Since the decline of 'the ring,' steeple-chasing, and
that still smaller grade of gambling--coursing, have come to their aid.
Nine-tenths of the steeple-chasing and coursing-matches are got up by
inn-keepers, for the good of their houses. Some of the town publicans,
indeed, seem to think that the country was just made for their matches to
come off in, and scarcely condescend to ask the leave of the landowners.
We saw an advertisement the other day, where a low publican, in a
manufacturing town, assured the subscribers to his coursing-club that he
would take care to select open ground, with 'plenty of stout hares,' as if
all the estates in the neighbourhood were at his command. Another
advertised a steeple-chase in the centre of a good hunting
country--'amateur and gentleman riders'--with a half-crown ordinary at the
end! Fancy the respectability of a steeple-chase, with a half-crown
ordinary at the end!
Our 'Aristocratic' was got up on the good-of-the-house principle. Whatever
benefit the Granddiddle Junction conferred upon the country at large, it
had a very prejudicial effect upon the Old Duke of Cumberland Hotel and
Posting House, which it left, high and dry, at an angle sufficiently near
to be tantalized by the whirr and the whistle of the trains, and yet too
far off to be benefited by the parties they brought.
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