It is thought by some persons well versed in turf affairs that the success attending gate meetings will lead to each company increasing their number, if they be permitted to do so, in the course of the year. The Jockey Club can, in some degree (and the greater the degree the better), regulate the "quality" of sport; but the stewards find it a work of difficulty to limit the number of meetings. So long as the public support these meetings in a way that brings profit to their promoters, just so long will they continue to flourish and no longer. What the owners of horses who do not gamble desire is to win big stakes rather than little ones, and owners who keep animals simply for gambling purposes can, of course, offer no objections to well-attended centres of sport; it being borne in mind that the sixpences and shillings paid by the multitude for admission provide the stakes, just as the "small money" received from little gamblers enables bookmakers to lay big amounts to "the swells" against their horses. Looked at in this light, the well-organised gate-money meetings now held in the vicinity of great seats of population will, in time, absorb a large portion of the racing capital and enterprise of the country, so that the small old-fashioned county gatherings will undoubtedly dry up. The "Innkeepers' Plate" and the "County Members' Cup" will speedily be no longer heard of; and a time will come when the hat will not be sent round among the tradespeople of a county for the purpose of providing a racing trophy for the local meeting. The only county races of the kind indicated will, there can be little doubt, dwindle ere long into farmers', hunters', and yeomanry meetings. In seeking after turf reform, it must be borne in mind that there are some things which the Jockey Club cannot possibly accomplish; but it is undoubtedly the province of that body to regulate racing so far as the ages of horses are concerned; they can determine when two-year-olds shall first run, and they can fix a limit, as indeed they have already done, below which the stake to be run for shall not sink. The Jockey Club did a wise action in licensing jockeys and other racing officials; that body may judiciously extend its authority so far as to license bookmakers, and also create a race-going police that shall be a terror to welshers and racing roughs of all kinds. II. Sir Joseph Hawley figured in his time as a racing reformer, and judging from what he said and did he was thoroughly in earnest. His propositions may serve as a text for an exposition of what is now held by some good judges to be most wanted in the shape of "racing reform."