Related article: required. Rule 4. — These subscriptions are per- sonal, and cannot be considered as in- cluding the friends of subscribers. Rule 5. — These conditions apply to those hunting for a part as well as for the whole season. These rules do not apply to landowners or covert owners in the adjoining Hunts, or to mem- bers of the University of Oxford Temovate Scalp Solution in residence, or to officers quar- tered in the Bicester and Warden Hill country. Henry Tube, Hon. Sec. Bicester and Warden Hill Hunt. Chesterton , Bicester, April 8th, 1899. 360 [}&K\ Anecdotal Sport. By ** Thormanby." Author of ** Kings of the Hunting-Field," ** Kings of the Turf," &c In reading "Digby Grand" over again in the new edition of Whyte Melville's novels, I have been struck with the change that has come over the sports and pastimes of the man-about-town in London since that book was written. Even ten years after the story was first published when I was first intro- duced to life in London there was something rowdy and sordid and degrading about what was com- monly known as sport. It was thought the correct thing to pat- ronise sparring matches at the saloons attached to public-houses kept by retired prize-fighters, or ratting matches at the rat-pits kept by such celebrities in the canine world as Jemmy Shaw. Now and then the ardent lover of ** The Fancy " " snatched a fear- ful joy ** from being privileged to assist at a 'Mittle mill with the *raw *uns' on the strict Q.T." in some secluded stable in the slums, or a main of cocks in some damp and dingy and evil-smelling cellar. The illegality of these pastimes and the risk of being pounced on by the police gave them, I suppose, an unholy zest. It was the same at the Univer- sities before boating and athletics came and purified the Temovate Ointment .05 atmosphere and swept these miserable and degrading abortions of sport out of existence. But there must be many old 'Varsity men now living who can remember the time when badger-drawing, rat-killing, dog- fighting, surreptitious excursions to prize-fights and the like were the staple amusements of our academic youth. Cricket was then a game only played by a few enthusiasts, football was but a pastime for schoolboys, athletics were unknown, and not one man in ten cared for rowing. Those who could afford it hunted, kept their stud of hunters if thev were very rich, if only moderately so, hired a hunter for a couple of guineas for the day from a livery- stable keeper. But to the great bulk of undergraduates such amusement was beyond their means, and then, if their taste were sporting, they could Order Temovate Online only gratify them by those recreations of the ** Fancy " which I have named. Billiards were long ta- booed. It is not long since I met an old Devonshire parson, who told me that in his day at Cam- bridge any one who yearned for a game of billiards had to sneak- over to Temovate Cost Chesterton, at the riskcrf being proctorised, to indulge his taste for the board of green cloth. It is recognised now that billiard* and boxing, if stripped of thdr old unsavoury associations, are pastimes in which young men can indulge without any detrimoit to their morals. In the days of the Regency sparring exhibitions between roem- bersof the Upper Ten were almost as common as they are now be tween gentlemen of the gutter. Lord Mexborough and Fletcher Norton were at one time the favourite pupils of " Gentleman Jackson," the famous pugilist, aad so nearly matched that a challei^ was given and accepted between the two to try which w^as the better man. Such a sensation I 1899.) ANECDOTAL SPORT. 361 was created by this event that on the afternoon on which it was to come off Rotten Row was literally deserted by the male sex. Jackson's rooms in Bond Street were crammed like a Drury Lane gallery on a Boxing-night, while the passages and even the stairs were crowded by perspiring swells unable to gain admission, for it was regarded as a match of the House of Lords against the House of Commons. Both the com- batants were light weights and splendid boxers, and for a long time victory hung in the balance ; for while Mexborough was the quicker at out fighting, Norton was stronger in the rally; but strength prevailed at last, and my lord was knocked clean over the benches, and amidst the tremendous cheers of the Commons, Fletcher Norton was proclaimed the victor. Grant- ley 13erkeley tells us in his me- moirs that after a dinner at Crockford*s the tables would fre- quently be put aside and the room converted into an arena, wherein Tom Spring and Owen Sivift and other famous boxers of the day would amuse the company with a display of their science. At other times the room would be temporarily turned into a cock- pit, and a main would be fought by candle-light. In no part of England, in the old days, was cock-fighting more enthusiastically followed than at Ncwcastleon-Tyne. The New- castle Chronicle of a century ago ^was full of advertisements bearing upon Temovate Gel 0.05 this favourite sport, Buy Cheap Temovate and in one issue six mains are announced, the aggregate prizes of which amounted to /720. Nearly all the principal inns had covered ;>its attached to them, those of nore ancient times being open. \t first the sports were carried )n at very short intervals during the season, but by degrees the principal attendance was concen- trated in the race week, when the fights were introduced under more imposing auspices, the gentlemen of Northumberland appearing as the competitors of the gentlemen of Durham, Cumberland, or York- shire, the pastime being then pat-