To write about London, and to omit all mention of the Derby, were unpardonable. At the Royal Academy Exhibition this year, the rush to see Mr. Frith’s picture of the Derby was so great that a policeman was required to keep off the crowd. Horse-racing is the natural result of horse-riding. It is essentially the English sport. Taking Wetherby’s Calendar as our guide, we may calculate that in 1855 there were 144 meetings in Great Britain and Ireland, which were attended by 1606 horses, of whom only 680 were winners, fed by £60,000 of added money inclusive of the value of cups and whips, and diffusing £198,000 in added money and stakes more or less. If there were no light weights to ride, and no noblemen or wealthy commoners to run their horses, the horses would run of their own accord. There are horses, as there are men, who never will play second fiddle if they can possibly avoid it; and if horses run, men will look and admire, and the natural result is the Derby Day. A grander sight of its kind is perhaps hardly to be seen. For twelve months have the public been preparing for the event. For twelve months has the sporting and the betting world been on the _qui vive_. We do not bet, for we hold that the custom is absurd in a rich man, and wicked in one who is not so; but in every street in London, in every town in England, in many a quiet village, at the beer-shop, or the gin-palace, or the public-house, bets have been made, and thousands and thousands of pounds are depending on the event. As the time draws nigh the excitement increases. Had you looked in at Tattersall’s on the previous Sunday, you would have seen the betting of our West End swells and M.P.’s who legislate for the observance of the Sabbath, and who punish poor men for keeping betting-houses—fast and furious. On the previous night of the day when the Derby is run a motley population encamp on the Downs. There are booths where there are to be dancing, and drinking, and eating, and gambling. There are gipsies who are to tell fortunes, and acrobats who are to exhibit a most astonishing flexibility of muscle. There are organs, and singing girls, and a whole legion of scamps, who will pick pockets, or play French put, or toss you for a bottle of stout, or offer their book and a pencil to betters; and as the dim grey of morning brightens into day, their number increases in a most marvellous manner. On they come—ricketty carts laden with ginger beer—men with long barrows and short pipes, who have walked all the way from town, long trains of gigs and hansoms, and drags, and carriages, and ’busses, and pleasure vans, laden with pleasure seekers, determined to have a holiday. The trains bring down some thirty or forty thousand human souls, the road is blocked up and almost impassable. Many a party, who left town in good spirits, have come to grief. Here a wheel has come off. There the springs have broken. Here the dumb brute has refused to drag his heavy