than seven times out of the eight that he rode him. Mr. Herbert has also done equally good things with Comberton, a horse returned by the Duke of Hamilton as worthless, but whose subsequent victories under welter weights entitle him to be regarded as the best Steeple-chase horse in England at light weights. Mr. Herbert is also one of the most conspicuous members of the Gun and Harlingham House Clubs, at both of which places he has taken the highest honours. But the match in which he showed to most advantage was in Paris in 1867, when, after being defeated in the International Pigeon Match, feeling confident that it was not his right form, he challenged his opponents to shoot at eleven birds each, thirty yards distance, for ten thousand francs. His offer was at once accepted, and the supposed best man in France was chosen to compete with him. The contest excited the greatest interest, but the affair was one way throughout, Mr. Herbert taking the lead, keeping it throughout, and winning in a canter, killing all his birds.

In 1866 Mr. Herbert married Miss Giffard of Chillington, daughter of the late Squire of Chillington, and niece of the cele'brated John Mytton,' by whom he has one daughter. In conclusion, we may observe that Mr. Herbert unites in himself all the best qualities of a Sportsman and a Gentleman, and has earned for himself a degree of popularity in his own neighbourhood which few men of age can boast.

his

THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.

THE demise of one so well known in racing circles as the Marquis of Hastings demands something more than a passing notice in the pages of a Magazine devoted to the Sports and Pastimes of England. Not more than two years ago his portrait appeared in a former number of this periodical, and the public were put in possession of the details of his Turf career, so far as they were then capable of illustration. Little more remains to be told, and that little the public will recal without the need of recurring to these pages for its narration. We had hoped that the first burst of recklessness might have succumbed to the entreaties and the warnings of reason, and that the season of reflection might have cooled the hot spring-tide of youth; that a reaction might ere this have set in to control the promptings of a spirit which was one of that order who compass their own 'destruction.' The daily journals have well worked out this new vein of sensationalism, and amid the excitement and attraction of political strife have found a place in their columns for pitiless attack and outpourings of bitter resentment upon one whose past life mercy would fain consign to oblivion, and bury out of sight like the remains of mortality. Enough has been said on all sides, and we would fain shrink from harrowing the already injured feelings of relatives and friends by reminiscences which could not be otherwise than painful, or by remarks which would obviously be only an useless repetition of what has already appeared upon the subject. His Turf career has virtually closed long since, and it was only by the connection of his name. with that of his quondam favourite The Earl in certain recent scandalous proceedings, too well known to be discussed here, that his name has lingered on the tongues of men. What influence, whether for good or evil, his example has had upon Turf morals, it is beside our purpose to inquire; to trace his ruinous downfall to his connection with the Turf alone would be as notoriously ridiculous as to attribute the present state of Turf affairs to any influence he may have exercised upon them during the period of his devotion to racing pursuits. Many have bowed a respectable exit from the sporting world whose actions might bear a less searching criticism than those of the 'plunger,' who was only his own enemy, and who surely bore the responsibilities of the chicanery of others upon his shoulders. It is not our business to pry into the secrets of his private life; society will amply discuss the bearings of his social relations, and place their own construction on actions which cannot affect his character as a sportsman. The grave has now closed over all that merited praise or deserved blame at the hands of his earthly judges: if a speedy punishment was meted out to his imperfections, it is not for us to canvass the justice or injustice of the decree which ordained it; suffice it to record his early death, and to inscribe Misericordia' on the tomb of the last of his race.

THE BAGMAN.

CHAPTER I.

MR. THOMAS WOOD, or, as he liked to hear himself styled, Thomas Wood, Esquire, was a person of no small importance in the little town of Slowton. Of his early origin little or nothing was known excepting that he had held a situation from his earliest youth in the family of the Earl of Bagwash, in whose pay and confidential employ he still continued. The Earl had been a good sportsman in his day, and still kept a pack of foxhounds in the neighbourhood of London, but he had become somewhat blasé, cared little for a cold ride and a long draw, and preferred the brisk and certain gallop afforded by a bag fox, to the legitimate pleasures of the chase. He kept a capital pack of dwarf foxhounds, which he called harriers, in a distant county, accessible by rail, before whom a fox was turned down once or twice a week. Mr. Wood's principal employment, besides overlooking the kennel establishment, was to provide a hebdomadal relay of foxes for this purpose-and hard enough work he found it.

as

Mr. Wood was enjoying his glass of hot brandy and water after an early dinner one fine afternoon in February, when the boy in buttons who officiated as butler announced a young man wanting to speak with him. On inquiry the young man's name was stated to be Billy,' or, as Buttons was charged to add, Slender 'Billy.' A thin, tall, hungry-looking man of about thirty followed close upon the heels of Buttons, and holding his fur cap in his left hand, saluted Mr. Wood by a tug at his hair with his right.

'Sarvant, Guv'nor; we've got a real good un this time!' 'Let's look at him,' said Mr. Wood.

Bless you, sir! he's not to be looked at; he's in his kennel. My pardners and me we've been diggin' since last night, and we can just touch him with a stick.'

I'll come and look at the hole then,' said Mr. 'going to be put off with a Leadenhall fox again.'

Wood; 'I'm not

All right, master; it's on'y five miles off. Jump into my trap, and you'll be there in no time.'

Mr. Wood apparently did not relish this proposition, and after much bargaining, agreed to purchase the fox for three pounds, one of which Slender Billy insisted upon being paid in advance. Having received a sovereign, Billy appealed successfully for a glass of brandy and unsuccessfully for a shilling to save melting the sov., and departed, pledging himself to return with the fox by five o'clock the following morning.

Billy had probably over-estimated the distance, or else the ragged, spavined pony that was rope-harnessed to the rickety vehicle he styled 'the trap' travelled at an unprecedented pace, for within ten minutes from the time he had quitted Mr. Wood's parlour he found

himself in the presence of his pals.' True, they were not diggingindeed, they did not look as if digging would come natural to thembut they were, as Billy had averred, at The Fox's Hole.' I allude to the public house so designated, and which, as our readers know, is situated close to Brierly Wood, and within a mile of the Grange, the residence of John Stubbs, Esq.

Mr. Stubbs had used his personal interest with the noble master of the Deepdene hounds to save the life of a fine fox which had taken refuge in a labourer's cottage after a brilliant run at the end of the last season, and had since kept him chained in a comfortable kennel under some old elm trees, in front of his house, where 'Charlie,' as Mr. Stubbs called him, had become an object of considerable interest to all the neighbours and visitors who frequented that hospitable mansion. It was the intention of Slender Billy and his accomplices to steal this animal and palm him off upon Mr. Wood as a wild fox just dug out of his earth. After informing his 'pals' that he had made a bargain for two pounds, which, as he showed, would be just one for them two and one for him too,' and expatiating upon the niggardliness of that gentleman who wouldn't so much as stand him a drop to drink or give him a shilling to buy one, the plans were laid and successfully carried out, and by four in the morning the ragged pony and the rickety cart, the three men. seated side by side in front, and the fox in a sack behind, were in Mr. Wood's yard.

Under that gentleman's direction the fox was turned into a small paddock closely fenced all round, with a kennel in one corner and a little clump of evergreens on each side. Billy having received his two pounds with some grumbling, which he took care his companions should hear, while he drowned the allusion to the one paid in advance, proceeded to divide them in the equitable manner suggested.

Mr. Wood having examined his purchase was well pleased at finding a really magnificent animal, though perhaps something of the fattest.

'Never mind,' said Mr. Wood, we'll soon get that off!' and called to his man John to bring the broom. John appeared, broom in hand, and immediately commenced hustling the unlucky animal round and round the paddock, sometimes allowing him a minute's rest in one or other of the laurel clumps, but keeping him moving at a rattling pace, till the fox was so exhausted he could run no more. This course of treatment was pursued day by day for a month, until the animal, although well fed, had attained the highest possible condition, and was as lank as a greyhound.

CHAPTER II.-THE MEET.

'Friday, 15th.—Lord Bagwash's-Newton Tollbar, 12.' Such was the announcement which, under the heading of 'Harriers,' appeared in the sporting papers of Saturday, February 8th, 186- ;

and a little before that hour a tolerably large muster of well-mounted men approached the place of meeting from all points of the compass. The meet, however, hardly presented to the practised eye a sportsman-like appearance. There were good men there, it is true, and good horses, two or three hard riders from the neighbouring hunts, some officers from the barracks, and a sprinkling of farmers, but there was a want of spirit about the affair; the men of the different hunts looked suspiciously at each other, like men who meet in town in September, and old Sam Caird, the huntsman, had the appearance of one who was doing a duty he was a little ashamed of. Indeed, several thought it necessary to make excuses for being there at all; one had got a new horse to try, another was sick of blank days and hunting runs, and wanted a spin;' a third had come out for the first time from curiosity to see a bagman turned out; Mr. Stubbs had come at the especial request of his friend Mr. White, and he, too, had a promising young one to try. There were besides a sprinkling of men who, deceived by the advertisement, really believed they had come out to hunt the sprightly hare.'

Three or four hours previously the fox, deceived by a pane of glass fixed to the end of a box trap through which he vainly essayed to escape, had been caged, turned upon his back, and as in struggling his feet protruded through the barred bottom of the trap, had been anointed on each with a drop of aniseed. Transferred to a more roomy box, he was then conveyed by Slender Billy to a copse about a quarter of a mile from the meet, with instructions when he heard the horn to open the box and turn him down.'

'There's my lord on his horse looking for the hounds, sir,' said Ben, the first whip, to Mr. Caird, a-top of the hill yonder.'

I'll give him a blow,' said Caird, and immediately produced two sounding notes upon his horn. Hounds are, or always ought to be, excited by the sound of the horn, but the pack on this occasion appeared almost wild; some careered about, many opened as though in full cry, and it was with great difficulty they were restrained by the voice of the huntsman and the efforts of the whips from breaking away in mad pursuit apparently of they knew not what.

In a few minutes his lordship appeared accompanied by some members of his hunt, several strangers arriving at the same time. 'Deuced late these hounds meet!' remarked young Charles Sydney, a pink and white youth, fresh from Cambridge and the drag, to his companion, a rough, red-whiskered yokel, attired in an ill-fitting coat and rusty cap, generally known as Dandy Jones,' to distinguish him from Gentleman Jones,' a different person. 'Deuced late! 'the day is half gone.'

Well, it is late,' replied his companion.

'much time drawing, you see.'

Plenty of hares, eh?" said Sydney.

Ya-as, plenty of hares !'

But they don't lose

'Don't much like this sort of thing,' muttered our friend Stubbs ; 'feel somehow kinder ashamed of myself, but the colt's hot and