As “Sheffield, or within 100 miles thereof,” was the mysterious “fixture” for the big tourney, on Saturday evening, at half-past seven, we threw ourselves into the Glasgow mail, on our route to Doncaster, between which town and Selby we had the “office” the affair was to be decided. Adventures in stage-coaches have often afforded topics for amusing detail; but we confess, from the laborious duties which fall to our lot to perform, private as well as public, every week of our lives, the last day, or rather the last night, of the week is not the one we should select as that most propitious to collect materials (if such materials were wanting) for filling a column in our ensuing publication. In taking our place in the mail, therefore, we looked forward rather to the enjoyment of an occasional snooze than to the hope that we should discover any subject on which to dilate at a future period, whether as to the character of our fellow-travellers, the general appointments of the “drag,” or the peculiarities of the coachmen or guards――of the former we had four, and of the latter two, in the course of the journey――and these we will at once dismiss, by stating, at the outset, that they did their duty admirably――taking care, as “in duty bound,” to seek the usual mark of approbation by farewell hints in the common-place terms of “_I leave you here, gentlemen_”――in other words, “_tip_” and “_go_”――a laconic mode of address which by all travellers is well understood, however coolly appreciated when spoken at an open door on a cold frosty night, as that night of Saturday was, and at a moment when you may perhaps have been dreaming of the “joys you left behind you.” Quietness and repose being our first study, we soon placed our hat in the suspending-straps at the top of the mail, and our travelling-cap over head, and then, quietly reclining in the corner with our back to the horses, waited for the “start” from the yard of the “Bull and Mouth.” We found one old gentleman had taken his seat before us, who subsequently followed our example in taking the same side of the coach with ourselves, and was not less careful in guarding himself against the chilling influence of a hard frost. A third gentleman soon after joined us, and thus, “_trio juncta in uno_,” we were whirled round to the Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, whence we shortly commenced our journey at a slapping pace. On reaching Islington, a fourth passenger, of colossal size, filled up the vacant seat. Few words, if any, were spoken; and the only interruption to the monotony of the night’s travel was the frequent popping out and in of the last-mentioned gentleman to comfort his “inward man” with “drops of brandy,” with which he so perfumed our “leathern convenience” on his return that if we were as sensitive as some Frenchman of whom we have heard (who dined upon the effluvia of the good things he could not otherwise enjoy) we should certainly have been “pretty jolly” before he took his