thoroughbred stock, so it was not surprising that Mr. Maclennan gave 1,150 guineas for Rada, before the yearlings came on the scene. The ranks began to take close order then, and among the brisk bidders who struggled and fought for the Mereworth blood were Captain Machell, John Porter representing Baron Hirsch, Richard Marsh bidding for the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Mr. Hamer Bass, Lord Rodney, Count Lehndorff, Mr. Blundell Maple, Mr. BurdettCoutts, Mr. Henry Milner, Mr. Robert Peck, and Matthew Dawson. Captain Machell gave 2,700 guineas for a beautiful filly by GalliardMadge Wildfire (the latter old mare, twenty years old now, being bought, we are glad to say, by Matthew Dawson), and many people considered her yearling by far the best of the lot. It was difficult to pick holes in her, certainly, and we think "the Captain" showed judgment and pluck in buying her. Mr. Hamer Bass took a Hampton colt, very promising, at 1,250 guineas, and we trust it will bring him better luck than he has had. Mr. Blundell Maple bought the highestpriced foal, a colt by Bend Or-Labyrinth, that was much admired. The real fight began when the brood mares came into the ring. The beautiful Darnaway was certainly not dear when she fell to |