THE NEW YEAR. BY CRAVEN. "En avant!" Hark! 'tis December's latest chime, It hath that solemn note of time Thou art not meant, stern year of fate! Thus shall be read, dark 'Forty-eight, After the winter cometh spring, And pleasant buds, and birds that sing The dawn upon the night doth wait- At morn the tempest rocks the deep, The wild that now lies desolate Shall bring forth oil and wine: The waters that the frost hath bound The sun-beam will set free, Loose the snow-wreath, and give the ground Accords each season with its date Moves order's stated line: So yield the clouds of 'Forty-eight To rays in 'Forty-nine. The heaven above-the earth below Obeys the natural laws; The issues of our weal and woe Are with the Great First Cause. Shall God not care for man's estate? And will not love divine Replace the tears of 'Forty-eight The year that has just ended was the annus mirabilis of the nineteenth century. 'Forty-five beat it in the frenzy of finance; but in wonders, political, social, and theological-in anomalies, moral and immoral, imperial and tag-rag-and-bob-tail-there has not probably been. such a season since the sun was set in the firmament. In sporting, also, there were a few novelties, of which we shall speak, not in the vein of animadversion, but for the sake of profit from the reversion. "We take no note of time but by its loss," says one, whose philosophy was for all time and all occasions. As it is with the hour, so it is with all that appertains to it. It was customary to assign nine days as the mortal career of a wonder; but as marvels became more general, the term of their existence was curtailed. Who can forget the noise that " gun-cotton" made a little while ago, and the social revolutions it was asserted the discovery would bring about? But does any one hear such reports now?...... Nevertheless, apathetic as the world has grown, the rule has its exceptions. People shrug their shoulders when mention is made of alchemy and " the powder of projection," yet they gorge the hook baited with a project as visionary by the fishers of men in their own times. The philosopher's stone left behind it a family, some member of which has always made a figure in its generation. The occult science, founded, as the scholiasts assert, by Shem, the contemporary of Ham and Japhet, assumed many characters: now revelling in philosophic mysteries-as among the Sibyls, the disciples of Deiphobe-and anon turning its hand-as in the fourteenth century-to operative chemistry, whose especial professor was the sage Paracelsus. Among the varieties of mystic lore which from antediluvian days to the present have frighted the world from its propriety, none have borne such close relationship, such family affinity, as the transmutation of metals and "Derby Sweeps." Fontinelle, speaking of alchemy, says-" Nothing but the blindness induced by avidity could procure belief that a man who possessed the power of making gold must receive gold from another before he can exhibit his art. How can such a person stand in need of money?" The promoters of Sweeps announced their anxiety to bestow upon their patrons "a splendid fortune for five shillings!" Why did not they keep the independence to themselves, and retire from business? Here's a passage, which, by altering names and dates, will apply to either of those delusions-" The philosopher's stone was a creation of the fourteenth century, and much accredited among the scientific men of that day. Raymond Lully, Nicholas Flamel, Armand de Villeneuve, and several others, were initiated in the secret. Nicholas Flamel was a celebrated alchymist, and having acquired an immense fortune, it was attributed to the philosopher's stone, which of course stimulated the cupidity of the proselytes of alchemy. Eager was their pursuit of a study which was to endow them with boundless wealth; and these lunatics found coadjutors in persons of weak mind, while wiser men diverted themselves by sustaining their hopes, and affecting conviction of their success!..... Most of those who attempted the pursuit were brought to want and wretchedness; and one of them observed in his last moments that he could not imagine a bitterer curse to bequeath than the love of alchemy!" I fancy it would not be difficult to find a modern Nicholas Flamel, neither to discover those who would pronounce" Sweeps" as bitter a curse as the search for the philosopher's stone. The annihilation of those bitter nuisances will rank foremost in the catalogue of sporting promise for the season of 1849. It is difficult to reconcile the judicial crusade now waging against turf lotteries with the conventional impunity so long conceded to them. Sidney Smith prophesied that the lieges would continue to be subjected to close imprisonment in railway carriages until the immolation of a bishop should propitiate the punishment-and lo! "Exeter" became the half-burnt offering. Was it necessary that a rehearsal of the Camberwell tragedy -a second appearance of a real George Barnwell-should precede the prohibition of a system that as surely must burn the fingers of those who meddle with it as the coke of the Great Western Railway the "terminus" of any one who may sit upon it; or were sweeps and lotteries especially ordained that the scripture might be fulfilled, which declareth the human heart to be deceitful above all things? Two lawyers-bred in one school-fed on one philosophy-bent body and soul on one purpose-differ as doth night from day in the interpretation of an Act of Parliament. "By the forty-second of Geo. III.," says Mr. Bodkin, "it is enacted that all persons keeping an office or place for a lottery not authorized by Act of Parliament shall be dealt with as rogues and vagabonds; now racing Sweeps are precisely the kind of lottery against which this act was intended to provide." "My opinion," rejoined Mr. Clarkson, who was retained for an opposite reading of the statute," is precisely different." The Attorney-General had selected the former of these learned gentlemen to represent the Crown upon the showing of a high authority. That distinguished individual was absent on other matters of deep account; but should a crying evil be permitted to exist for that reason? Though he could not act, should the whole social family suffer from "the law's delay" "When he himself might its quietus make With a bare-Bodkin?" Never! and so one Mr. Casey was made the scape-goat-taken uphad before the "beak"-found to be a rogue and vagabond within the meaning of the Act, and-held to bail! Mr. Casey belonged to the Lambeth Water Works, so his word was taken for £80, and he had two friends who lent him their respectabilities to the amount of £40 each, and he went about his business. Had it been Casey the costermonger that was-but now of the Lambeth Workhouse-whose word isn't worth eightpence, and who hasn't a friend in the world that would vouch for four-pence to save his soul from Satan, he would have gone to jail. Episodes like this to the contrary notwithstanding, long life to the bold barons who wrung Magna Charta out of King John-the wonder is that such a dirty fellow should have had anything so valuable at his disposition. An outcry has been made by a few of those friends from whom the proverb wishes the object of their favour a good deliverance, about the injustice of selecting the keepers of public houses as the first to be prohibited from dabbling in lotteries not authorized by act of Parliament, and being consequently dealt with as rogues and vagabonds. Now, if any set of persons coming within such a category deserved a point in the odds, it certainly could not be those with whom the unlawful practice originated. Ginnums had a cruel pull of Fitz-fleece. The latter poor devil hasn't had his hand in the public pocket six calendar months before the police pounce upon him, and "The charge is prepared; the lawyers are met." To be sure he promises to die game. If lotteries be against the statute, he will try "Betting Lists," "Betting Offices," "Racing Banks,' 66 Racing Information gratis," and any other keen contrivance his wits may suggest-and thus for a season this new order of industrie will drag its slow length along. On public grounds such gambling will not be a source of anxiety. There always were-and most probably there always will be-innocents for the Pharaohs of cards, and dice, and other engines of capital punishment. It is only when mischievous speculations assume a general character that a government-whose office it is to guard and watch over the public welfare-is called upon to interfere in an especial manner. The ruin brought upon communities, families, and individuals by the railway epidemic of '45 would furnish a startling commentary on the influence of public example, could it be calculated. But histories of the kind consist of episodes. Had a body of subscribers, undone by any particular line, blown itself up en masse, or, joining hands, walked into a watery grave in the Serpentine during the hour of promenade in the height of the season, or, ordering a whitebait dinner at Blackwall, finished by washing it down with prussic acid, or leaped with one accord from the balcony of the Monument, it would have produced an effect. But a few broken beaux at Boulogne, a widow in a workhouse, a broker in the bench, or a committee sent to Coventry, goes for nothing. In its account current with the public the law has a heavy debtor account. Such items as Chancery, Doctors' Commons, Masters' Offices, Palace Courts, and the like, leave a large balance against it. It is not unreasonable now and then to expect a small instalment. If the Attorney-General can snatch a sucking tailor or a man-milliner occasionally out of the toils of Beelzebub, it is better than nothing. The gin of the licensed victuallers will in future be confined to Cream of the Valley and Old Tom; but others, nevertheless, will continue to deal in the compounds of Old Nick. Boniface called the spirit, and Bigwig must lay it. As the game laws are still sub judice, perhaps a clause might be introduced assigning a penalty to poaching for souls. I throw out the hint in a spirit of fair play. It's bad enough to be bound for the devil under any circumstances, but to be going there with 20 to 1 against you is a reproach to a Christian country. The year 1849 promises better than its predecessor; it can't perform worse. The yellow fever of speculation having in some sort subsided, a more healthy habit may be calculated on. Even the ring pugilistic is looking up a couple of cavaliers recently demeaned themselves upon Woking Common in a style that would have astonished St. George and the Dragon: they fought for five mortal hours, hammer and anvil, and were only prevented continuing the amusement by the shades of night. This was knocking one another into the next day, as nearly as circumstances would permit. To say nothing about body and bones, what bellows they must have had! It is the "puff" that does it— "When the wind blows, then the mill goes." The book Calendar which made its appearance towards the close of last month gave a list of upwards of thirteen hundred race-horses that ran in this kingdom in 1848. When to these are added the steeplechase teams, the lot will be found a formidable one. The sport of racing across country-for steeple-chasing it no longer is, the courses being as well defined as those on Newmarket heath-is fast escaping from its hunting chrysalis, and become a twin sister of the turf. The Times gives its quotations of odds as regularly as the price of consols: men and legs make books upon its issues, and its handicaps are investigated as artistically as the Chester Cup or the Goodwood Stakes. Either as cause or consequence, the popularity both of racing and turf chasing is in the ascendant. I do not make my estimate from the premises which the betting passion of the million furnishes, but from the disposition so generally manifested by the inhabitants of the districts in which they occur to render them their aid and countenance. One of the effects that these turf chases are likely to bring about is the extinction of amateur jockeyship. I allude to gentlemen's exhibitions at such meetings as Croxton Park, and indeed at any regular race meetings at all. There will not be much to regret in that. There can be no objection to a "baron or squire, or knight of the shire," assisting at a polka at a county ball, or at his own or a neighbour's house; but it would be a different affair if the scene of action were her Majesty's Theatre or the stage of Drury-lane. Coming after equestrian acts in which the most eminent of our public performers have appeared, they are little better than burlesques. I am speaking without any purpose of offence, but that on which I know many better calculated than I am to give an opinion, I set down "naught in malice." The probability is, that the chivalry of the rising age will betake itself-should the piping times of peace extend themselves over the rest of the century to racing chases, when ambitious of witching the world with noble horsemanship. It would better harmonise with the social classification which I am "aristocrat" enough to desire should continue a parcel of our sporting arrangements, as well as of matters of graver account. I wish I might thus close my theories of the steeple-chase; but in the faith of an honest journalist, I am compelled to offer less flattering views of the probable effects of this new ally of the turf. It is obviously the design of the ring to make it as complete an instrument of professional betting as racing. All the events of that description of any account are now prominently in the market-I do not mean merely at Tattersall's, but through the medium of lotteries. If any one should object that those contrivances " appropinque an end," to such an one I answer— "Lay no such unction to thy soul." So far from it, the most vigorous efforts are being made to extend the system beyond even the dreams of the most sanguine of the earlier adventurers. There is not a town in the kingdom without its agents. Consignments of tickets are issued "upon sale or return" to waiters at hotels and taverns, where tradesmen resort to smoke their evening pipes; to secretaries of convivial and benefit societies; in fact, to all who are likely to fall in with the human prey when leisure leaves it exposed to temptation-with a premium of so much per cent. upon all that they dispose of. In quarters that some few months ago breathed fire and brimstone-defying the authorities to dare any interference-you now hear the "suppression of the sweeps" spoken of as a fait accompli. The object of this insidious inference is as palpable as the spirit in which it is contrived is fraught with danger. These subtle moves show the importance of the stake played for, and the tenacity with which those who have won adhere to the après by which they can win again. The Lord Mayor and aldermen in the city, the Attorney-General and the parish authorities in the west end, with one cry of unison denounce Derby sweeps as devices of the devil-as inimical to good order-as contrary to law; and yet there's not a public-house that anybody ever looks at en passant without a label, half as big as the area of Lincoln's-inn-fields (and that's as large as the basement of the Great Pyramid), stuck in the windows announcing any |