In plain language, it was assumed by a large section of the public that Lady Elizabeth had never been intended to win the Derby, but that, on the contrary, the mare had been for months an abject "market horse," and that thousands of pounds had been invested on the animal for the benefit of the Marquis and his aiders and abettors in the fraud; that all connected with Lady Elizabeth, from her owner down to the boy who every morning removed the litter from her stall, had made fortunes by means of the milking pail which had been in such constant requisition! Moreover it was currently stated among numerous reports circulated that Admiral Rous had asserted that the mare, just previous to the race, had been heavily drugged with laudanum; but the Admiral, in a letter to _The Times_ newspaper under the date of June 15th, 1868, gave an emphatic contradiction to that report. In continuation, the Admiral went on to say: "My belief is that Lady Elizabeth had a rough spin with Athena in March, when the Days discovered she had lost her form--a very common occurrence with fillies severely trained at two years old; that when the discovery was made they reversed a commission to back her for the One Thousand Guineas at Newmarket; and they declared that Lord Hastings would not bring her out before the Derby, on which he stood to win a great stake. I am informed that when Lord Hastings went to Danebury to see her gallop they made excuses for her not to appear. If he had seen her move, the bubble would have burst. But the touts reported 'she was going like a bird.' Ten pounds will make any horse fly if the trainer wishes it to rise in the market. She has never been able to gallop the whole year. Lord Hastings has been shamefully deceived; and with respect to the scratching of The Earl, Lord Westmoreland came up to town early on Tuesday from Epsom to beseech Lord Hastings not to commit such an act. On his arrival in Grosvenor Square, he met Mr. Hill going to Weatherby's with the order in his pocket to scratch The Earl, and found Mr. Padwick closeted with Lord Hastings. In justice to the Marquis of Hastings, I state that he stood to win £35,000 by The Earl and did not hedge his stake money. Then you will ask, 'why did he scratch him?' What can the poor fly demand from the spider in whose web he is entangled?"