[Illustration: MR. A. E. PEASE, M.P., ON “NORA CREINA.” Winner of House of Commons Point-to-Point Race, 1891.] I I AM asked to begin with some reminiscences of the Cambridge University Drag and of the House of Commons Steeplechases. The former is not quite an easy task, for, after a lapse of sixteen or seventeen years, memory has to be plied with whip and spur before she will come up to the starting-post. It is many years since I first started from my rooms in 19, Trinity Street, and mounted Election, starting at the door to ride my first drag on that beautiful, roaring, arch-kneed, and queer-tempered bloody son of Ballot. And yet, after all the excellent sport I have seen since, I very much doubt if any hours were ever more enjoyed than those spent in tearing over the picked patches of Cambridgeshire after aniseed, behind or in front of the wild brutes we dignified with the name of hounds. I remember that first day better than many a more glorious gallop after. Four of us jogged to the meet at Lords Bridge in the rain: the present Vicar of Bethnal Green (Hon. A. G. Lawley) carried the horn on old Gingertail; Lord Binning (Colonel in the Blues), on that king of drag-horses, Mosquito; Mr. Percy Aylmer of Walworth; and Mr. Mitchell of Forcett. As far as I can remember, when the hounds were laid on, we composed the whole field. I knew that a new-comer was, if kindly welcomed, critically watched, and I confess that I was nervous; I had no confidence in my horse, who would at times refuse to face anything. How I hoped it would be one of his jumping days! As for his galloping, it was worth all the two hundred guineas that my father had given for him two years previously, when he was sound in wind and fresh on his legs. Away we went! I can see now Lawley’s black and white trousers, with a strap under the knee, on each side of old Gingertail, popping over the fences three lengths ahead of me as we covered the first two miles. Soon after Lawley, Aylmer, Binning, and I got level--a fence, a rail, another fence, then two gates in and out of the road, all abreast. Lawley is elbowed off the gates, and Gingertail jumps the gate-posts; the other three of us rattle the top bars with our horses’ knees. The pace is terrific; three silent hounds racing over the grass and flying the fences ahead, the rest no one cares where;--Leete, the dragsman, in view, sitting on his horse two fields ahead under a high fence. Two fields of grass, two more great fences,--over the last of which we land like shot rubbish,--a touch with the spur to Election, and he draws out, finishing first, just as old Norman, the leading hound, reaches Leete.