No spot can be better adapted for the purpose to which it is assigned than the so well-known warren; but all that nature has done man takes especial care to frustrate. Instead of its cool quiet alleys being kept for the tranquil preparation of animals peculiarly disposed to excitement (their most dangerous foe at a moment when the entire possession of every faculty is of such vital consequence), every “dingle, nook, and bosky bourn” is invaded by a horde of ravenous, sight-seeing cockneys, of all beasts of prey the most reckless and perverse. Amid this restless crowd of babbling, cigar-smoking untameables, the process of saddling is effected, and, with graceful steps, the fiery-footed adversaries depart for the lists. You reach the place of starting, and what awaits you there? Order, decorum, and all fitting arrangement for the important essay of which it is the arena? A second chaos!--all the human elements thrown together in a moral whirlpool. A score of men in buckram suits (blue linsey-wolsey), attempting to dispose of twice as many thousands--something like barring the gates of a beleagured town with boiled carrots! They draw together for the start--infinitely the most influential point in the great game to be played. Here all is confusion worse confounded: the multitude opens its thousand throats of brass; the steeds are frantic; the jockeys (born and bred devils from their cradle) practise every conceivable stratagem ever hatched in Fiendom; and there stands one nervous old man to front the pitiless pelting, and produce from such materials a result with which all are to be satisfied. “They are off!” and the old gentleman, in his agony, pronounces “go,” and the fatal signal has gone forth. Over the hill, adown the fall, there is a meteoric flash, as though a rainbow had borrowed the wings of the lightning, and all is over!