Yet it is worthy of mention that though some few years ago the famous thoroughbred sires in this country included 260 direct descendants of Eclipse, and sixty direct descendants of the Byerley Turk, they included only thirty-six direct descendants of the greatly glorified Godolphin Arabian. * * * * * I believe I am right in saying that the cream-white horses which, until comparatively a recent date, were used by the king on state occasions, are directly descended from the celebrated white horses formerly in the royal stables at Hanover. Allusion to these animals recalls to mind a method of controlling horses that is said to be in vogue still in parts of Austria, where it is spoken of as “the Balassiren” of horses, and that in reality is a method of mesmerising horses before shoeing them. According to Obersteimer, whose words are quoted in Hudson's “Psychic Phenomena,” the process takes its name from a cavalry officer named Balassa, who was the first to introduce or to attempt it. Under the circumstances it is interesting to read that among the early Egyptians there were men who could, or who professed to be able to, obtain complete control over horses and other animals by the exercise solely of will power, and that such men were sometimes called in upon occasions when a horse had to be bound. It therefore seems possible that some at least of the horses sacrificed in the ages before Christ may first have been dazed, if not rendered unconscious, with the aid of some such agency as hypnotism. * * * * * Though the Derby and the Oaks were not inaugurated until the last quarter of the eighteenth century—when, as Lord Rosebery tells us, “a roystering party at a country house founded two races and named them gratefully after their host and his house”—horse racing has now for many years been popular in nearly every civilised country, while in some of the uncivilised countries it has long been included among the favourite pastimes of the people. Thus Mr C. W. Campbell, H. M. Consul at Wuchow before 1904, mentions in the report of a journey that he made through Mongolia that the Mongols are extremely fond of racing. He adds, however, that the practice of betting upon horse races was almost unknown there at the time he wrote, and goes on to say that in the Chahar country an ounce or two of silver—worth at most from two shillings to half-a-crown—was in some instances the only prize offered, though plenty of the races were run over a ten-mile course! According to Mr Campbell, the Derby of Mongolia is held near Urga, under the direct patronage of the Bogdo. The course is thirty miles in length, and much of it rough steppe, and “the winners are presented to the Bogdo, who maintains them for the rest of their lives in honourable idleness.”